“When the music is out of time, the rhythm is destroyed. When the timing isn’t right, the flavor of the curry is destroyed. In politics, when the timing is wrong, the image of the whole country is destroyed. The timing in politics is to do the right thing at the right time.”

 My friend Win Maw, a musician and video journalist, said this to his daughter Khin Suu Kyi. On January 5th she quoted him in an open letter to Thein Sein, the president of Burma, asking for his release from prison.

In 1981 Win Maw entered the music industry as the lead guitar player and band leader of Shwe Thansin (Golden Melody). When Golden Melody was banned from the airwaves he became the leader of the band A-Lin-Kar. On November 18, 1996, during a touristic campaign that the government called “Visit Myanmar Year,” Win Maw was arrested by the military government. He was sentenced to six years in prison for writing songs in support of Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.