She wore red roses in her hair, he donned his huge orange sunglasses — Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Monday met one of her biggest fans, U2 frontman and activist rock star Bono.
"I'm starstruck," admitted the Irish singer, who has long supported her freedom struggle and dedicated the song "Walk On" to her, when they met at a peace forum in Oslo, Suu Kyi's latest stop on a five-nation Europe tour.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi has herself received superstar treatment and been cheered by crowds of many thousands as she visited Norway on her first Europe trip in a quarter-century after years of house arrest.
On Monday, Suu Kyi hosted a panel with Bono, who has long used his star power to promote rights and fight poverty, and who recalled a global U2 concert tour where video messages from Suu Kyi were played from giant screens. "Suu Kyi came on the road with us," the stubble-faced rocker quipped at their joint press conference. "Seven million people we played to. She was there every night. A digital version, but she's very good live!
"And she made a real connection with our audience... telling them that their voices were powerful and that they could be heard all the way to Burma." Bono recalled that at the shows, not everyone in the crowd knew who was behind the initials for the name Aung San Suu Kyi. "We had a few people who would arrive with a T-shirt with 'ASSK' on and think she's a speed metal band from Asia," he joked. "It's great that in a U2 crowd not everyone is a political science student."
On a more serious note, he spoke of his admiration for Suu Kyi: "It's really her non-violent position that I find so impressive.
