The Hindu Business Line : ‘A democratic Pakistan can become a symbol of hope’

“So as I prepare to return to an uncertain future in Pakistan in 2007, I fully understand the stakes not only for myself, and my country, but the entire world. I realise I can be arrested. I realise that like the assassination of Benigno Aquino in Manila in August 1983, I can be gunned down on the airport tarmac when I land…”

These are the ominous lines from the final section of Daughter of the East, an autobiography that Benazir Bhutto updated in April 2007, probably prescient of her assassination before the year drew to a close. “As I write this in London, I must confess that my life is as difficult as it is interesting,” she wrote in the preface.

It will be an ironic twist when sleuths from London, a place that had offered Bhutto refuge, have to now, at the behest of the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, assist in the investigation into the abrupt end to her life on her own soil.

“I live from suitcase to suitcase, travelling the world lecturing on Islam, democracy and women’s rights before universities, business associations, women’s organisations and foreign policy think-tanks…” recounted Bhutto.

“I visit my husband under medical treatment in New York. I prepare my children for their exams in Dubai. And I lead the combined democratic opposition of the secular political parties of Pakistan fighting for free and fair elections…”

It may seem rhetoric that elections will also be ‘transparent’ and ‘peaceful,’ as assures Musharraf, in tandem with Pakistan’s Election Commission announcing the postponement of elections by more than a month.

Understandably, ‘peace’ has no place in the book’s index. “Born in Pakistan, my life mirrors its turbulence, its tragedies and its triumphs,” Bhutto acknowledges. “I didn’t choose this life; it chose me.”

The book’s opening chapter is titled, ‘the assassination of my father,’ transporting the reader to April 4, 1979, Rawalpindi Central Jail… “My father had earned his freedom, had paid dearly for his peace. His suffering had ended,” a disconsolate daughter reminisces poignantly, of the ignoble hanging.

“Stand up to challenge. Fight against overwhelming odds. Overcome the enemy. In the stories my father had told us over and over as children, good always triumphed over evil.” Did it, ultimately?

“Life isn’t what I would have predicted, but I don’t think I would change places with any woman in history,” writes Bhutto defiantly.

“I am a woman proud of my cultural and religious heritage. I feel a special personal obligation to contrast the true Islam — the religion of tolerance and pluralism — with the caricature of my faith that terrorists have hijacked.” She recognises that she is “a symbol of what the so-called ‘Jihadists’, Taliban and al-Qaeda, most fear. I am a female political leader fighting to bring modernity, communication, education and technology to Pakistan. I believe that a democratic Pakistan can become a symbol of hope to more than one billion Muslims around the world who must choose between the forces of the past and the forces of the future…”

Democracy in Pakistan is not just important for Pakistanis, it is important for the entire world, she argues in the final chapter. “In this age of the exploitation and radical interpretation of my beloved religion, we must always remember that democratic governments do not empower, protect and harbour terrorists. A democratic Pakistan, free from the yoke of military dictatorship, would cease to be the petri dish of the pandemic of international terrorism.”

Bhutto concedes that her wishes may sound idealistic and unrealistic, but reiterates her faith ‘that time, justice and the forces of history are on the side of democracy.’ And to those who wonder what kept driving her forward into ‘uncharted and potentially dangerous crossroads’ the answer comes in the last paragraph of the book.

“Too many people have sacrificed too much, too many have died, and too many people see me as their remaining hope for liberty, for me to stop fighting now,” she reasons. “I recall the words of Dr Martin Luther King: ‘Our lives begin to end the day we remain silent on things that matter.’ With my faith in God, I put my fate in the hands of my people.”

A faith that perhaps continues to await redemption.

D. MURALI

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com