JANINE DI GIOVANNI TALKS TO FATIMA BHUTTO

Ghosts by Daylight, the latest book by award-winning foreign correspondent and war reporter Janine di Giovanni, is a memoir about war and the sharp edges of ordinary life – dealing with addiction, the pain of miscarriages, replacing one set of challenges with a different sort. For di Giovanni, who constantly follows stories that other journalists are too afraid to cover, from Rwanda to Algeria to the Balkans, travelling to report on the second Palestinian intifada while pregnant isn't necessarily as trying as giving birth in a Parisian hospital.

Fatima Bhutto: East Timor, Kosovo, Somalia, Afghanistan – what separates war zones for you?
Janine di Giovanni: There are no separations... meaning human misery is human misery, whether it is in Asia or Africa. But there are places in the world where I’ve reported that are closer to my heart, for whatever reason. Some places you feel utterly powerless to do anything – that is beyond frustrating.

FB: I mean, how does one leave Grozny behind when Tripoli is the next port of call, or is that impossible?
JDG: I think it's impossible. You don't forget people or images. They haunt you. For instance, in Sierra Leone I once saw a six-month-old baby who had been amputated by the RUF rebels so that she – and all the people amputated – would be grotesque reminders of their power and to instil fear. I see that child in my dreams at least once a month. Sometimes I respond to places less than others. Afghanistan never got under my skin the way it does for others. I think because the treatment of women is still so horrific, the abuse of children... even among the educated classes.

FB: How did you balance the difficulties of writing about the “sharp edges” of normal life in Ghosts by Daylight while living them?
JDG: It was a very, very hard book to write, for many reasons. Mainly because the characters who are the central ones are still alive – my mother, my friends, my husband. And it was writing about real pain and suffering, but this time my own. I felt very vulnerable exposing myself but at the same time I knew it was a part of healing, not just for me, but for other people who are spouses of alcoholics or who suffer from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). After I finished it, people who know me very well, my closest friends, wrote to say, “Why didn't you tell us? Why didn't you ask for help? We were here for you.” But I kept it very quiet. On many levels, I just don't tell people things about myself, I internalise a lot – on every level – stress, pain, suffering. The only thing I am very open about is love. When I love someone, I really love them. And I tell them. A lot.

FB: Where were you when you thought, “That's it – this is my last war?”
JDG: Well, for sure I thought I would die in Chechnya. So I wondered whether I would ever walk out of that country alive, let alone cover another war. I think the moment passes; you almost forget what you were feeling and then there is the terrible pull of going back to a place like Somalia or Zimbabwe, where you think there is darkness and you want to give a voice to people who have none. I have been frightened many times. But you forget it, the same way you forget the agonising pain of childbirth.

FB: Bosnia changed all the journalists who lived through it. You recently wrote an essay for Granta about returning to Bosnia and searching for a young boy, Nusrat, you met there. How do you carry Bosnia with you today?
JDG: It is in the face of the little boy I love most in the world, my son, Luca. He is seven, and I met his father there in 1993. If that meeting never happened, that life would not come to be. But aside from the personal reasons, I feel that country pulled me into its vortex – I fell in love, deeply, with this wounded place and I felt so much the horror and the injustice that happened there. I was completely and utterly gutted that the carnage and suffering people endured could have and should have been stopped. Let’s just say I did not emerge the same person I was when I first landed there in 1992. It changed me.

FB: You write about the first “real” death you saw, in Bosnia, and the autopilot mechanism it produced in you. About not knowing how many dead bodies you'd seen over the course of reporting from places like Rwanda and Sierra Leone. How does that sort of mechanism evolve the more wars you live through and the more violence you witness?
JDG: The French psychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik, who has done extensive studies on resilience (and who himself survived losing both his parents in the war), says that the people who survive such things just have an innate button that they push in order to keep their souls intact. I have no idea, but I do know I managed to stay sane on some level and I saw plenty of my friends and colleagues go down. I’m not stronger than them, I just think some people have more resilience in their make-up than others...

FB: Does the new sanitised language of war still allow you to do what it was that made you set out to become a journalist in the first place – giving a voice to people who had none?
JDG: I am just not built to be told where to go, what to write, what to look at. 
I don't respond well to authority. I grew up in the 1970s, the “question authority” generation. And I think journalism has definitely suffered. Compare what was written in Vietnam by reporters such as Gloria Emerson or David Halberstam to the reporting that came out of Iraq. Just not the same quality.
FB: Which newspapers do you read when at home in Paris?
JDG: I read le Figaro and le Parisien, because I get them free at the gym. I don't watch TV but will check the 8pm news on France 2 and occasionally CNN and the BBC. I listen to the radio, France Info, and I check the BBC website. But I am not 
a news junkie any more.

FB: General Patton said that the object of war isn't to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. How has new technology, epitomised by American drone attacks, changed the nature of war?
JDG: What a terrible line. I am not sure war is worth the loss of a single life. I think technology has moved us so far militarily that we seem to have disassociated the victims. Drones are nearly freakish, science fiction-like vehicles operated by someone back in Arizona who has no clue what life is like on the ground. I remember reporting from a remote village, a wedding party in Afghanistan that had gotten bombed “accidentally” and finding pieces of people's lives scattered everywhere – their bloody clothes, the food they were eating, the smashed house. And the few living just sobbing, grabbing my arm and asking, “Why?”

FB: Why do some people escape PTSD while others are consumed by it? 
Your husband Bruno's trauma from covering wars as a photojournalist was of a different form than yours. Is it the peculiarities of how one witnesses that kind of violence?
JDG: They say it's genetic, like alcoholism. They also say that you do not get it until you have a second jarring trauma – then the memories of the first come back. I am a great believer in old-fashioned Woody Allen-style therapy. It’s painful, it goes 
on forever, it hurts like hell, it makes you feel worse before you feel better – but 
it works. But you have to stick with it, and you have to be honest. Personally, 
I have been tested relentlessly and thought I did not have it. Now, looking back over my reaction after the traumatic birth of my son, I think I might have. I mean, 
I behaved like a madwoman hoarding water and medicine and afraid people on the street were going to harm me and my baby... But I would never put myself in 
the same boat as someone in Srebrenica or Kigali who saw their family massacred.

FB: Where to next? Martha Gellhorn said she didn't write, she just wandered about. But she also wrote of this almost obsessive need to follow war wherever she could reach it. Which one is it for you?
JDG: At the moment, I would like to get to northern Kenya and Mogadishu to report on the famine. I can't believe I am seeing the same images from nearly 20 years ago – 1992 – that some of my friends took, and they are taking the exact same ones right now. Don’t we ever learn anything from history?

Ghosts by Daylight is out now, published by Bloomsbury Press.
janinedigiovanni.com


Source: http://www.tankmagazine.com/issue-53/talk/janine-di-giovanni.aspx

Fatima Bhutto has guts

The Bhuttofamilie is the most powerful political dynasty in Pakistan. Fatima Bhutto is averse to. "My uncle, President Asif Ali Zardari, is a criminal, liar and murderer."

Fatima Bhutto (29), the headstrong niece of the 2007 assassinated Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and her widower, Asif Ali Zardari, the current president, is "an unguided missile". Say the friends of the president. Fatima late in her columns for The Daily Beast and including New Statesman, blogs and any chance go to the corrupt practices of her uncle revealed to.

"Fatima has guts," says Zubair Areesh (24), leader and guitarist of the popular pop group in Lahore Rizer, enthusiastically. "Our leaders shamelessly filling their pockets, dancing to the tune of America, do not care to poverty. Look at the floods in the south. Again, thousands of people displaced from their homes.Fatima would have to go into politics. " The three remaining band members, dressed in jeans and their hair stiff with gel, nodding furiously along. | Photo: Dutch Height

Pakistani Kennedys

In the family house of Bhutto in Karachi, once by her famous grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto designed laughs in New York and London trained Fatima to thank her fans. Once it was her grandfather, one of the most charismatic leaders in Pakistan's history, at the head of the Bhutto dynasty. The most powerful political family in the country, because the chain of doom and disaster that struck them, the Pakistani named Kennedy.

But just as averse as she is of her corrupt family, so she is averse to the political dynasty. "A dynasty is against change, excludes others outside the political process and makes people apathetic. Pakistan is the land of the silent majority has become. While we are on the streets en masse should go. "

Fatima Bhutto fights passionately the one-dimensional image in the West Pakistani youth there. "Most of the youth is liberal and peaceful." The U.S. war on terrorism after the attacks in New York in part on Pakistani territory served, and the widespread corruption in American aid money intended for the economic crisis, floating in her hopeless youth in the arms of the Taliban.

The brighter cousin Benazir President Zardari in the media for criminal, liar and murderer belongs, the more support she receives her blogs. She plays the voice of young people, now more than half the Pakistani population.

For every business deal would be a fixed percentage claiming Zardari. "When his wife, my aunt, Benazir was prime minister the first time, he was known as" Mr. 10 Percent ". During her second reign, he was upgraded to "Mr. 50 Percent".Since he is in power, we call him 'Mr. 110 Percent ". The New York Times, the couple would Benazir-Asif 2 to $ 3 million cash are diverted.

Before this former Playboy came to power in 2008, there were cases of corruption against him in Switzerland, Spain and England, and was in his own country accused of four murders. According to Fatima, he also had a hand in the murder of his brother, her father, in 1996. "Among the corruption in Pakistan Zardari has reached epidemic proportions," said Zardari Fatima.Ook muilkorft the press more and more. Any journalist who ridicules the president, risking the cell. Regularly go Facebook, YouTube and Google on black.

Apple and egg

But Fatima does more than just her uncle nailed to the pillory. In the slums of Karachi, she tools up for the poor. In the women's prisons brings them regularly used computers.

They still believe in Pakistan. Stability in the country turns its eyes back until the Americans withdraw from Afghanistan. The bombing militants to operate off extremism. U.S. aid crane can also be closed better, according to Fatima disappears 70 percent. "The international business community to invest in Pakistan. We need jobs. So the desperate youth, now for a song blow up from the street. "

This is a translation from a dutch source : http://www.depers.nl/economie/614966/Fatima-heeft-lef.html

‘Taliban never scared Pak, our federal laws did’

What is it like to rediscover a parent as a grown-up ? "Full of surprises ," admits Song of Blood and Sword author Fatima Bhutto on the day two of The Times of India Literary Carnival. She was surprised when her father's first love, a Greek woman called Della, suspected that there was "somebody else".

And that they broke up only 10 months before Fatima was born. And she was shocked when she learnt that her father's thesis advisor in college was Samuel Huntington. Actor Kabir Bedi brought out more from Fatima in an informal chat at a session aptly called 'Fathers and Daughters'. Did the direct exposure to violence leave her scarred? "Violence, direct or indirect, scars."

Fatima stands for a clean Pakistan, but it's not something she means to achieve by joining politics. Perhaps, an anti-graft movement like Anna Hazare's , prods Bedi. "We have not seen such a movement in Pakistan yet, but there are movements to the contrary like the National Reconciliation Ordinance 'or National Robbers Ordinance' that grants amnesty to the corrupt." When asked if she bought into rumours that her father Murtaza Bhutto was killed because he shaved off Asif Ali Zardari's moustache, she said conspiracy theories were a South Asian speciality. So, why was Murtaza killed? "For pointing out corruption, for being an alternative and when politics revolves around a name (Bhutto), there is no space for two." Fatima isn't complaining only because her father was killed, "but because 3,000 people have been killed in Karachi in encounter killings".

Had her father lived would he have changed Pakistan? "I hope so, maybe, but power corrupts and he, probably, would not have been untouched by it," she says. "But he was a secular man, opposed the brutality of the Zia years when Hudood, (which holds a raped woman, and not the rapist, guilty) blasphemy laws and obscene powers came to be. Taliban never frightened Pakistan , our federal laws did that."

What about the father in Kabir Bedi? He was away during his daughter Pooja's formative years, after divorcing from her mother Protima Bedi, but he sees in her "the same strong, assertive, independent and outspoken streak; I see a lot of Protima in Pooja."

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Taliban-never-scared-Pak-our-federal-laws-did/articleshow/10976813.cms

Power not politics divided the Bhuttos: Fatima

Mumbai: It was power, which is more destructive than politics, that divided Pakistan's powerful Bhutto family, feels the writer-poet scion Fatima Bhutto.

"Power is more destructive than politics. Everybody in the family had different ideologies from the start but when the family became powerful, things began to fracture," the 29-year-old niece of slain Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said at the Times Literary Carnival.

Fatima, who finds penning memoir a strange process since it entails researching one's own family, says she took up writing because of a promise she had made to Murtaza, her father, who like her grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and aunt Benazir, died a violent death.

Fatima Bhutto was 14 years old when her father, Mir Murtaza, was shot dead by police after a gun battle outside his Karachi home in 1996.

"I took up writing because it was the last thing I promised my father Murtaza hours before he was killed," she said speaking on "Selective Nostalgia: Memoir Writing and Charitable Deception of Memory".

"I asked him (Murtaza) why doesn't he write about himself. He told me to do it after he was gone and few hours later he was killed," she said and described her father as a "fascinating figure".

About her latest book "Songs of Desert and Sword", which is an account of Murtaza's life seen through her eyes, she said it was strange to research about her own family while writing the book that dwells on the brutal and corrupt world of Pakistani power politics which claimed the lives of four members of the Bhutto dynasty in the past 31 years.

She said her target audience was the young Pakistani who viewed her writing with "sympathy, solidarity and curiosity".

While conceding that it was not possible to be neutral about people you love, Fatima said she had critically analysed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's handling of Balochistan.

"He could have made a difference by ending the repression of Balochi people but it continued," she said.

Source: http://zeenews.india.com/news/south-asia/power-not-politics-divided-the-bhuttos-fatima_745050.html

Sex, lies and the art of writing honest memoirs

When a celebrated psychoanalyst declares to a packed gathering that facts are the least important part of writing a memoir, the audience sits up in rapt attention tempered with disbelief. "What actually happened is not important-what you believe happened is," said Sudhir Kakar, replying to an audience question on Day One of the Times of India Literary Carnival on Friday.

If memoir-writing was about the subjective recollection of life events for Kakar, for Fatima Bhutto, granddaughter of former Pakistan prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, it was about the necessity to urgently record events as they happened. "We have this amazing ability to erase our immediate past," she said about her country. With some candid revelations peppering the discussion between the three memoir writers-Kakar , Bhutto and historian Zareer Masani-and moderator Patrick French, the postlunch session audience didn't need any caffeine kick to stayawake and fully attentive.

When the debate swung to the topic of honesty, the session saw a bit of cross-fire . Referring to Fatima's soft approach to the controversial parts of her grandfather's life, Masani said, "Unlike Fatima, I need to be honest, brutally honest." (To which she immediately riposted "That's unfair!") But it was Kakar-whose memoir according to French is "very frank by subcontinent standards" -who was the most honest, even at the session. The psychoanalyst had the audience in splits with anecdotes of his time spent in Germany as a wide-eyed , 20-year-old and his six-week-long sea journey from Calcutta to Hamburg where he found himself ogling "young women's legs" . Kakar's brutally honest confessions did not stop there-he went on to narrate the troubles he faced when he danced for the first time with a woman, a German woman: "I had to tie a handkerchief when dancing . I won't say where."

Despite the outpouring of candidness and claims of brutal honesty from Kakar and Masani, they did not contradict Fatima's contention that a memoir was never a tell-all . "There is a strong sense of private-public space. Anyone who has written a memoir will say that they always keep some things to themselves," she said. Kakar had an interesting angle to add to the debate. "The problem with memoirwriting is the voyeuristic pleasure that a reader looks for," he said. "Readers want to know about the writer and do not pay much attention to the writing ." Ergo: "In fiction-writing, you want to convince people. In memoirs, you want to seduce people and so memoir-writing is on the seduction side."

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Sex-lies-and-the-art-of-writing-honest-memoirs/articleshow/10965692.cms

'There's something strange about a name being a part of an identity'

As a 14-year-old , Fatima Bhutto loved listening to her father's stories about the ruthless politics of Pakistan. She urged him to write a book about his life, but Murtaza Bhutto merely laughed and said it would be too dangerous. "You write the book when I'm gone," he told his wide-eyed daughter, who readily agreed.

Neither father nor daughter could have known that this was to be virtually their last conversation. Hours later, Murtaza Bhutto was murdered in Karachi while his children cowered in their house, listening to gunshots. Small wonder then that Fatima grew up determined to keep her promise-and to write a book about his eventful life and suspicious death.

The outcome was the explosive Songs of Blood and Sword in which Fatima Bhutto relates the dramatic, tragic story of her family and country. Her grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, once Pakistan's most important political figure, was executed by General Zia-ul-Haq .

Before his death, he demanded that his sons avenge his humiliation. Shahnawaz and Murtaza embarked on this mission-but Shahnawaz was poisoned in France a few years later. Then Murtaza was killed in Karachi-possibly at the behest of his estranged sister, Benazir Bhutto. Later Benazir, herself, was assassinated.

This blood-splattered memoir catapulted Fatima Bhutto to the limelight-as did her trenchant criticism of Pakistan's leadership.

Watch the articulate 29-year-old discuss memoir writing with Sudhir Kakkar, Zareer Masani and Patrick French at the session Selective Nostalgia today , at Mumbai Fully Booked: The Times of India Literary Carnival.

How did it feel to grow up as part of the Bhutto family?

It didn't-and it shouldn't-feel like anything. I grew up in exile in Damascus so there wasn't any focus on my name. We went to school and lived and were raised without the shadow of our name hanging over us so it didn't really affect my brother and me as kids. I think there's something strange about a name being a part of an identity-it should be built upon what you do and what you think and feel rather than the random letters of a last name.

What was the story you set out to tell in Songs of Blood and Sword?

It was the last promise I had made to my father-that I would tell his story. It was something I always knew I would do, but when I began writing I was not only thinking of my father's life and death, but also the story of violence and politics.

You were born in Kabul, and have lived in Damascus , Karachi, New York and London. So where is home?

The experience of exile does strange things, it very much distorts the idea of home. You're never really at home anywhere, though you adapt easily to new places. I felt very at home in Damascus growing up. When I lived in London and New York, they were home. There's always a longing though, for somewhere else. My writing has largely looked at this part of the world-at South Asia, but this is where home is now.

Is there any way to quell the turbulence in Pakistan?

There's no easy answer to that question. Pakistan suffers from extraordinarily poor leadership-leadership that is pathologically corrupt and violent. It used to be that every once in a while, the faces changed though the politics remained the same. Now not even the faces change. Pakistan's people have no recourse against the state, no access to justice, no access to the most basic of services like health care or elementary education . Look at the floods. Months on from the second year of devastating flooding, there are still five million people who have been abandoned by the state. They have no medical relief, many are homeless, they have no food security. The turbulence doesn't come from the people, they bear the brunt of it.

Is there a fresh burst of creativity coming out of South Asia?

I don't think there's been a time when there wasn't creativity coming out of South Asia. You go back decades and you have the poetry of Sarojini Naidu, of Faiz, of Tagore. You go back centuries and you have great learning coming out of universities in Taxila and Varanasi and Nalanda.

Look at the last five years, you're spoilt for choice. I think South Asia has tremendous authors. Basharat Peer, Hari Kunzru, Hanif Kureishi, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Dilip Hiro are a bunch of the best.

As a child and teenager, what were your feelings towards India?

We share a past, a beautiful heritage. I have great affection for India. I always feel very welcome whenever I am there-and I hope Indians who have visited Pakistan will agree that that the same goes for them here.

Do you think that exercises like literary festivals can help build bridges?

We need people to people contact desperately. It's amazing how little interaction we have between the two countries . Literary festivals demonstrate very clearly that we have a wealth of similar, connected stories. Our scars are the same. Our joys are similar. And they create a space for dialogue that is very important.

Source: http://m.timesofindia.com/city/mumbai/Theres-something-strange-about-a-name-being-a-part-of-an-identity/articleshow/10952212.cms

Jaipur Literature Festival 2012

Fatima Bhutto is listed as one of the confirmed speakers for the Jaipur Literature Festival to be help in January 2012. For details visit:

http://jaipurliteraturefestival.org/attending-authors/

Fatima Bhutto...‘I am not doing a film...

Fatima Bhutto has managed to stay in the news. While Benazir’s niece refuses to be a part of dynastic politics, she is putting the life of the Bhutto family in a book. But is she doing a film as has been reported? Her answer: It’s funny!


Whether it was her very vocal opposition to her aunt Benazir or her writing or her opposition to dynastic politics, Fatima always makes to the headlines. And the latest is that filmmaker Ahsan Hyder wants to cast her in his Breaking Free and, as the media has reported, has even got in touch with her agent? Fatima laughs it off as she says, “That story is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. I’ve never heard of Ahsan Hyder nor do I have a secretary in Dubai, who apparently ‘reads’ me the scripts. In fact, I’ve never been offered any role in any movie. The last time I acted was in Class XI in an adaptation of The Odd Couple.”

‘I’m writing on the Bhutto family’:

I have been writing, travelling and speaking about Pakistan. I was in China and then in Cuba, where I had gone to write about living in the aftermath of the revolution and it was amazing. I am writing a book on the family at the moment. It’s been hyped as a lot of things; I don’t want to ruin the surprise by saying more.

‘Indian food is my weakness’:

I might not be doing a Bollywood film but I am very fond of India. I came there last for the Jaipur Literary Festival. I believe we’re sister countries. Like siblings, our similarities connect us far more than our differences tear us apart. I like the people, they have always been so kind to me, es pecially when they find out I’m from Pakistan. And I love the food… especially the thali. I’m a vegetarian so I really like South Indian food – dosas and idlis. There’s a place in Karachi that does South Indian food and chaat really well and I’m there embarrassingly often.

‘I and Benazir were never on the same side of any issue’:

My aunt is gone and I don’t want to drudge up the past. But people haven’t stopped comparing me with her. People see the fact that we’re both women, we both lost our fathers in violent ways, we were both educated abroad and immediately assume that we must be the same person. But those are completely cosmetic similarities. Benazir grew up in power, she grew up as
the daughter of a prime minister. I grew up in exile. She attended very pro-establishment, almost right wing universities, whereas I went to Columbia and SOAS, two of the most radically leftist and progressive schools around. As for our personal or political differences, there are far too many to count. Let’s just say, I’m not sure we stood on the same side of any issue.

‘I don’t believe in dynastic politics’:

I’ve never believed in dynastic politics, which has been as deadly for my country as dictatorships have been. I am political, very much so, but there’s so many ways to be involved politically and from what we’ve seen in Pakistan, government isn’t necessarily the most positive avenue. I work on several grassroots issues and I write about the corruption of the governments and the violence and poverty that has mired Pakistan’s people in this abject state.

‘I don’t know Bilawal well’:

I don’t know Bilawal well. Before his mother’s death, I last saw him when he was eight years old. He’s a young man and he’s been through a devastating loss. He is a student and I think he deserves some privacy.

Source: http://www.dilsedesi.co/forums/index.php?showtopic=4158

The Prodigal Daughter by GUNJEET SRA

A writer, an activist and the controversial heir apparent to a splintered political dynasty, Fatima Bhutto talks about being the unofficial voice of Pakistan's young woman

The was 14 years old when her father Mir Murtaza Bhutto was shot dead right outside their home in Karachi, in a political conspiracy that was termed as an encounter. Scared, she had turned to her aunt, Benazir, the then Prime Minister of the country only to receive cold comfort. It is no surprise then that 28-year-old Fatima Bhutto, who fought for 10 years to bring forth her father's story, should want to shun the history that has bloodied her lineage; a history very similar to the country that she calls home. Staying clear of her country's complicated politics, she has now carved an identity for herself. One that goes beyond power politics. Famously quipping that the comparisons between her aunt and her were largely cosmetic and going on to add, "In terms of political ideology, what we read, how we think, we are very different. I don't think that I'm anything like her."
Quite true, considering the fact that she is openly vocal about her dislike of the political and military elite that has ruled Pakistan for over six decades. In the 2007-2008 elections she chose to campaign door to door, educating women about their voting rights, visiting almost 300 homes a day, working from morning till at least 10 at night. She says that it was the most 'oddly' liberating experience for her. "I was there mainly to drive home the point that they had to vote. That if they didn't, someone else would cast a vote in their name and that they had a responsibility to ensure that rigging didn't happen on their names." It was also during this time that she was exposed to the incredible dispossession that women, more than almost anyone else, face in Pakistan.
During one such election campaign at the time, news broke of Benazir's assassination. Fatima went home and wrote a column for The News, a bittersweet farewell that started with the words, "My aunt and I had a complicated relationship. That is the sad truth," and ended with the hope that "In death, perhaps there is a moment to call for calm. To say enough… We cannot, and will not, take this madness any more." An outcry against the existing system and an urgency for change. Insisting on the fact that there are more than three choices that Pakistan has more than the PPP (Pakistan's Peoples Party), the PML (Pakistan Muslim League) and the army she says hers is the voice of a new generation of Pakistanis. "It's a voice that is not just secular, but moderate, anti-the war on terror and has yet to live through a period where Pakistan is in control over its sovereignty and its foreign policy." She fears that if the next generation is not given a chance to take part in the country, "then we are closing a door to them, a door that they will eventually abandon. They will leave and go to other countries," she says. It is perhaps this need for a new order that is keeping this young Bhutto away from formally being part of the public system.
Having done her Bachelors in Middle Eastern Studies from Barnard College, Columbia University, USA, and an MA in South Asian Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, politics has always been a key area of interest, but it is writing that she is truly passionate about. Her first book was a collection of poems, titled Whispers of the Desert, written at the precocious age of 15. But it was only when she wrote her second book 8.50 a.m. 8 October, a collection of stories about the 2005 earthquake that killed 73,000 people in Kashmir and North West Frontier Province, did she finally enter the writer-activist mode. The shift from poetry to non-fiction is quite drastic, but she insists that poetry started as a school project. "There is a lot of fear and violence in those poems and I think this has carried through to what I write currently. This awareness of fear, thus the shift to prose or non-fiction wasn't much of a transit for me," she says.
Fear is a feeling that she is familiar with. It is perhaps what she felt when her father did not return home in 1996 to continue the basketball game he had challenged her to. It is the feeling of being abandoned by family. Of being told at school that there is a woman outside claiming to be your mother, while you lock yourself in the nurse's room trying to avoid the media and wondering how can you trust a stranger when the only mother you know is waiting for you at home the woman who brought her up like her own. The woman was Ghinwa Bhutto, her father's second wife, whom he married while in exile in Syria.

Her latest book, Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter's Memoir, is a tribute to her father and tells the story of the Bhutto family, and her father's life and death. It's set in the context of the whole canvas of Pakistan's history from Partition in 1947 onward.The book begins with its central event, her father's "encounter" outside the iconic Bhutto mansion, 70 Clifton in Karachi, where Fatima and her family still reside. The story revolves around the tragic split within the Bhutto family after the death of its patriarch, the charismatic social reformer Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was Pakistan's first democratically elected leader. This ultimately pitted his eldest child, Benazir Bhutto, against his eldest son, Mir Murtaza. She says her reasons for writing this book were more than personal. "Our history in Pakistan is written either by foreigners or by the establishment. There really isn't another layer, another transcript," she says, continuing, "What I hoped to do with this book was to write about that hidden transcript, the way people live, the way violence affects people, written by someone who watched it rather than by someone who perpetrated it," she says.

It is inherent patriotism that pushes her. "I talk and write about very serious issues that plague our country or the larger region, it's always been my choice to do so. I don't do it because I am someone's daughter. At some point, however, people suddenly realised that, I was a Bhutto and it meant something at that point," she says. But the love for her country is something that she attributes to her father. "Even while we were living in exile in Syria, my father would constantly have Bollywood movies on and even though he did not particularly like them, they just gave a sense of being home. Sindhi music was another strong influence," she says.
She admits that she could not understand her father's choking emotion for Pakistan initially. "We were in a limbo, we believed and inhabited a middle place. I didn't know for a long time, what he meant when his eyes would tear up, when he would talk about Karachi, his home. But when I went to Pakistan at the age of seven, everything made sense. I feel it now, especially since the book came about, I spend so much time travelling," she says with a smile and adds that her next book is all about Karachi.
Only time will tell if people's expectations will finally win her over, enough to cross over to the other side. Till then, she is happy to write about, rather than inherit, her political dynasty.

Source: http://www.magtheweekly.com/07may-13may2011/interview.asp

Trade between India, Pak around USD 2 billion: Bhutto

Thiruvananthapuram. Ms Fatima Bhutto, grand-daughter of former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and niece of slain former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, said trade between India and Pakistan is around USD two billion.

Ms Fatima Bhutto, who is in the city as part of the fourth edition of the Kovalam Literary Festival at Kanakakunnu palace here, said ”out of USD two billion, our volume of trade is a fraction, a single digit of the business that we do with strangers.” ”Described as ‘grim’ ‘unnaturally small’, we account for less than 0.5 per cent of your trade and you account for a little more than one per cent of ours as of 2010,” she said.

”This wasn’t always the case – in 1948-49, 70 per cent of our transactions were with you and 63 per cent of your exports were to us,” he added.

”Lazy economists casually float that trade could rise to USD ten billion in five years, or may be six. Or really may be 15 years. That’s just not fast enough. Especially if you consider that studies have shown potential for formal trade is 20 times greater than what we have – we should be hitting 40 billion. You don’t fight when 40-42 billion is in the way,” she observed.

”Our destinies are inexorably linked, just as our pasts were, and as they were largely peacefully. It is this that we must insist upon that for the course of our future. Justice is not outside ours border, it is within them collectively, we have to find a way to bring it out and guard it, protectively, fiercely. Our generations depend on it,” she noted. Agency

Source: http://jaipur.co/trade-between-india-pak-around-usd-2-billion-bhutto/

'Pakistan is a survivors' country'

South Asia | 05.10.2011

'To be silent makes you more vulnerable'

Fatima Bhutto is a young writer and journalist from Pakistan, a country she criticizes for its political corruption and violence. And yet, it is a survivors' country, she tells Deutsche Welle.

Fatima Bhutto (29) is a member of the Bhutto dynasty in Pakistan: she is the granddaughter of former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the niece of Benazir Bhutto. Her father Murtaza Bhutto was assassinated in 1996. As a writer and journalist, she is an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s political elite, to which she herself belongs.

Deutsche Welle: You grew up in Pakistan, a country with huge disparities between the rich elite and the poor. What are your earliest memories of these disparities?

Fatima Bhutto: When you grow up in a place like Pakistan, you are struck by the gaps between people who have tremendous opportunities and privileges - and the millions who simply don’t. This is a nuclear country that couldn’t fight polio because it couldn’t freeze the vaccines… And seeing that from an early age makes you frustrated and helpless.

We have a government that hasn’t done dam maintenance for over 30 years, so we don’t have the infrastructure and have floods almost every year. I must have been in sixth or seventh grade and I remember seeing this flood, watching images on TV - and realising that nothing was happening. So with some friends, we started calling people and asked them for clothes and medicine.

Do you think collecting medicine and clothes is enough, particularly when you look at the spiralling violence in Karachi?

No, it’s never enough. But I think what you see that’s hopeful in places like Karachi is the community feeling. It's that when there is a tremendous amount of violence people don’t depend on the police or the state to protect them, but rather they depend on their community. And their community comes together to get the children off the roads in gang-infested areas and into tuition centres. And so, one thing is to support these community initiatives. But as you said, it’s not enough. What you need is an entire system overhaul so that these things are automatically provided for people.

What are the main problems facing Pakistan today?

'The government hasn't done dam maintenance in 30 years'The situation is getting much worse. Corruption seems to be a celebrated part of political ethics. Violence seems to be very easily absorbed by the state that thinks nothing of the fact that in four days a hundred of their people can be killed. And all the while the world watches. - The world watches because Pakistan is a front line state, so what does it matter if a hundred people die in the span of a day? What does it matter if children don’t have access to basic medical care and die of preventable deaths like malaria?

Corruption, violence, preventable deaths - is Pakistan in danger of becoming a failed state?

I always thought that was outrageous to call Pakistan a failed state because as a country, it is only 60 years old. The system of government is absolutely failed, yes. This government and the government before it, yes they failed. But the state itself cannot be a failure. If we look in Pakistan outside of the government, it is a tremendously hopeful place. It’s a rich country. Its full of natural resources. It has a large, young population. And it has a young country’s hope for what it can accomplish.

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, is young and she’s a woman…

What is sad about the political culture of Pakistan is that we don’t talk about ideas, we just talk about people. Gender is never a substitute for ethics or justice. I don’t care whether she is young or old, or a woman. I want to know what she is saying. And what she is saying seems to be exactly the same thing that people have been saying before for the last 30 years. What I want to know, is how can an independent country like Pakistan have a foreign policy that makes us subservient to almost every country we deal with? That to me is outrageous. How do you have a nuclear country, a rich country whose policy is based around begging for aid?

Khar, like yourself, is part of the small elite that rules Pakistan. Is there any space for democracy in Pakistan?

I think there is a problem with the dynastic culture of my country. Until democratic institutions are strengthened and run freely, something like dynasty just subverts the democratic process. I don’t think this will change in my lifetime. I think it needs generations to fix and a commitment to democratic ideas. We don’t see that in Pakistan. Making someone like Khar foreign minister sends a message especially to young people that the only way into politics in Pakistan is through families - and for a country of 180 million people that’s a really rotten thing to tell them.

You are very outspoken. Are you afraid something might happen to you?

Violence in Karachi You know I think everybody in Pakistan is afraid, because there is no recourse against state violence. And that’s historical: The violence ebbs and flows. Some governments are more violent than others. This is a period of intense violence. But in a place that is as dangerous when it comes to violence and freedom as Pakistan is, to be silent doesn’t make you safer, it makes you more vulnerable.

You’ve painted a picture of violence, of corruption, of poverty - what do you love about Pakistan?

I think it’s a survivors' country, I think it’s a place that survives against the odds: the ordinary people that make it run. I think that it’s a place that has always been open, in terms of hospitality, in terms of warmth, to new people, to new cultures. I think that it’s a place that struggles to build something that is more just, that is different than what is imposed from above. I think that is unique about Pakistan.

Interview: Naomi Conrad

Editor: Rob Mudge

Source:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15435001,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf

Fatima Bhutto slams Hina Rabbani Khar

Fatima Bhutto, granddaughter of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto criticized Hina Rabbani Khar for towing the line in her new role as Pakistan’s foreign minister.

Bhutto told Deutsche Welle in an interview that she was not concerned with Khar’s age or gender — what mattered for her was Khar’s work.

“What is sad about the political culture of Pakistan is that we don’t talk about ideas, we just talk about people. Gender is never a substitute for ethics or justice… I don’t care whether she is young or old, or a woman. I want to know what she is saying. And what she is saying seems to be exactly the same thing that people have been saying before for the last 30 years,” Deutsche Welle quoted Bhutto.

Answering a question about Khar being a part of the small elite that rules Pakistan, Bhutto said that if democratic institutions are not strengthened, dynasties that have ruled Pakistan in the past will supersede the democratic process.

Deutsche Welle quoted Bhutto saying “making someone like Khar foreign minister sends a message especially to young people that the only way into politics in Pakistan is through families – and for a country of 180 million people that’s a really rotten thing to tell them.”

Talking about the problems faced by Pakistan, Bhutto said that corruption has become a part of the political culture and violence has become an acceptable thing. However, she called Pakistan a survivors’ country.

“I think it’s a place that survives against the odds: the ordinary people that make it run,” Bhutto said.

Source: http://tribune.com.pk/story/267597/fatima-bhutto-slams-hina-rabbani-khar/#comment-365017

People of India, Pakistan not enemies: Fatima Bhutto

Noted Pakistani writer, journalist and grand daughter of former Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Fatima Murtaza Bhutto said that the people of Pakistan and India are not enemies and there is no enmity between the common people of both the countries.

She spoke with Arun Lakshman on the sidelines of the Kovalam literary festival, which she inaugurated on Saturday.

There has been vehement criticism that your book Songs of Blood and Sword is a work done to legitimise your father Murtaza Bhutto (son of former Pakistan premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and brother of Benazir Bhutto) and that it does not reflect the history, politics or the social situation of Pakistan in the right perspective?

The book is indeed a memoir of my father Murtaza Bhutto, but it does reflect the history and politics of Pakistan. I have done extensive research to cover the history and I feel I have done justice to the work. Regarding the political and social aspects of Pakistan, I have been clearheaded in writing it. Also, a major part of the history has been before I was born and I had to depend on lot of research material available for writing this book.

Noted Pakistani writer and political activist, who was once a student leader and then advisor the Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Raja Anwar in his book The Terror Prince. The Life and Death of Murtaza Bhutto has said that Murtaza was behind the Al-Zulfikar organisation and it was formed to avenge the death of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Your comments on this?

Raja Anwar wrote this book after the tragic death of my father. He should have written it well before my father was assassinated because then he could have defended the writings against him in the book. Now there is no such defence as my father is no more. Also, Raja Anwar was in a Kabul prison from 1982 to 1985 during the period when these incidents occurred, as claimed in the book. This means he has relied on hearsay and not on facts. There have been several other mistakes in the book including the name of persons and places.

Your book has been published in English, French, Italian and even in Hindi but not in the most popular medium in Pakistan, Urdu. Why is it so?

Urdu is the language used by the local and ordinary people of Pakistan, while English is used by the elite of the country. The elite is lazy and afraid, and does not act, so the rulers don't find it a major threat for a book published in a language read by the elite of Pakistan. But every ruler is afraid of the local people and rightly so; the Pakistani establishment also fears that. No Urdu publisher has come forward to print my work in the Urdu. No distributor was willing to sell this book.

Do you feel that the strong-arm tactics employed by the Pakistani establishment is the reason behind Urdu publishing houses not bringing out your work?

What else can be the reason? As a writer I want millions of Pakistani people who speak and read Urdu to read this book rather than the elite class, who are always afraid to act and speak out. If published in Urdu, local people will know and understand what happened to my father and where the country was headed to. This could have had a major impact on the society of Pakistan.

How is the young generation in Pakistan? Are they actively involved in cleansing the political system in your country or are they aloof from all this?

I can't say in one shot about the young generation of Pakistan. They are from different classes in different areas. For instance, the youth of Sindh province may be different from other areas and Sindh is a place that I know well. Here the youngsters are restless and want to change the system or rather want to move out and do something for the country. Throughout Pakistan youngsters are for freedom; to think freely, just like youth of any country.

Do you think Pakistan will see a youth uprising just as it happened in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and some Arab countries like Oman and Bahrain?

I don't see it is coming now, but youths want freedom and they want a corruption free democratic political rule and not a dictatorship or the corrupt administration of today. However, we cannot rule out the possibility.

How do you rate the present Pakistani government?

There is nothing much to say about the present Pakistani government and they are already into major acts of corruption and nepotism at the cost of the country.

Several Pakistani writers and authors and journalists have gone on record that the feared and dreaded Inter-services Intelligence has threatened them and that they were being followed. Have you ever been threatened by the ISI?

The ISI has never threatened me. But after my book Songs of Blood and Sword was published, there have been several actions by the establishment on my family that can be considered as a threat or more than that. In fact, the car in which my mother was travelling was shot at. Those who went to complain about this and to register a first information report were beaten up by the police.

Are these threats the handiwork of the Pakistani establishment as such or a single individual, Asif Ali Zardari?

I cannot say that. But Asif Ali Zardari is still an accused on the allegations raised by me and he can very well employ any means against me. Moreover, he is at present the President of Pakistan and is very powerful.

You are a vehement critic of social networking siteFacebook. Why is it so?

Facebookintrudes into our personal life and can easily produce all our details at a click of a button to any agency around the world. This is not good for a civil society. However,Youtube and messaging are excellent.Facebookalso intrudes the websites we visit.

Facebookhowever gave inspiration for the Jasmine revolution (2010-2011 Tunisian Revolution). Didn't it play a good role?

Of course. Other than Facebook other social networking sites, mobile messages and Youtube too have been used well. I do say that as freedom is ultimate, people are welcome to use anything that they like, but there is skepticism about Facebook,as it can provide any information it has to anyone or any country.

Do you feel that Pakistan is a failed state?

No, never. Pakistani people have self determination. Our country is rich and abundant in oil, minerals, gold, rice and other agriculture produce, and the people have the will to work. Around 60 per cent of the population is under 30 years of age. The handiwork of one or two corrupt and power-hungry individuals who run the country as their fiefdom is creating problems. So I think Pakistan has a good future and that it will rise to its potential and abundance.

What is the situation of the minorities in Pakistan?

The minorities do have their problems in Pakistan as they have in India. However, the nature of the difficulties varies from place to place. There are mandirs and churches in the Sindh area, but may be in other parts it is not seen much. The problems being faced by the minorities of Pakistan is the one faced in other countries also. Just before this visit I had entered the Swami Narayan Temple in Karachi and did not face any problems.

What about the situation in Balochistan?

Baluchistan is one of the areas of our country that is rich in mineral wealth. There are issues in Balochistan and there are thoughts that it is the handiwork of foreign powers. If the Baluch people are naturally uprising for their rights, then there is no wrong in it, but if there are foreign powers involved in it, then we have to know what their motive is.

There were uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya recently. Your comments on this?

The revolution in Egypt and Tunisia has been organic and from the locals. We know that students had taken to the streets in these countries to overthrow corrupt rulers and administrations.

In Libya, the situation is different. We don't know who is behind these forces who have led the movement. Is it the Al-Qaeda, is it some other forces? It is interesting to note that the American embassy has issued a notification that there is huge oil wealth in Libya.

You come from the famous Bhutto family. In India there is the noted Gandhi family. Do you find anything in common between these two families, as both have ruled their respective countries and there have been tragedies in both the families?

I can't say that there is anything in common between these two families. I am of the opinion that one should not enter into politics one fine morning claiming to be from a family which has political history and lineage. This is not the right thing to do in politics.

Any new book in the offing?

Yes, I am planning a book on Karachi. However, it will take time as I am presently in a tour to promote my new book Songs of Blood and Sword throughout the world.

Source: http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-people-of-india-pakistan-not-enemies-fatima-bhutto/20111003.htm