Post-Bhutto,
what future for the rest of us?
By Rick Salutin
The
sclerotic responses to yesterday's assassination weren't
edifying.
Same
old war on terror, same old rhetoric. George W. Bush
condemned it, in case anyone thought he might approve.
Gordon Brown called it a sad day for democracy, but
Benazir Bhutto didn't return to Pakistan to restore
democracy; she went as a tool of U.S. policy, to enter a
partnership with Pervez Musharraf in a deteriorating
situation. Everyone there was aware the operation was
brokered and sponsored by the United States.
Both
Mr. Bush and Mr. Brown called it cowardly. What else is
new? Bill Maher lost his TV show after 9/11 for saying
those attacks weren't the work of cowards. People with a
purpose use the means they have at hand: jets, missiles,
improvised explosive devices or bombs strapped to them on
their bikes. Courage and cowardice don't have a lot to do
with it.
They
all said "the terrorists" won't succeed. One
hears an effort to sound Churchillian, and it rings truer
than other clichés, only because what you can call the
structural threat to the West (as opposed to some serious
nuisance damage) isn't very great from all the forces of
Islamist terrorism. They don't even pose a real danger to
the power of the military in Pakistan.
Yet
it's that same language about not letting terror win that
sounds most weary and discouraged. There's no sense that
the other side is on the run and we'll soon be back to
normal. There won't be bluebirds over the white cliffs of
Dover in this "war." The tone is defensive. You
feel it during this holiday period: long news reports on
how to prepare for your awful time at the airport. Arrive
super early, prepay a parking spot, etc. Wide access to
air travel was one of the big perks of the modern era
("I'm leaving on a jet plane, Don't know when I'll be
back again" - now it's: "Don't know if I'll get
off the ground.") The mood is passive and fatalistic;
the sheer pleasure of travel is gone. You accept misery
and try to cushion it. Even anger at delays and
inconvenience gets squelched. Only resignation remains.
Now
the United States is about to go biometric at huge cost,
creating a database of irises, voiceprints, face shapes,
even the way you walk - making your body, in effect, your
ID. All that effort and expense to probably not even catch
the few sand grains of terror that are out there. I won't
mention the civil-liberties concerns; I'll let others
worry about that.
But
consider the despair implied: that the number of threats
is uncontrollable and exponential, and the best you can do
is try to keep track of them. The world is divided between
villains and their victims - nothing can ever be done
about the division and proportions, except to be on guard,
grimly, the way you schlep to the airport.
Is
there an alternative to this controlled despair? Well, how
about trying to diminish the escalating number of
extremists we need to detect and ward off? How might you
do that? I'll be brief, since space is limited: What about
getting out of their faces? Take the mess in
Afghanistan, about which almost everyone now uses the word
"failure" - except for Canada's military brass -
and which led to Ms. Bhutto's death yesterday.
I
hear we are trying to do good there, but how did we get
involved to start with? By attacking, invading and
occupying their country, and continuing to do so, even as
we build schools and hold elections. You gain a little by
digging a well, and you lose a lot by bombing a village
wedding party. When you're a foreign occupier, it doesn't
even out. With (or without) the best of intentions, it
hasn't worked, over centuries.
It's
led to where that part of the world now is. Come to think
of it, how'd you feel if they came here to control our
country and then magnanimously offer some of it back?
Might a little resentment persist? I'm proposing a
different kind of presence, if any, in those places.
Non-military,
non-dominating. Happy New Year.
[This
article was originally published in The Globe and Mail.]
[Rick
Salutin returned home to Canada, following ten years
of university study in the United States, in October,
1970. He has been a writer ever since. His many plays
include 1837, on the movement for independence from the
British Empire; and Les Canadiens, about the famed hockey
team and its relation to the spirit of Quebec nationalism,
which received the Chalmers award for best Canadian play
in 1977. His TV work includes Maria, about union
organizing in the textile industry. He has written
biography and history, as well as three novels, one of
which, A Man of Little Faith, won the Books in Canada best
first novel prize. He received the Toronto Arts Award in
writing and publishing in 1991 and the National Newspaper
Award for best columnist, for his Globe and Mail column on
media, in 1993. He held the Maclean Hunter chair in ethics
in communication at Ryerson University from 1993 to 1995
and has taught in the Canadian Studies program of
University College, the University of Toronto, since 1978
. He has written columns for Canadian Business, Toronto
Life, TV Times, the Globe and Mail Broadcast Week and This
Magazine, of which he is a founding editor. He was Globe
and Mail media columnist from 1991 to 1999 and is now an
op-ed columnist.. His most recent book is The Womanizer, a
novel.]
In
the arms of extremists
By
Raheel
Raza
Yesterday
was a dark day in the history of Pakistan for democracy,
freedom, human rights and the voices of women
I
met Benazir Bhutto (fondly known as BB by her political
followers in Pakistan) six years ago as she was transiting
through Pearson Airport. It was a meeting I'll never
forget as I interviewed her exclusively for two hours in
the airport lounge. While at that time I was not very
interested in Pakistani politics, I admired her for the
woman she was and what she stood for -- feminism,
activism, secularism and the staunch support of women's
rights.
Benazir
spoke eloquently and passionately about her father, her
life in Pakistan, her education at Harvard and Oxford
(where she was leader of the student union) and her
political aspirations. She was such an amazing speaker
that people walking by stopped to listen. She could charm
the pants off her audience, which is why she was a darling
of the West. Born into an elite and privileged family, she
felt the pain of the common person, which is why the
masses loved her.
Benazir
began her political career under the guidance of her
brilliant father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the then-prime
minister of Pakistan who was later hanged by military
dictator Zia ul Haq, under whose patronage the Islamist
movement started in Pakistan. Subsequently, Ms. Bhutto was
twice the prime minister of Pakistan, heralding a new era
of Muslim women in leadership.
She
paid for this by being imprisoned, sent into exile. Later
she also became a stalwart for democracy and an outspoken
critic of religious extremism, something that I believe
she gave her life for.
Yesterday
was a dark day in the history of Pakistan for democracy,
freedom, human rights and women's voices. There are many
questions arising from this tragedy.
When
Benazir returned to Pakistan in October, she was the
target of a terrorist attack in which 136 people died. At
that time, she had asked for international investigators
and additional security. Both were scoffed at by the
ruling junta. Still, this courageous woman took the brave
step of continuing her political campaign and holding a
rally, knowing full well the dark dangers that lurked
around her of an ideology gone mad. This rally was held in
the army garrison of the city of Rawalpindi. Was adequate
protection provided or not?
Where
does this leave Pakistan? Thrown back into the arms of the
extremists who look upon Benazir's death as a victory.
This
is a slap in the face of those who speak out against
extremism and for democracy. The extremists had made clear
that they would not accept a female leader and Benazir
knew this.
However,
she was enjoying majority approval in the polls, in three
out of four provinces in Pakistan, by appealing to the
grassroots and leaders with nationalistic, rather than
extreme, religious values. She was also supported by
women, the downtrodden, minorities and the intellectual
elites who were looking for an alternative to the
continuous military rule.
Benazir's
career was marred by corruption charges in a country where
corruption runs rampant and is part of the political
scenario. Her husband was imprisoned for eight years, but
charges were never laid, so she suffered as a wife and
mother. She also lost two brothers, but plodded along
courageously, never holding her head down.
She
leaves behind a husband, mother, sister and three children
who reside in Dubai. Above all, she was a loving mother,
often leaving political campaigns to dash off to see her
children.
Benazir
was a woman of great faith, but who shunned religious
extremism and supported the separation of church and
state. She had promised to shut down the madrassas
operating in Pakistan, which provide cannon fodder to the
extremists and prepare suicide bombers. Even as they
swallowed $10 billion in U.S. aid, this is something the
current rulers of Pakistan, while playing ping pong with
the West, have been unable to do.
She
leaves behind a legacy for women to free themselves from
all shackles of society and follow their passion; to
continuously fight extremism and terror, and to speak out
against all forms of violence.
But
the Bhutto political dynasty came to an end yesterday,
along with any glimmer of hope for real democracy in
Pakistan.
[Raheel
Raza is the author of Their Jihad ... Not My Jihad.
She was born and educated in Pakistan. This article was
first published in The Ottawa Citizen. ]
Benazir
Bhutto faced death with courage
By
Mirza
A.
Beg
Banazir
Bhutto, fell victim to the politics of endemic violence in
Pakistan. She called herself "the Daughter of
Destiny" in her autobiography and often styled
herself as the daughter of Pakistan. She had more
upheavals in one life time than most can imagine. In her
untimely death, she followed her slain father and two
brothers.
She
was the daughter of former President, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto,
appointed under emergency rule when former dictator Yahya
Khan abdicated in the wake of civil war of 1971. The war
was brought on by hubris of Yahya Khan and Zulfiqar
Bhutto, resulting in East Pakistan breaking away to form
Bangladesh. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto later became the Prime
Minister under a parliamentary constitution designed by
him. He rigged the next election and was overthrown in a
military coup in 1977 by General Zia ul Haq, who hanged
him in 1979 for the murder of a political opponent.
With
courage and perseverance, twenty-six year old Oxford and
Harvard educated Benazir Bhutto became the undisputed
leader of her father's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). The
PPP was hounded by General Zia, an ally of the US in the
war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. After
the death of dictator-President Zia ul Haq in a plane
crash, she returned from exile to lead PPP to victory
twice to become the Prime Minister in 1988 and again in
1993. And twice she was dismissed from office under a
cloud of corruption and nepotism in 1990 and 1996 by the
ceremonial president.
In
1999, General Parvez Musharraf overthrew the government of
her political rival Nawaz Sharif. General Musharraf has
ruled Pakistan through some very difficult times in the
wake of 9/11 and the US war on Al Qaeda and the Talibans
in neighboring Afghanistan.
After
eight years of dictatorship, and close cooperation with
the United States, Musharraf has not been able to contain
the virulent Talibanist ideology that has spilled over
among the kith and kin of Afghan Pashtuns in the very
porous frontier areas of Pakistan. With regular
indiscriminate bombings of Pashtun villages in Afghanistan
by the US lead forces and occasional stealth bombings in
Pakistan, claiming hundreds perhaps thousands of innocent
lives, the Pashtuns have become much more anti-American
and anti-Pakistan government than ever before, resulting
in Iraq style suicide bombings in civilian areas of
Pakistan.
Unable
to defeat the Talibanist ideology and unable to safeguard
the civilian population in the heartland of Pakistan,
Musharraf has become quite unpopular. He found his power
slipping and made the mistake of firing the Chief Justice
of the Pakistan Supreme Court in March 2007. Unexpected
widespread protest followed and Musharraf was forced to
reinstate the Chief Justice. It weakened him further.
Over
the summer of 2007, the United States brokered a power
sharing deal between General Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto
to provide a gradual shift in power. Musharraf dropped the
pending corruption charges against her and allowed her
return to Pakistan after a decade of self exile. She was a
candidate for Prime Minister again in the upcoming
election on January 8, 2008. On again, off again political
maneuvering by General Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto
further weakened Musharraf who declared emergency in early
November, but was forced to relinquish his military
dictator's uniform to become a newly minted civilian
president.
Whatever
the veracity of behind the scene deal may have been, Bush
took credit for it, trying to shore his sagging popularity
in the United States. To the Pakistanis the very idea of
Bush meddling and controlling the two top political
figures, made Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto appear to be
stooges of Bush, who while preaching democracy has a
record of supporting dictatorships and bullying other
countries. An average Pakistani does not support the
Talibanist ideology and feels caught between the devil and
the deep sea, unable to decide which is which.
Benazir
Bhutto was a polarizing figure in a country that had
aspirations of nationhood, but keeps loosing to the vested
interests based on many conflicting ethnic, linguistic and
economic fissures held together or perhaps suppressed
together by the domineering presence of the military. For
sixty years, its leaders have gone for quick fixes of
military dictatorships rather than let the imperfect
civilian institutions grow and mature.
As
polarizing leaders often are, she was intensely loved by
many and was hated by many others. In the past Benazir
Bhutto had political opponents, but this time she had
deadly enemies. The bullets of an assassin and the suicide
bomber not only killed Benazir Bhutto, but have set
Pakistan further back, denying another possible chance for
an imperfect democracy to take root.
I
was not an admirer of Benazir Bhutto's political
compromises and considered her father to be one of the
architects of the dismemberment of Pakistan when
Bangladesh broke away in 1971. But criticism aside one has
to admire her courage and persistence. She tried to bring
sanity to Pakistan's many-sided murky politics choked with
a strangle-hold of military on all the intermittent
civilian governments, including hers.
Finally
she went down fighting courageously trying to do some good
for her beleaguered country. She was less than what
critics like me would have liked her to be, but then
critics have the luxury of not being in the rough and
tumble of politics. They do not have to swallow principles
and make calculated imperfect or at times far from perfect
compromises. As Theodore Roosevelt said,
"It
is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out
how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds
could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man
who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and
comes up short again and again ... who spends himself in a
worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the
triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he
fails, at least he fails while daring greatly."
Banazir
Bhutto knew the dangers she faced. About 150 people died
in an attempt on her life when she arrived in Pakistan
from exile in mid-October this year. She was not
intimidated but pursued on with vigor. She died valiantly
fighting for her and Pakistan's future as she saw it. She
was cut down in her prime by those who have a very narrow
jaundiced view of their religion and no vision of the
future. They court death, killing innocent bystanders in
ignorance of the ideals of religion and nobility of human
spirit.
After
six years of war of death and destruction the US should
realize that bombing in anger wins battles and destroys an
enemy, resulting in a blowback price to pay. War of ideas
is won by convincing the enemy of a better future. Instead
of supporting military dictatorships the United States
should invest in better schools, universities, hospitals
and infrastructure to help Pakistan alleviate poverty and
build a more equitable society.
After
six years of war, death and destruction the US should
realize that bombing wins battles and destroys some
enemies while creating many more, resulting in a heavy
blowback price to pay. War of ideas is won by convincing
the enemy of a better future. Instead of supporting
military dictatorships the United States should invest in
better schools, universities, hospitals and infrastructure
to help Pakistan alleviate poverty and build a more
equitable society.
Pakistan
is again at fateful cross roads. It is sixty years late,
but not too late, because what else can a people or a
nation do, but to take up the fallen standard and
persevere. Pakistanis can reject the politics of fear
imposed by the quick-fix promises of military
dictatorships. They should take up the difficult long
journey of slowly building civil institutions of imperfect
political give and take to reach an internal cohesion and
become a nation at peace with itself and its neighbors.
[MIrza
A. Beg, originally
from
India
(Eastern U.P.), a graduate of
Aligarh
and
Roorkee
Universities
, is a geologist by profession, living in
Alabama
for the last 30 years. He is passionate about social
justice, religious tolerance and harmony. That is why many
of his articles touch on these subjects. Besides writing
about geology, he has been writing on political and social
subjects for about fifteen years.]
The
assassination of Ms Bhutto
BY
ISHTIAQ AHMED
(IDN) *
The
assassination of Benazir Bhutto comes as a severe shock
but not as a surprise. Some 20 other people, among them
five PPP volunteers, were also killed in the bomb blast
that took place. It is being disputed whether she died of
gunshots fired by the assassin(s) or the bomb blast that
accompanied that crime.
According
to the doctor in charge whose team tried their best to
revive her heart, Benazir died of some deep wound to her
head, but the post-mortem was not carried out as he was
told by the law-enforcing authorities her husband, Asif
Ali Zardari, had instructed that it should not be done.
Nothing
had changed to suggest that her security had improved
significantly since the massive bomb blasts of Oct 18 on
her convey that began its journey from Karachi Airport for
the mausoleum of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. On that
occasion, some 150 people were killed and more than 500
injured. She was lucky to have escaped that terrorist
outrage. This time luck let her down.
Indeed,
the reference to luck is not meant non-seriously, because
she was acutely aware of the fact that she had many
enemies and some of them were plotting her death.
Different theories and proofs about who the assassins were
have been advanced. The government claims to have
intercepted a telephone conversation between an Al Qaeda
leader, XX, and some Maulvi Sahib in which both
congratulate each other over her death and praise the men
who took part in it.
The
PPP's Farhatullah Babar has called for caution in
accepting such evidence, as it may be a cover up to
conceal the identity of the real killers. Another story
circulating on the Internet is that some commandos of a
rogue unit of the Special Services Group, an elite force
within the Pakistan military structure, had carried out
the shooting and bomb blasts.
The
assassination of Ms Bhutto is a national tragedy, but
there is supreme irony involved in it, originating from a
famous observation she made in an interview recently. She
said: "No good Muslim will attack and kill a woman,
because Islam forbids it. Anyone who did so will burn in
hell. I am not afraid because no real Muslim will attack a
woman."
One
can describe her remark as naivety or political rhetoric,
or, perhaps she lived in a dream world of imaginary real
and good Muslims. In the real Muslim world, fanatical
groups kill anyone they perceive is a threat to their
rigid version of Islam. They have done so in Afghanistan
during the Taliban regime, in Iran under the Ayatollahs,
in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and, indeed, in Pakistan.
In
fact in ideological regimes such those of Iran Saudi
Arabia a comprehensive procedure upheld in law exists to
intimidate and terrorise women. It includes killing them,
whipping them and stoning them for allegedly living lives
or doing things incompatible with their version of true
Islam. In Algeria the extremists have in particular
targeted women working in state institutions because
according to them the only place where women belong is in
the four walls of the house.
On
Feb 20, a woman minister in the Punjab government, Mrs
Zille Huma Usman, was shot in the head and killed by a man
who believed that she and all women who live a public life
were whores. That man had killed three women already
because he believed they lived a life of sin, but each
time the courts had let him off. Obviously, the
dehumanisation and victimisation of women takes place at
different levels of society, but we focus only on the
individual who committed the actual crime.
Benazir
had not only violated the strict code of chaste behaviour
by choosing to live an active public life. The fact that
she kept her head covered with a chador and was modestly
dressed did not help her, it seems. But more importantly,
in her latest political posture she had said and done
things which were ideological and political anathema to
the fanatics and ultra-nationalists and jingoistic forces
in Pakistan.
She
committed herself to working closely with the United
States in the war on terror and even to let the Americans
interrogate Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, a national hero who is
fondly referred to as the father of the Islamic or
Pakistani atomic bomb. Moreover, this time she had taken a
more strident posture in favour of democracy and human
rights. Such posturing most certainly earned her the wrath
of a whole range of fanatics.
An
Al Qaeda statement describes her death as the end of
"America's most precious asset in Pakistan". Her
assassination must therefore be seen an exercise in
deterrence. The deterrence theory of punishment is
premised on the assumption that the culprit should not
only be punished severely, but also serve as an example to
others, so that nobody dares break the law or defy the
will of the state.
One
can extend the same reasoning to non-state actors such a
terrorist organisations and fanatical ideological
movements. They follow their own codes of chaste behaviour
and good conduct and punish brutally when those rules are
violated.
The
assassination of a national-level leader who was also a
well-known international figure will only add greater
disapprobation to Pakistan's reputation as an
authoritarian, military-dominated polity in which
religious fanatics get away with impunity when they
assault women and religious minorities, where the ruling
classes are thoroughly corrupt and heartless, and the poor
and needy are treated as dirt.
The
question everyone is posing now is: what next? Some of us
have been saying for a long time that the battle for
democracy will not only be about winning the right to have
fair and free elections, although that is an absolute
pre-requisite for democracy. The battle for democracy is a
battle for the mind. It is about ideas of human solidarity
and dignity, about gender equality and equal rights of all
human beings, irrespective of their caste, creed and
colour. It will claim a lot of blood before it is won.
Can
the heartless killing of Benazir Bhutto shock us and shame
us in realising that by not protesting and opposing
resolutely all forms of tyranny we have forfeited the
right to live and think as a free nation. If it does, then
she may have served a purpose much greater than her
dreams.
*
This
article was first published in the News
International . The author is a visiting senior
research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies
(ISAS), National University of Singapore on leave from the
University of Stockholm. Email: isasia@nus.edu.sg.
Babar's
Will
Sent
by Sohail Raza
"My
son take note of the following: Do not harbor religious
prejudice in your heart. You should dispense justice while
taking note of the people's religious sensitivities, and
rites. Avoid slaughtering cows in order that you could
gain a place in the heart of natives. This will take you
nearer to the people.
Do
not demolish or damage places of worship of any faith and
dispense full justice to all to ensure peace in the
country. Islam can better be preached by the sword of love
and affection, rather than the sword of tyranny and
persecution. Avoid the differences between the Shias and
Sunnis. Look at the various characteristics of your people
just as characteristics of various seasons."
---
Islamic Voice, June 2006.
[A copy of this will is preserved in State Library of
Bhopal.]
