THE LAST WORD ‘I Loved Benazir’ An interview with Fatima Bhutto From the Dec. 6, 2010, issue

Benazir Bhutto’s niece Fatima Bhutto is the author of Songs of Blood and Sword, an account of her turbulent life as a member of Pakistan’s most mythical political family. Newsweek Pakistan’s Nick Jackson spoke with the 28-year-old in London recently. Excerpts:

Have the Bhuttos been a force for good or bad in Pakistan?

We’ve been a force of great destruction. Dynasty negates participation, and limits democracy. If you subscribe to [notions of] dynasty, you cannot subscribe to any democratic or participatory philosophy, politically. The fact that you have a country of 180 million people held hostage to one or two families is always going to be a bad thing. It’s not productive, it’s not progressive, it’s not just, and it’s not democratic.

Will you ever enter politics?

I am very political in my writing and activism, but I have to rule a political career out entirely because of the effect of dynasties on Pakistan.

You spoke movingly about your estranged aunt in the immediate aftermath of her assassination. Was this a bid for power?

I loved Benazir. I was very close to her as a child. [But] that Benazir I lost long before she was killed. Of course, I was upset—I was horrified [about her death]. Three years later, we can see there was no other reason for being upset than that my aunt was killed. The Benazir pre-power was an incredibly brave and vulnerable woman fighting a dictatorship. I think power changed that, and I would very much like to keep power out of the equation. I like to hope, with any family, that each generation learns from the mistakes of the previous. That's certainly something I’d like to do.

You attract a great deal of criticism in Pakistan. Why?

It’s strange. People have made their lives off this family, and when you threaten someone’s livelihood people get very wrathful, frazzled. And it goes the other way, too. People remember someone else, they remember those ghosts, and see you through a very fuzzy lens. Hopefully, people will realize they’ve got to pin their hopes and fears and hatreds on someone else, on another family.

The account of your slain father, Murtaza, in your book is said to be overly generous, particularly the PIA hijacking case.

There are conflicting accounts about the hijacking, but it’s the same courts that accused Murtaza of the hijacking that cleared him of it. More than 90 cases were filed against him, and he’s been cleared in all of them so far. Under [the governments of] Benazir, Nawaz Sharif and [Pervez] Musharraf, he’s been cleared.

In the wake of the floods, you said people should be wary of giving money to the Pakistan government. Do you regret that?

Money can’t be given to the government. We know that from the 2005 earthquake: $5.6 billion was raised from [foreign] donors, and I challenge anyone to find any documentation for where that money has gone. Money won’t reach the people if it goes via the government. Of course, there’s wastage with international organizations, and it’s never an ideal situation to be reliant on UNICEF not only because of their overhead costs but because they can’t reach everyone. There are wonderful organizations in Pakistan that do good work, but if you’re talking on the BBC, people will want to know where their money has gone.

Has the 18th Amendment made you reconsider your opinion of your uncle President Asif Ali Zardari?

Zardari’s certainly no more democratic than a military dictator. What’s the difference? He was selected to be president in the same way Musharraf was. Democratic institutions in Pakistan haven’t been strengthened. The 18th Amendment is an interesting case: the president still has the power to eject any member from his party, and the prime minister is still a member of his party. It was a very cosmetic change. It’s the Zardari way of doing things.

Source: http://www.newsweekpakistan.com/the-take/180