Myanmar coup: What now for Aung San Suu Kyi?
image copyrightGetty ImagesHow would you describe Myanmar's military leadership?
Few people, speaking freely, would reach for labels of affection. But in 2018, a year after the world watched the horrific expulsion and mass murder of the Rohingya people - an alleged genocide - Aung San Suu Kyi opted for the phrase "rather sweet" to describe the generals in her cabinet.
Three years on, as she sits under house arrest once again - the victim of the swiftest of coups - her decision to defend the army, either for personal, political or patriotic reasons, looks a very bad one.
Her supporters will tell you she was in an impossible position and that taking a tougher stance would have hastened her incarceration. Her critics insist she still could have shown at least a flicker of compassion for the persecuted Muslim minority.
Either way, her prospects and those of a democratic Myanmar look bleak.
While her international halo may have slipped and shattered, Aung San Suu Kyi is still adored by tens of millions in Myanmar. This popularity cannot be overstated. The thumping general election victory for her National League for Democracy saw them win more than 80 per cent of the vote.
If you wander the crumbling streets of downtown Yangon - with the canopy of tangled power wires overhead and the occasional scurry of cat-sized rats at your feet - and pop your head into any doorway, there's one face you're more than likely to meet. Whether it's on a poster, a painting or a calendar, Mother Suu's image looks backs at you.
These are the same streets which now after dark reverberate with the clanging of pots in support of their democratically elected - and now summarily detained - leader.
"We normally make this noise to drive out evil spirits," explained Ma Khin in a description to her social media post. "Now we want to drive the military out so that Aung San Suu Kyi can be free."
As well as the din of the pans, a much more soothing sound fills the warm night air. The songs of the 1988 Uprising - that upswell of democratic fervour that propelled a young Suu Kyi into the domestic and international limelight, and precipitated her first of many periods under house arrest.
Wai Wai Nu, a Rohingya human rights activist, captioned her own uploaded street video with the words "very painful to see" as she recalled singing the revolutionary verses in jail with fellow political prisoners.
In the footage, I was struck by an image which epitomises a defining irony in the violent, twisted and tragically repetitive history of Myanmar. Illuminated by the light of smartphones held aloft, there was a portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi's father - General Aung San: the still-revered leader, assassinated in his prime in 1947 before he could guide Burma into independence from the British.
He was also the founder of the modern Burmese army, also known as the Tatmadaw: the very institution now depriving his daughter of her liberty and his country of their leader. Again.
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