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harsh realities too often ignored or distorted by the mainstream press.
Life After Benazir
by Moni Mohsin When news of Benazir's assassination broke, my nephew gasped, "She can't be dead! She's always been a part of my life. Always." So strong and ubiquitous was her presence over the last twenty years that he cannot imagine a Pakistan without her. No one can.
She grew up in the public eye, and we all knew her through her various incarnations from pimply adolescent to the first female leader of a Muslim nation.
[Republished at PFP with express Agence Global permission.]
The deeply flawed, arresting, autocratic Benazir Bhutto had the
wherewithal to save her country but repeatedly disappointed. Yet she
represented the best secular option for breaching Pakistan's multiple
fissures.
Dressed in her signature Seven-Up green shalwar kameez, her
head covered by a white chiffon scarf, this arresting, contradictory
woman, with an impossibly tragi-glamorous family history, had the
wherewithal to save her country but repeatedly disappointed.
She
was consistent only in her bravery. I, along with others, had expected
so much from her the day that she was swept to power in 1988, washing
away a decade of General Zia's military oppression. We all hoped this
third opportunity would see her redeeming her past failings; the
religious extremists put paid to that.
There is a strong element
of predestination to her life and death. Her father, Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto, was a charismatic and ruthlessly ambitious demagogue who
created the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) the only political party with
a national footprint. A complex personality, he was ultimately most
true to his roots as a feudal land owner. He espoused socialist
principles, but his politics were about the cult of his personality. He
said he was a man of the people but his lieutenants were hand-picked
from among privileged classes. He claimed to be a nationalist, yet his
personal ambition paved the way for the dismemberment of the nation in
1971 and for an orgy of vindictive and economically ruinous
nationalizations.
The
eldest of four, "Pinky" was the apple of her father's eye, and
unusually in a traditional society his anointed successor; dynastic
ambition trumped any pretence at democratic process.
Probably
more than we realize, she was a creature of her father, mirroring many
of his own paradoxes but without his petty vindictiveness. Like him,
her western liberal persona was cultivated and nurtured at Western
academic institutions, first Harvard then Oxford (where she was
president of the Union).
These
experiences honed her sharp mind and inculcated easy familiarity with
western liberal tradition. Additionally, she became well versed in
objective analysis, debate and persuasion. However, a strong sense of
entitlement and an autocratic nature were also part of the patrimony.
This duality wrestled for her soul and largely explains her blemished
political history.
Constantly stressing her relationship to her
martyred father, Benazir made leadership of the People's Party
contingent on bloodline rather than political ability. Squabbling with
her mother, she appointed herself sole Chairperson for life of an
allegedly democratic institution. Like her father, she crushed
aspirants to prominence within her party, and old stalwarts were
ruthlessly sidelined. The creation of party structure came second to
self-projection.
Her
death leaves a leadership vacuum. Moreover, she could not distinguish
between what was hers and what belonged to Pakistan, treating state
assets and revenues as hers to dispense as favours to courtiers. She
was dismissed twice on charges of personal corruption -- with her
husband widely dubbed "Mr. Ten Per Cent"; yet she refused to
countenance any allegations of wrongdoing.
Despite her failings,
she will be sorely missed at a time when Pakistan needs unifying
far-sighted national leaders. She was a woman of great courage and
political shrewdness with a firm grasp of geopolitical realities and
global economic imperatives. Alone among the entire democratic
leadership of Pakistan, she understood the grave threat the country
faced from religious extremists. And in an atmosphere of extreme
hostility and suspicion towards America, she was brave enough to
articulate that it was not just America's war on terror but ours as
well.
She knew the
risks and had already survived one bloody attack on her life. But in
continuing to campaign openly, she refused to be cowed by extremists.
Despite repeated warnings from military intelligence and her own
oft-stated fears of assassination by Islamists, she was determined to
confront this genie. In this final confrontation, there was a neat
coincidence between her feudal patrimony ('It is my land') and her
democratic values. Flawed, she still represented the best secular
option for breaching Pakistan's multiple provincial, linguistic,
ethnic, and social fissures. We will miss her.
Moni Mohsin is the author of the novel, The End of Innocence (Penguin).
Agence
Global is the exclusive syndication agency for The Nation, Le Monde
diplomatique, as well as expert commentary by Richard Bulliet, Mark
Hertsgaard, Rami G. Khouri, Peter Kwong,Tom Porteous, Patrick Seale and
Immanuel Wallerstein.
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Released: 29 December 2007
Word Count: 718
Rights & Permissions Contact: Agence Global, 1.336.686.9002, rights@agenceglobal.com
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