Adil Najam
Benazir Bhutto, twice Prime Minister of Pakistan, now lies under six feet of earth in Garhi Khuda Bux, her ancestral village, in a grave next to her equally mercurial father, the late Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
As the graphic above (click to enlarge) from Boston Globe shows, hers – like her father’s – was a brilliant but tragic life. Tragically ended.
Now she is buried. But I suspect that the Benazir saga is far from over. Indeed, just as all of Pakistan’s politics after Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s hanging was contextualized by his hanging, all of Pakistan’s politics after Benazir’s assasination is likely to be contextualized by Benazir’s assasination.
In the immediate aftermath of this tragic death, the country continues to reel in grief at what has happened, fear about what might happened, and immense immense anger and everything that has been happening. As I argued in an op-ed in the New York Daily News today, this mix of grief, anger and fear is a very dangerous combination. It cannot lead to any good.
Right now the scenes we see on our screens are of mayhem, of devastation, of further violence, of destruction. These are not good images for Pakistan and certainly these are not the Benazir Bhutto would have wanted as her legacy. We at ATP have written many many times about the climate of anger that defines modern Pakistan (here here, here, here, here, etc.). This anger is the single most disturbing and single most defining motif of today’s Pakistan. Right now – and not without reason – the anger is being directed at Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf’s government. Much of this should, but not in this way.
More important to note is who the anger is not being directed at. I hope that the legacy of Benazir Bhutto’s untimely and tragic death is a legacy of a society that seizes this moment to reassert its demand for democracy and to recognize that extremist violence is our problem. This is not a mercenary war. This is Pakistan’s own battle. Right now the evidence suggests that society continues to tear at its own self. I fear that it will not change anytime soon. That things are likely to get worse before they become any better. But, I refuse to give up hope. At least, not yet.
As I wrote in my New York Daily News op-ed:
If this moment ends up being defined by Pakistan’s latent anger – if it launches a cycle of crackdowns and protests – it will certainly empower and embolden the militants further. But if it is defined by society’s sense of shared loss, felt grief and the continued movement toward genuine democracy, it might – just might – bring together a fractured society and awaken in them the realization that the common enemies are extremism, violence and terrorism. Then, we might just have half a chance of winning this war on terror. And Benazir Bhutto’s death would not have been in vain.
Inside job?
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Police_abandoned_sec urity_posts_before_Bhutto_1228.html
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Thanks everyone.
Nations are kept in control by despots by making them fearful of the future, and by making them lose faith in themselves. Despair can be be crippling for Pakistan at this time. We cannot allow that to happen to Pakistan.
It is not up to the ISI or Musharraf or the White House to figure out how to restore our hope and how to steer Pakistan and Pakistanis through this terrible situation. It is up to us, the educated, and the privileged who can be bold and ambitious in our thinking, even in times of trouble.
Benazir’s loss is a huge tragedy for the politics in Pakistan, but a bigger tragedy would be if we let ourselves lose faith in the political process, in the urgency of fixing that process, and in the fact that a nation of 140million can produce many leaders to replace those who are taken away from us. If we let that happen, the extremists would have won this war.
Adil: I think it is you who said we are at war with ourselves. Yes, and we have to win this war over extremism, intolerance and violence. This is the Jihad of our times.
The point is that Pakistan is now at the most dangerous of places. Whhere do we go from here? One would like to think of a positve future even in the midst of such tragedy but it seems to me that we are sinking deeper and deeper into this mess created by the MILITARY of Pakistan. The extremists (and yes, they exist) were trained, funded and are supported, to this day, by the intellignece and the military. Who stands to gain from a divided Pakistan? There are examples of “developing” countries right before us, where central leadership, national leaders are not allowed to survive…our own country being one of those states. In the absence of such consolidating, unifyng figures, people automatically look towards the army for daily political support as well. They gain power through making sure no ONE symbol of national unity survives.
It is the atmosphere of fear that we must be afraid of and which is now coming back to haunt us (and which makes us turn time and again to the amry for support). As mentioned above, this atmosphere of fear and anger and hurt or grief or betrayal does not bode well for Pakistan.
Whatever her blunders, BB stood as the only symbol of national unity. RIP Benazir Bhutto
I want to shut myself to not think about this event but we all have to face tragic events taking place and shaping our lives.
I agree with Adil and RE that Pakistanis (educated) need to realize that extremistism is key issue, here.
This act of terrorism like the one earlier during Eid on Sherpao/Musharraf’s presidential house is evidence enough that terrorist are quite well placed in terms of their reach and response and above all their conviction.
Benazir was a hope despite her obvious weaknesses. Now one hope has been quashed. Lets see what awaits.