Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s granddaughter, and Benazir Bhutto’s niece, writer Fatima Bhutto has an uneasy relationship with her political pedigree. Estranged from her aunt uptill her 2007 assassination, the 27-year-old keeps a distance from political involvement. Her new book, Songs of Blood and Sword, traces the Bhuttos’ history, returning to the day her father Murtaza was gunned down by Karachi police in 1996. From Karachi, in a phone interview with ANIRUDDHA SHANKAR, she speaks candidly on Benazir and Pakistan’s political prospects. Excerpts:
Q1. The tale of your father Murtaza Bhutto’s killing has been recounted so often in the press. In interview after interview and even now, in /Songs of Blood and Sword /you have returned to that fateful day. What effect has this had on you? How has this whole history shaped you -- are there aspects of your personality you can directly attribute to this?
I think that at a very young age, you come to realise that such incidents are far more common than once one thought. Whether it’s the killing of Amadou Diallo in New York, who was shot 19 times or Jean Charles de Menezes in London after 7/11, you come to realise that people in power can commit acts of terrible violence with little repercussion. I think that retelling his story and setting out to discover his life really opened my eyes.
|
SONG OF BLOOD AND SWARDQ2. When you were growing up, what did being a Bhutto mean to you?
Not very much, really. I grew up outside Pakistan in Damascus, Syria and being a Bhutto meant nothing to the people there. They could barely pronounce the name. (laughs) When I did come back to Karachi, I encountered a bit of curiosity from schoolmates but that’s about it. We were never made to feel like we were special or different children.
 |
| Family ties Fatima Bhutto's new book tracks the history of Pakistan's political first family Photo: GETTY IMAGES |
Q3. The story of the Bhuttos is now quite complex, quite muddied. In the years after Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s execution, what went wrong with the family?
Good question. I think that once in power, people began to give into temptation, to compromise. With Benazir the political landscape became murky because it became about guilt, about the people owing her a debt because the state took her father’s life - they were told to elect someone because they owed them something, because there was a blood debt on them not because of their record or platform or manifesto.
Q4. You were close to Benazir to begin with. When you look back at her now, with adult eyes, how would you assess her strengths and weaknesses, both public and private?
I was close to her as a child and her niece, growing up. Then, she was out of power and very different, as a person... She was my aunt who would take me out for ice cream. She was brave and ambitious, of course. Those were really admirable qualities. She really changed when she came to power, however. She became more open to compromise (and not of the good kind). And then of course, there was the corruption. You got a very clear understanding that for her, power became the goal itself. The security establishment wielded a lot of power during her terms but it became very convenient and easy to blame the army for everything that you were not able to do. You are the head of the country. If you aren’t powerful enough, you shouldn’t be in power.
Q5. So in some senses, it’s a departure from the uncompromising stance of her father.
Certainly. What Zulfiqar Ali did for foreign policy, Benazir did the opposite. Zulfiqar pushed back the Army, Benazir did the exact opposite. He defended and safeguarded Pakistan’s sovereignty; she exposed it, laid it bare.Q6. So you would say she betrayed his legacy? Well, she certainly betrayed the bases on which the PPP was founded.
Q7. When she returned to Pakistan, she was hailed internationally as a standard-bearer for democracy. How did you react to this?
Benazir’s return was an engineered event created by the West. Musharraf was no longer palatable so he had to go and she was to be brought in. You must remember that in order to return, she compromised, again, on Pakistan’s sovereignty and security. She agreed to several anti-Pakistan steps such as permission for direct aerial bombing of tribal areas by the West. Certain newspapers like the New York Times and the Guardian trumpeted her return, but she compromised heavily on several areas. Not only did she do that, she agreed to return only if the corruption cases against her and her husband were dismissed.
Q8. What was the toughest part about writing this book? Is there anything you hesitated to put in? Anything you left out? And why?
I’m certainly not good at censoring myself, I prefer to talk about the difficult things. I think the toughest part was donning the role of a journalist or private investigator and setting out, discovering the facts behind my father’s murder, chasing names, talking to police officials who were there at the time... people would not say things to me, I was faced with stonewalling. At the same time, it was very fulfilling. And I learnt that there are many more brave people than frightened ones. So there was always a way around.
Q9. When you look at the trajectory of the Bhuttos – sudden deaths, mysterious circumstances, betrayals, internecine struggle – how do you read the family? Does the family’s story tell the story of Pakistan in any way? The potential for great good and great corruption, perhaps. Do you think the feudal nature of the family has anything to do with it?
I think it tells the story of the violence of the country. The violence of Pakistan has affected the family and the family has been a part of it. That was the most obvious similarity to me. And certainly feudalism is a violent system. And in it’s most violent forms, it’s about entitlement. And when you have entitlement in politics that’s extraordinarily dangerous. In Pakistan, feudalism is one of the problems, certainly. But you also have these vast oligarchies – the civil bureaucracy, the military, the industrial cartels. We’ve got a lot of issues to be sorted out as a country as a country and I think, yes, that one of them is the notion that some are born greater than others.
Q10. On that note, how can this story be bent? In certain press reports, Rahul Gandhi has been mentioned as someone who’s trying to change the Gandhi legacy of nepotism and corruption, of the most self-abasing sycophancy?
We’ve got to let go of our reliance on dynasties. This notion that you only have three or four choices is very dangerous, that you have someone from this family or that family, or from the army or the constant bogeyman of the mullahs is very dangerous. You have to have not just a representative democracy but a participatory one – one where you can take part in even if you’re not from the right family. We have to have new faces.
Q11. On the point of dynasty, we’ve seen stalwarts of the PPP like Makhdoom Amin Fahim and Aitzaz Ahsan been sidelined in this new government. Do you see this as part of the wrong thing to do?
Now comes the part where I don’t censor myself (laughs). These are people who had their chances in the first two governments and threw them away. We’ve seen what Amin Fahim has done and the answer is nothing. I haven’t seen any positive contribution from Amin Fahim for example.
Q12. Would you say the same thing about Aitzaz Ahsan?
With him it’s different because he played a very central role in the restoration of Iftikhar Chaudhary [the current Chief Justice of Pakistan] but on the other hand, he’s defended Benazir and her husband on corruption charges.
Q13. This is really interesting because you’ve had such a clear position on these issues but, for example, at the investiture ceremony he was made Prime Minister in, your grandfather Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto had in his pocket a document that would suspend Fundamental Rights and invest powers in him as Chief Martial Law Administrator.
Well, I was clear when I started this book that it was not going to be a hagiography of anybody. And my grandfather did attempt to and ultimately did succeed in enhancing his own powers. And the few points I’ve been most critical of him are on those changes and on Balochistan. And I think that some people who view politics very personally take that very badly. But I think there’s nothing disloyal in being critical, I think it’s important to be critical so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes. And we have this tendency in Pakistan to lionise public figures, to make them demigods. But they make mistakes, they’re human beings. We should vote them into power or refrain from doing so... but that doesn’t excuse violence against them.
Q14. Would this tendency to lionise or denounce people strongly be, in your opinion, a critical flaw of Pakistani polity?
People either love or hate Zulfiqar Ali. He is a very polarising figure. But I think that where there isn’t a space for discourse or public debate, we cut off our ability to talk about public figures, about certain things. For example, with the Kerry-Lugar bill, Richard Holbrooke said that if you’re against it, you’re an enemy of Pakistan. I’m sorry, that’s not the case. I think it’s an easy thing to do in politics in general, not something particular to Pakistan.
Q15. Would you have any telling anecdote about Benazir or your father that characterises them for you?
Just their political education, was incredibly different, for example. Whereas my father’s heroes growing up were people like [assassinated Congolese revolutionary and Prime Minister] Patrice Lumumba, Benazir Bhutto’s were people like Queen Elizabeth (laughs) -- very different people, very different historical trajectories.
Q16. You were born in Kabul, where your father helped found Al Zulfiqar. That organisation took up arms against the Pakistani state and was even involved in acts of violence against civilians including the hijacking of an airliner and the murder of a passenger. How do you view such a path of resistance in the light of contemporary events?
This was very important thing for me to write about in the book. In 2003, both my father and my uncle were posthumously and honourably acquitted of the hijacking charge. At the time the case was put against them, the same case slapped on Benazir – but the case against her has miraculously disappeared. There were some 90-odd cases of treason slapped on the brothers by the Zia regime and some stand till this day, we’re still fighting some of them. What I did was talk to people who were with my father and uncle at the time. They were both young men at the time, younger than I am now. Their fight was against the military regime that had deposed the civilian government and abrogated the constitution, not against civilians. What is infuriating about the hijacking is that not only does that charge hang over their heads for decades, in 2003, after they were honourably acquitted, the entire issue goes away. A plane was hijacked, why can’t we talk about it? Was it only an issue to form the basis for a legal charge against them? The answer seems to be yes. When I was younger, my father would say – I think it’s from Thomas Jefferson –“Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.” They had spent years outside Pakistan, writing letters, pamphlets, lobbying foreign governments, lobbying the expatriate community to save their father’s life and it came to nothing. And at the time, both of them — I think they were 23 and 19 years old — said, well, we’ve tried this tack, let’s try another one. And they tried it. It wasn’t successful. They didn’t unseat the dictatorship. But I think it was noble of them to try.
Q17. Do you think there’s any resonance with what’s going on in Balochistan right now? I’m talking of course of the 2006 killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti at the hands of the state while his grandson Brahamdagh has taken up arms against Pakistan?
Well, I think that anywhere where you have a state that takes away people’s economic and political rights, you’re going to have a resistance movement. I think it’s too early to give a verdict on the Balochistan movement, we have to wait and see how it progresses. But we have a strong history of resistance in this country.
Q18. You’ve written this book about your father and about your family. Your cousin Bakhtawar has tried to come to terms with her grief, I think, perhaps also by singing about her assassinated mother. Does that strike a chord in you? How do you get along with her and her siblings Asifa and Bilawal?
Well, I don’t have any relationship with them.
Q19. And none with their father [President Zardari] as well?
No, clearly not with their father.
Q20. Do you think he’s done anything right for Pakistan?
Well, I think he’s done a lot of things that are right for the Zardari family but not for Pakistan – he’s passed legislation that enforces censorship, he’s signed deals with the IMF that are anti-Pakistan. Take the Kerry-Lugar Bill. A good chunk of the money received from the Americans is going to the charity handout organisations and programmes set up in his wife’s name such as the Benazir Bhutto Income Support Programme. And given his record of corruption in the past, such events don’t instil much confidence …
Q21. What is your reading of the Pakistani judiciary ?
Well, I think it depends on any given day. The same judiciary that exonerated my father also exonerated all the policemen that killed him. This is also the same judiciary that at one point of time was looking into the cases of the disappeared persons but isn’t anymore. So I think we can’t have a free juidicary when you don’t have a free government. When you don’t have access to justice, to the courts, to law and order, you can’t then say that you have a free judicial system.
Q22. So would you support a flawed democracy over a return to rule by a strongman?
I think there’s no difference, really. We have a dictatorship in Pakistan, whether it’s civilian or military.
Q23. Do you really think it’s a civilian dictatorship?
Well, they’ve passed this electronic crimes law last summer which covers all electronic or digital communications — emails, SMSs, blogs, everything — which allows people to be convicted for a very wide range of offences that are very vaguely worded. And people have been arrested under it and could be jailed for up to four years for forwarding joke SMSs. Zardari isn’t a dictator but there’s a big difference between this current dispensation and a free democratic system.
Q24. On that point, in four years, your cousin Bilawal, who is currently Co-Chairman of the PPP, will be eligible to stand for election to Parliament. Do you think that if he does gain power, it will be a positive or negative development?
I think that’s a question for the other side to answer.
Q25. You’ve had a very clear stance against compromise with tyranny. If you were to gain political power, what changes would you bring about.
Aha (laughs) As a critic of this dynastic system, I wouldn’t accept political power. I would have to, in a sense, recuse myself. But I still think that there’s a lot one can do to push for change.
Q26. Do you see any similarities or resonances with Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi in India and their political life?
I think that once you’ve reached a certain level of participatory democracy, then it doesn’t matter what your last name is. But we’re still a good distance away from that stage.
Q27. You were moved by the earthquake in Kashmir to pen your second book. Have you returned to work there? How has rehabilitation proceeded there?
The earthquake was a great shock to Pakistanis and it was a time when people really came together to help the survivors. But it went through a period of compassion fatigue, just like I think is happening with Haiti. The book was a project of mine to keep people involved. And I hope and believe it was read that way. I haven’t actually gone back… one reason is that the town I was working in, Balakot, was actually moved in entirety to a new location and is now called something like Balakot No. 2. As a result it’s been very difficult to trace people. And the rehabilitation hasn’t proceeded well, really. I think it’s the same story: corruption and lack of transparency. Billions of dollars were raised in donor conferences and we have no idea where it’s gone. There are no publicly accessible records.
Q28. For several months it seemed that Karachi was escaping the violence that was wracking Pakistan. And then we saw a spate of violence – bombings, arson, clashes. Some commentators said Karachi was mounting a valiant defence against Talibanisation and yet it seemed to fall prey to a particularly violence that was quite characteristic of it. As someone who lives and works in Karachi, how has the violence affected you?
I think this Taliban thing is a big bogeyman. It’s an easy term to toss around but the idea that Karachi will fall to Talibanisation is ridiculous. Certainly there are parts of the country that have, but then again the responsibility falls on the current government – its failure to offer access to justice. I think these groups only come in because they offer alternative systems that at least give an indication of working. Karachi has a history of violence that has nothing to do with the Taliban but we’re less likely to talk about that because it doesn’t titillate. We can’t go to the IMF and say, ‘Oh give us some money because currently the police is executing people in [the Karachi slum of] Lyari.’ It’s like an ATM on the other hand: Just say ‘Taliban!’ and people will give you money.
Q29. You’re saying the idea of the Taliban has been callously deployed to obtain money.
Oh, certainly.
Q30. What hopes does this book carry for you?
Justice. The justice of memory. The justice of recorded archives and history.
Q31. Faith in a final retelling?
Yes and so much has been changed, so much erased by interested parties. In a situation where there’s censorship and a repressive state, I hope this book stands for justice. Justice and memory.
Source :
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main44.asp?filename=hub100410benazir_thought.asp
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment