Yasser Latif Hamdani
Pakistan is mourning. It is not just Benazir Bhutto but the dream of Pakistan itself that is in pieces.
Pakistan was envisaged as a modern democratic homeland for the Muslim minority of British India as a last resort by Pakistan’s founding father Mahomed Ali Jinnah, who had fought for it to ensure the political and economic future of his people. Jinnah’s Pakistan was to be a land free of exploitation, religious exclusion, bigotry and intolerance. It was this dream that Benazir and her father echoed, though not always consistently, making the Bhuttos immensely popular amongst the people of Pakistan.
Today this dream looks to be coming to an end. Pakistan stands at the threshold of a great tragedy. We are gripped with uncertainty, with Bhutto’s home province of Sindh ablaze with agitation and violence. The whole country is paralyzed. Benazir was known as the common link and leader who brought all four provinces together behind her, making her the one truly national leader we had at present.
The elder Bhutto had authored in 1967 “Myth of Independence” about Pakistan and its role in the world which definitively shaped Pakistan’s foreign policy especially the way ZAB played a pivotal role in bringing the US and China closer together and cracking open the anti-US eastern bloc and in one smart move creating a counterbalance to India. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto viewed the survival of Pakistan as part of a thousand years struggle of the survival of Muslim community in the subcontinent. His own passionate love affair with Pakistan had a lot to do with how closely the Bhutto family’s fortune had been intertwined with Pakistan from the start. The house in Naudero played host to Jinnah many times during Bhutto’s childhood and people forget that it was the wily Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto who had managed to get the Junagadh document of accession for Jinnah thereby upsetting several British calculations.
Bhutto himself had played a key role in organizing a successful student strike in Bombay in 1946 for the Muslim League or so Bhutto claimed in his last days. This is why anyone who has read his biography is struck by how far Bhutto went to identify himself in the public perception with the memory of Jinnah. His deeply personalized involvement in the Jinnah propagation project through out 1976 and his distribution of his own photograph in the Jinnah cap was an indication of this. If there was ever a politician who was an ultra-nationalist in Pakistan it was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Throughout his career as the foreign minister he subscribed to the idea that India was out to gobble up Pakistan. Remember Bhutto started his career as firmly an establishment man inducted by Sikandar Mirza and retained by Ayub Khan so he furthered the national security thesis which at the time meant extra-reliance on the US but bitter experience in the 1965 war taught Bhutto that Pakistan needed a range of options in foreign policy. The menu Bhutto created included a combo of China and US aimed at Soviet expansionism which he saw as the prime backer of India. It was this reason that forced Bhutto to famously declare that
“if India makes the bomb, then we will eat grass but make our bomb”.
ZAB was a remarkable politician and a diplomat. He was no anti-imperialist though. Whatever his posturing he was at the end of the day a US ally who drove a hard bargain. Throughout his half a decade in power he continued to try and convince the US that he was a more reliable ally than the Shah of Iran. It was Bhutto who started the Afghan insurgency against the pro-communist government there at the US behest. PPP, ZAB and BB were the greatest champions of the Kashmir cause. The Bhutto family had very close ties with the Mir Waizes and this shows in how Srinagar reacted yesterday. Kashmir was a central tenet of the original PPP manifesto.
That ZAB gave the country a unanimous constitution is an undeniable fact. Unfortunately his use of religion was theological and not as a tool of identity formation. In contrast Jinnah had to put theological issues on the backburner to bring shias, sunnis, ahmadis, ismailis, etc on one platform. Bhutto’s unfortunate action opened up a pandora’s box of theological disputes. That said Ahmadis did not face persecution per se even after their constitutional excommunication. It was Zia ul Haq who tormented us. All in all when one says that BB continued her father’s mission through out her life, the mission was always the preservation of Pakistan and not some undefined imperialist agenda which the elder Bhutto used a political slogan. No one would have said it 10 years ago but Benazir Bhutto as a leader and global figure stood head and shoulders above her famous father. Not above opportunism and manipulation, the mercurial Zulfikar Ali Bhutto banked on cheap popularity and often followed the sentiments of the people (Friday as a weekly holiday, ban on horse racing, alcohol and gambling, all of which he himself enjoyed, and ofcourse the Ahmadi issue being a clear example of it). Benazir was an intellectual of a much higher ability and a leader who was in 2007 finally ready to lead instead of being led
This is why the loss of Benazir Bhutto is greater than that of her father. Her loss is more akin to the loss of Shaheed-e-Millat Liaqat Ali Khan, Pakistan’s first prime minister, who was assassinated in the same place and whose death remains a mystery. The crisis that followed paved way for people like Bogra and then the Military, who didn’t threaten to go to Moscow, as LAK had done, to derive a greater bargain.
Now the world is beginning to point fingers at Pakistan’s nuclear assets. The difference between all previous such events and now is that Pakistan was strong enough to withstand the sudden eliminations of Liaqat Ali Khan, Bhutto and Zia. But Benazir Bhutto was, as the slogan said, charon soobon ki zanjeer, the true symbol of the federation. The fact that even the Baloch nationalists cried out for her shows how above and beyond Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir had proved to be. Her sudden disappearance from the scene has given many enemies of Pakistan a lot of ammunition with which to destroy the country. Some elements have gone so far as to question the very existence of Pakistan. In this hour of great darkness, we see a resolute Pakistan People’s Party standing committed to the federation. Will this be enough to keep ethnic separatists as well as Pakistan’s international detractors at bay? Only time will tell.
May Bilawal Bhutto Zardari now have the courage to follow in his illustrious mother’s footsteps. His politics must be guided by the fine egalitarian principles that Mahomed Ali Jinnah gave to Pakistan, for which his grandfather and his mother toiled through out their lives.
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Air Marshall (rtd) Asghar Khan says: ‘This is biggest tragedy in the 60 year old history of Pakistan.” He was aware of other tragedies. He is the person who is supposed to have said that ZAB should be hanged at the Attock Bridge.
I also think: Once a pathological anti-Bhutto, always a pathological anti-Bhutto! Plenty of examples abound in this blogspace and in a few of the posts above.
1) It is pretty much understood as to why the PPP chose Bilawal Bhutto as the heir to the ‘Bhutto’ legacy. Even Jang’s Irshad Ahmad Haqqani–a person of unmatched political knowledge– understands it. We have beaten this topic to death in another thread.
2) Our Indian guest above has a good point: Many overseas Pakistanis/Indians seem to ‘belittle’ their country of origin to appear more accomodated in their new home countries.
3) In 1988, PPP was clearly the largest party. Even the elections of 1988 showed that PPP retained its 37% votes it had in previous elections (1971/1977). But PPP had to face the whole establishment which formed the IJI and propped up Nawaz Sharif for the next decade. Given that the majority of Pakistan was never with the PPP, the party had no chance to govern freely. Between in 1988-90 alone, a situation was created where the federal minister of PPP had to use helicopter to travel in the hostile Nawaz Sharif led Punjab province.
3) The establishment has constantly and consistently hunted down the Bhuttos/PPP since 1977. That is unlikely to change in future and so, should Bilawal be stupid/courageous enough to go back and grow too big, he will be a dead man walking.
4) I don’t know much about Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto except a few stuff I have read about him in Wolpert’s ‘Zulfi of Pakistan’. From what I can tell SSB still manages to have done more for Pakistan then the parents/grandparents of most of the current political leaders of Pakistan.
5) Where is the proof of the $1.5 BILLION LOOT?! Only one case ($13 million) reached ‘conviction’ stage in any court, both domestic or foreign, and that too was taken back after an appeal. And almost all, if not ALL, cases were kickbacks for contracts–something not unusual in many, many countries of the world. Such things happen! Yes, they do and happen in most countries of the world, including the United States. But if you are pathological anti-Bhutto then your sense of justice can only be selective.
6) Why could the establishment not prove a single case against Asif Ali Zardari despite vigorous attempts for 8 years where he was forced to stay in jails, away from his young kids?
7) Quoting a Taliq Ali or Dalrymple is your right. But the vast majority of opinion is of great sadness throughout the world and in Pakistan (even Cowasjee has mourned Benazir). And this is true that even FATA is mourning BB’s death. I don’t how can one say with a straight face that PPP is a party of ‘the interior Sindh’. It may not win elections nationwide anymore–thanks to 30 years of propaganda by the most powerful forces in Pakistan–but the Bhuttos are adored by the millions throughout Pakistan. Call it a ‘cult’, which it may be, but it is people’s right to love or hate–just like it is the right of some of you to constantly hate the Bhuttos.
I fear that Benazirs death is going to also go in vain because everyone wants to politicize it. Her supporters want to paint her as an angel and her opponents want to project her as the devil. She was neither.
Like all Pakistanis she was flawed but she like all others she also had good qualities and achievements. The efforts to paint her either as all black or all white miss the fact that it was much gray. One does not have to forget her weaknesses in order to remember her good points and we should not ignore the good just because there were also bad things.
I love this post.
William Dalrymple at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2 233334,00.html
Yesterday, I read a story in Dawn that is as painful as the news of Benazir Bhutto and I would like to share with readers. The story is titled “Factory arson victims burden on city’s conscience”. It is a sadly painful story about the family of a worker who was trapped in fire that was started by the mob.
http://www.dawn.com/2008/01/03/local9.htm
This post is nothing but flattering. How in the world PPP or BB represent federation. Except interior Sind, their magic is over in rest of Pakistan. Also in interior Sind, they act as a ethinic party and thats how they surrvive.
ZAB may be a big leader but BB dont have any merit except she was daughter of bhutto. Now she has appointed her 19 year old to rule throne of Pakistan. This is what she meant by democracy, a family to rule Pakistan. I am disappointed by all “LOTAS” in media who are praising her useless and worthless life.
Benazir Bhutto had two options while deciding to come back to Pakistan. One: Leave Pakistan as it is, stay abroad, give paid lectures in universities and see her children grow up. TWO: come back to Pakistan, undo the damage caused by a long authoritarian rule and keep the people united. The second option was more daring. She knew she is risking her life. She chose to come back because she couldn’t sit back and see Pakistan slip away in oblivion. She knew, despite all assurances by her western friends, that now Pakistan is a much more violent place to run an election campaign, but she decided to come back. I think even her decision to come back is a clear manifestation of her resolve for making Pakistan a better place for its people by brining back democracy and moderation.
Media in pakistan started showing some clips from Benazir’s past after her assasination and one of them is where she said that she is for Pakistan she will live here and she will die here.
No matter whatever one analyse about her style and method of government and politics she has proved what she meant 30 years ago. do we have any jigarwala as such.
Bhuttos have always Pakistan as there own as a country or as a property and they made it there home.
I think Benazir went trhough a process of experience and maturity. Her previous governments might be questionable but was at her best qualification to handle Pakistani politics and politicians.
YLH,
I commend you for accuracy of characters - I do however question the characterization of the characters.
Shahnawaz was a hyperactive Abajee (NS’s dad) of his days - playing with power and promotion. His title as a “divan” gave him ample opportunities to flirt with power brokers. He did invest in PK by shipping train loads of treasures from Junagadh after the partition - so I must admit he was the first to perform the magic of FDI…
ZAB’s Tashkent Decleration drama is fresh in my mind even decades later - even to date that circus gives a bad taste to mouth. And the much drummed up US-China connection marginalized Pakistan even further.
I frankly do not know any historic event that can be traced to this family that reflects any statesmanship.
I am sympathetic to the family but as the saying goes “those who play with the sword are killed by the sword,” Even the latest events (nomination of chairmanship of PPP) proves this is a power hungry family that lives on the false pretext of owning the nation. As the young Bhutto says: “Take revenge by bringing democracy to Pakistan,” What load of crap is this?
I am indebted to ZAB for only one thing - he made it easier to obtain passport compared to Ayub’s time - but that is not a sufficient and necessary condition to put him on the pedestal.