Adil Najam
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated one year ago today, December 27.
I remember being in utter shock when I first heard that news. In some ways I am still in shock. Indeed, as our wall of newspaper covers showed, the whole world was in shock. That shock, I believe, is also still alive.
And, yet, so much – so very much – has changed. An elected government holds power. Benazir Bhutto’s arch-nemesis Gen. Pervez Musharraf is no longer President of Pakistan. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, is. We still do not know who was behind her death, but speculation remains rife. The economy remains in nosedive. An energy crisis is upon us. One Chief Justice still awaits reinstatement. Another is embroiled in scandal. War talk with India on the East is the rage. Drones pound us on the West. And Pakistan continues to lose both territory and citizens to the extremists who continue to wage a war within Pakistan and on Pakistan. Most of all, anger and angst still define the social disposition.
None of this is new. As a re-reading of our review of 2007 would show there is no evidence that 2008 was any more depressing than 2007 was. It just feels that way. Good things have happened (including elections) but so many bad things have piled on that it becomes difficult to remember what they were. Each new day brings new headlines of death, depression and despondency. And each headline chips away at the national psyche. The angst compounds within us. Gloom adds to gloom and the emergent analysis becomes ever more gloomy.
Speculative it surely is, but even if only for speculation’s sake, what if she had not been killed on that fateful day a year ago?
What if she had survived the attack? Would things have been different? Would the nature of the government she would have formed or run have been different from Mr. Zardari’s government? Would Gen. Musharraf’s fate have been different? Would Justice Iftikhar’s fate have been different? Would the pressure on Pakistan from abroad have been different? Would Pakistan’s response to extremists have been different? All of this, of course, assumes that she would have won the elections and assumed power had she lived. But, would even that have been so?
I do not know the answers to any of these. No one does. But a part of me would like to believe (for the sake of my own sanity) that things in Pakistan would, indeed, have been different – and better – if she had not been killed, even if nothing else had been any different from what it is today. Simply, because the blot of her assassination would have been one less stain for our collective soul to cleanse off. And she would still be there to give hope to at least a few!
An op-ed in The News today tries to answer your question:
HOW THINGS COULD HAVE BEEN
Rahimullah Yusufzai
One year ago on this day, Pakistan lost one of its top politicians in tragic circumstances. Benazir Bhutto’s assassination was the latest in the list of political murders that this country has suffered. If the past is any guide, her real killers would remain unknown and go unpunished. Even though her PPP is now in power and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, has become one of Pakistan’s most powerful rulers in history, there has been little progress in tracking down the sponsors of the plan to assassinate her.
It is a moot point how Pakistan would have fared had Benazir Bhutto been alive today. In fact, the PPP couldn’t have won the February 2008 election without the sympathy vote that was generated by her untimely death. At best, her presence in the election campaign would have enabled her party to do well and equally share victory and then power with Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N instead of winning more assembly seats and dominating the coalition government.
On hindsight, one could say that a balance of power between the PPP and the PML-N would have been a better arrangement for the country because the latter would have been in a stronger position to force the former to allow restoration of an independent judiciary and agree to reinstatement of Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry as the rightful chief justice of Pakistan. This would have removed a major irritant in domestic politics and prolonged the life of their coalition government and, in the process, strengthened the rule of law and democracy. Though it may appear wishful thinking, one would like to think that a stronger PML-N presence in parliament could have prompted the coalition government to strive for a slightly more independent foreign policy instead of toeing the US line and entangling Pakistan in America’s disastrous “war on terror.”
Much is made of late Benazir Bhutto’s public statement outside Iftikhar Chaudhry’s official Islamabad residence that he was her chief justice as well and would be restored to his position with the return of true democracy in the country. It is important to remember that she wasn’t always very enthusiastic in demanding Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s reinstatement and was prone to adjusting her position on this issue in keeping with the public mood, her political goals, her deal-making with the then president General Pervez Musharraf and her tendency to listen to the signals coming from Washington. Asfandyar Wali Khan’s ANP and Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s JUI-F had almost a similar take on the issue as they didn’t want to make their politics subservient to the deposed chief justice’s fate. Theirs was a clever line, which no doubt underlined the independence of the judiciary but detached their parties from demanding reinstatement of a particular judge, whether it was the chief justice or someone else. No ruling politician likes checks on their power, more so those dictated by an assertive judiciary.
Given the fate of previous coalition governments in Pakistan, it would still be na
Congratulations to Adil Bhai and Owais Bhai for being named the two top Pakistani bloggers for 2008
http://sajshirazi.blogspot.com/2008/12/top-ten-pak istani-bloggers.html
Everything would have been the same, except no Zardari in power.
if she had not been killed, we would not have a holiday on 27th December and a Rs 10 coin :D
Yes the things would have been very different. But we must not loose hope, for this is all what we have along with the so many worst experiences in the past. We must learn from them and not to let it repeat once again.
I am and was a no supporter of PPP but I believe the democracy must be flourished. Had Muhtarma been here, the people would have decided her fate as per her actions. I believe she was a changed person after she came back home before her death and this was what which was un-acceptable to certain groups inside and outside Pakistan. I am an ordinary Pakistani. How can I know who are these people, but I can only speculate and curse such forces and prepare myself in my own little way.
We have to go way too far yet. But again we must not loose hope. I criticize all those who speak and write pessimistic views. I ask all of them; how many centuries were taken to let France achieve a perfect democracy? Pakistan had just been created only 61 years ago. So far we have done good if not great but we WILL do better tomorrow.
God Bless Pakistan
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