Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter’s Memoir by Fatima Bhutto

A touching love letter to Fatima Bhutto’s murdered father

Brenda Maddox

Fatima Bhutto with her father Murtaza

A bloody tale, awkwardly told. Fatima Bhutto is most easily, if unfairly, identified as the niece of Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani Prime Minister killed in 2007. She is also, at 27, a poet, a journalist and a beauty.

But it would take more than all these gifts to make a coherent narrative of the much-assassinated Bhutto family. Indeed, one searches the pages long and hard to find a mention of a natural death.

The author was born in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, in May 1982 while her father, Murtaza Bhutto, was in exile during the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq. Her parents divorced when she was young and she formed an immediate bond with her stepmother, whom she called and still calls “Mummy”. With her father and stepmother she moved to Damascus, where she spent much of her youth. In 1988 the family returned to Karachi, safe again for Murtaza after the assassination of Zia.

The killing opened the way also for Benazir, then 35, to become Prime Minister for the first time. As Prime Minister, Benazir (her niece observes somewhat cattily) made the decision to wear a white head shawl (dupatta) — the first woman in their family to cover her hair.

In Karachi Fatima completed her secondary education, then went to New York to take a bachelor’s degree (in Middle Eastern studies) at Columbia University, then came to the University of London for a master’s degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Today, acclaimed for her writing (and for a much-publicised friendship with the actor George Clooney), she says that she has no interest in politics. She remains in Karachi, with her stepmother and half-brother, in the family home in Clifton, the poshest suburb.

The purpose of this painful biography is admirable and touching. It is a daughter’s loving recollection of her murdered father, Murtaza Bhutto, political leader of a radical party, shot dead by police in Karachi in 1996. Who ordered the killing? One explanation of this book’s obscurity is the author’s reluctance to point the finger at her aunt, then Prime Minister for the second time, for ordering the assassination of her own brother. All Benazir would say later was that it was Murtaza’s own fault that he was killed. She then brought a case against Fatima’s beloved stepmother for refusing to go into seclusion under an Islamic prescription for widows.

The author does not forget that Aunt Benazir (known in affectionate moments as “Wadi” and “Pinky”) was herself assassinated (in Rawalpindi in December 2007). Benazir’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, was later tried for the murder of the author's father, and acquitted. Zardari is now President of Pakistan.

Against such a background of horror, the more gripping parts of the story are the human details. Aunt Benazir and her niece were good friends when they were young. They spent birthdays together — even when that meant Benzair coming to Damascus — and loved mint chocolate-chip ice cream and sugared chestnuts. “Wadi” introduced her niece to Beatrix Potter and Jemima Puddleduck, and would hug her when she left (“her hair smelling powdery soft”), promising to come back soon.

Fascinating also are the author’s expressions of love for the father “who was the soul of my world. I was eager to do anything and everything for my father. I polished his boots and took the time to make sure they gleamed just like he wanted them.” He repaid this adoration with imaginative ways of frightening his daughter and son. He would ring the doorbell, pretending to be a mad dentist come to pull out all their teeth. One day, as Fatima was walking in the garden wearing her best dress, he picked her up and hurled her into the swimming pool. She also recalls him telling her, when she was 6 and going to sleep, that he’d kill himself if anything happened to her.

Death was, and perhaps remains, a bedtime story for the famed political dynasty of a troubled country born in 1947 and divided in 1971. For those who know its history, this book will be essential reading. Newcomers to the subject of Pakistan will find themselves wishing for what may be impossible: apparatus such as a clear family tree and a timetable of events to lead them through the bloody maze.

Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter’s Memoir by Fatima Bhutto (Jonathan Cape, £20; Buy this book; 470pp)

Source:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_reviews/article7091823.ece