The Diary: Fatima Bhutto

The Pakistani author talks about a visit to Jaipur and learning from a younger brother

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8a4f45dc-50cb-11e1-ab40-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1m3ORn2fH

The Jaipur Quit Fest

The Jaipur Literature Festival — which has grown from a modest literary gathering to one of the world's most star-studded literary extravaganzas — was mired in controversy last week. Its organizers hoped to solidify its position as one of the world's premiere literary destinations by having Oprah Winfrey, among others, as a special guest. But Oprah's attendance was overshadowed by the events surrounding Salman Rushdie, who was forced to cancel his appearance at the Jaipur Lit Fest, as it is often called, when issues of his own safety were raised by police reports suggesting a gang from the Bombay underworld were coming to kill him.

The gangsters were thought to have been empowered by the protests against Rushdie's visit from students of the nearby Darul Uloom Deoband Islamic seminary which had asked the government to not grant the author a visa (incidentally, he didn't need one) as he had allegedly hurt religious sentiments of Muslims with his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses. (In the end the gangsters, it seemed, were a figment of two Rajastani police officers' imagination, who, by choosing the path of least resistance, concocted the story into to frighten Rushdie into not coming.)

Further controversy followed when writers, wanting to express solidarity with Rushdie by reading from The Satanic Verses, were stopped doing so by festival organizers. One of those readers was Ruchir Joshi who has written a thoughtful, candid and angryaccount of his experience at the festival. Joshi suggested that the festival's organizers "were merely keen to get us troublemakers off the premises." Hari Kunzru and Amitava Kumar have also written accounts of their experience. (Lit fest organizers William Dalyrmple and Sanjoy Roy defend their actions here and here.)

The integrity of the festival — now reckoned to draw 50,000 people — and its long line of corporate sponsors, seemed to some observers of greater priority than both the principle of free expression and the defense of a writer and his book from angry people who in every likelihood have never read Rushdie's novel.

Oprah was also overshadowed by the appearance of Nation Books author Fatima Bhutto, whose discussion on Pakistan with historian and sociologist Ayesha Jalal drew as many, if not more, attendees than Oprah. (Watch the panel, moderated by Karan Thapar, with a cow in an adjacent lot mooing in chorus.)

But it was a panel moderated by Bhutto, "Writing and Resistance," that offered a poignant reminder of what a literary festival — beyond celebrity, beyond gossip, beyond self-congratulation — can and should do. It featured the Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh, Burmese writer Thant Myint-U, and the Kashmiri journalist Iftikhar Gilani — all writers who have in one way or another confronted the brutality of state power — and explored the relationship between writing and activism.

Bhutto began the discussion by invoking these imperishable lines from Ryszard Kapuściński's 1982 book, Shah of Shahs:

All books about all revolutions begin with a chapter that describes the decay of tottering authority or the misery and sufferings of the people. They should begin with a psychological chapter, one that shows how a harassed, terrified man suddenly breaks his terror, stops being afraid. This unusual process, sometimes accomplished in an instant like a shock or a lustration, demands illuminating. Man gets rid of fear and feels free. Without that there would be no revolution.

Bhutto asked her panelists: Is that harassed man a constant in your writing?

The discussion that followed circled back to this question. It also examined these questions: Why is writing regarded as secondary to physical resistance? What kind of fraternity can exist between writers and the space of resistance? What is the role of a writer in a resistance movement (both Gilani and Shehadeh suggested that resistance movements without intellectual guidance can descend in to chaos).

At one moment Bhutto recounted Gilani's experience of having books by EM Forster confiscated by the Indian security forces and then paused and asked the panel, "What is so dangerous about books?" to which Gilani replied, "The danger is never in the book, only in the mind of the security people."

When asked about the similarities between resistance struggles across the world, Shehadeh suggested that it was a privilege for a writer to be involved in struggle because that experience allowed one to emphasize with struggle and suffering elsewhere.

A serious subject for discussion, but the mood was lightened by Gilani's witty accounts of cricket games played inside the Indian jail where he spent eight months in 2002 and his suggestion that all writers, perhaps, should spend some time in prison.

• Source: http://www.nationinstitute.org/blog/nationbooks/2576/the_jaipur_quit_fest/

'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

I want to establish as a writer : Fatima Bhutto

Thiruvananthapuram: Noted Pakistani writer Fatima Bhutto said she did not want to enter politics, but would like to establish herself as a writer. She is here to attend the two-day long "Kovalam Literary Festival".

Fatima, granddaughter of former Pakistan Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, told reporters dynastic politics in her country had not produced anything progressive in the last 30 years and it was important for the Bhuttos to be kept out of politics.

She said she did not subscribe to the view that her country is a 'failed nation', though governance was a failure.

"Pakistan is not a small or failed nation. But the system of governance there is a failure. It has nothing to do with people in Pakistan," Fathima said.


"People in Pakistan aspire for hundred per cent democracy and there should be fair elections," Fatima said.

Fatima, 29, who has penned three books including collection of poems "Whispers of Desert" and "Songs of Blood and Sword", said "the question of 'why I did not become a politician' is just like why I did not become a dentist."

Fatima, also the niece of slain Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, said she had good memories about her aunt before she had entered politics. "She was a courageous woman" who stood for some values and standards.

On freedom of expression in Pakistan, Fatima said she had written books and columns in newspapers. But she had to stop her columns since 2008 when the new government came to power.

Her book "Songs of Blood and Sword" was published in India and they were later circulated in Pakistan. "A large number of good literary works and films come from Pakistan these days and the"difficult conditions there have produced a major chunk of them," she said.

A best-selling author, Fatima said her new book would be on Pakistan and Karachi. It would not be a story about herself, but about a 'misunderstood place. "I visited Mumbai and Delhi before.Now I want to see another side of India and learn more about south India. That's why I have come to Kerala. People here are warm and welcoming," she said. Asked about 'accumulation' of arms by Pakistan, she said not only Pakistan, but none in the world should do so.

Source:
http://english.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/contentView.do?contentId=10162195&tabId=18&channelId=-1073865025&BV_ID=%40%40%40

The prodigal daughter

She was 14 years old when her father, Mir Murtaza Bhutto was shot dead right outside his home in Karachi, Pakistan, 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."

A sentiment that comes across in almost all of her prose. 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 ter ror 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 at 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. Her 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 1979 assassination of its patriarch, the charismatic social reformer Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was Pakistan's first democratically elected leader. His murder by General Zia ul-Haq, who subsequently took power, 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, the missing- him choking up-all 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.

Short on time because Rahul Gandhi has asked for an appointment, she is in a rush and while she is on her way out, Aitzaz Ahsan, former President of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan, walks in, looks her in the eye and says, "Who you have here is the very best of our country, our future." 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.

With inputs from Olina Banerji.

Source:http://www.indiatoday.intoday.in/site/story/the-prodigal-daughter/1/134566.html

When Fatima held everyone’s gaze

Khushwant Singh, Hindustan Times

April 17, 2010

"I have been to dozens of book launches, but I have yet to see one on as grand a scale as this one,” said my daughter Mala Dayal as she came home from the launch of Fatima Bhutto’s Songs of Blood and Sword (Penguin Viking). She continued “There must have been nearly 1,000 guests; it was a packed house. On the stage sat William Dalrymple in white kurta-pyjama and the Bhutto girl. She is a stunner. She was very craftily dressed to please her Indian audience and also maintain her Pakistani identity. She was draped in a sari instead of salwar-kameez and wore a red bindi on her forehead. That warmed the hearts of her Indian audience. Her sari was green — the colour of Pakistan. She spoke in flawless English about her country.”

My daughter had not read her book. No one in the audience had till after the launch. But some of her history is known. She introduces herself on book jacket in a few lines printed in red:

Grand-daughter to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto — executed 1979

Niece to Shah Nawaz Bhutto — murdered 1985

Daughter of Mir Murtaza Bhutto — assassinated 1996

Niece to Benazir Bhutto — assassinated 2007

On these four skeletons Fatima Bhutto fleshes out the saga of the Bhuttos.

Their forefather Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto, Diwan of Junagarh, migrated back to his ancestral town, Garhi Khuda Baksh in district Larkana. His son Zulfiqar Ali rose to power in Pakistan before being hanged. Zulfiqar’s daughter Benazir out-manoeuvred her brother to grab her father’s political legacy and acquired vast amounts of real estate in Europe and America, to which her husband Asif Ali Zardari added a lot more. He came to be known as ‘Mr 10 per cent’ because he is said to have charged this as commission for brokering deals between the government and investors.

The assassins of Benazir Bhutto remain unidentified. But Fatima has named Asif Ali Zardari for four murders and having himself acquitted by a subservient judiciary. She has invited trouble, as if she harbours a death wish. She is as gutsy as she is beautiful.

She did me the honour of calling on me before she took her flight to Karachi. I could not take my eyes off her. I kept gazing at the pin-head of a diamond sparkling on the left side of her nose and her long jet-black curly hair falling on her shoulders. I hope I see her at least once more before my time is up.

Fatima ends her book in memorable prose: “Amidst all this madness, all these ghosts and memories of times past, it feels like the world around me is crumbling slowly, flaking away. Sometimes when it is late at night, I feel my chest swell with a familiar anxiety. I think at these times, that I have no more place in my heart for Pakistan. I cannot love it any more. I have to get away from it for anything to make sense, nothing here ever does. But when the hours pass, and as I ready myself for sleep as the light filters through my windows, I hear the sound of those mynah birds. And I know I could never leave.”

Incidentally, I also added a new word to my vocabulary which fits both Pakistan and India. It is ‘saprophytic’, which means feeding on decaying organic matter.

Both nations rely on all that is rotten in their past.

Source:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/When-Fatima-held-everyone-s-gaze/H1-Article1-532658.aspx

Reading Fatima Bhutto in Bombay

Sunday, April 11, 2010
By Aakar Patel
Fatima Bhutto was in Bombay this week, and she was magnificent.

She was here to promote her book, Songs of Blood and Sword. She began her tour to India with a reading in Delhi, where she was interviewed by the star reporters of television channels, like NDTV's Barkha Dutt, and then another in Bangalore before coming to Bombay.

The event in Bombay was at a bookstore. I have been to readings at that particular bookstore before but it hasn't been as packed as it was for her. About 150 people were present. We sat on a little stage. She was to read a couple of pages, then I was to have a discussion with her, and then the audience would ask questions. There were a dozen photographers to our right and a half dozen television cameras facing us, behind the audience. Other writers had also come, and I saw Gregory David Roberts, who wrote Shantaram, the book on his life in Bombay.

Fatima read from the chapter on her father's killing, with which she opens the book. The most interesting part of the chapter is the end when she describes the evening of September 20, 1996. After she hears gunshots outside, and cannot locate her father, the 14-year-old Fatima telephones Benazir, her Wadi Bua, at the prime minister's house.

"The music on the other end of the line was soon interrupted by a click and a silence. 'Hello? Wadi?' I said, calling my aunt the name only I used for her. 'No, she can't come to the phone right now.' It was Zardari. It was no secret that none of us in the family liked Asif Zardari, my aunt's oleaginous husband. On the few social occasions where I saw him, we shared nothing other than a cursory hello. 'I need to speak to my aunt,' I said tersely, not wanting to speak to Zardari. 'You can't,' he replied, equally brusque. 'It's very important, I need to speak with her now.' 'She can't come to the phone right now,' Zardari replied. 'It's very important and I don't want to talk to you, I need to talk to her,' I insisted, my voice quickening. I had wasted enough time on this phone call already. 'She can't speak, she's hysterical,' Zardari replied. As if on cue, there was a loud wailing sound in the background.

It had been quiet before, with no indication that anyone was in the room with Zardari, and all of a sudden there was an almost desperate crying shattering the silence. 'What? No, I have to speak with her, please put her on the phone,' I continued, growing confused at what seemed like a theatrical attempt to keep me from talking to the one person who was in charge.

'Oh, don't you know?' Zardari responded. 'Your father's been shot.'''

Fatima read evenly, in her American accent, and by the time she ended, the audience was hers. I noticed the faces turn sympathetic as she read, and they remained so. During our discussion, when I suggested that it wasn't fully clear who was responsible for her father's killing, one woman in the front row made a disapproving noise.

I asked her a few questions: on the charisma of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, on the two sides of his personality, on her father and her aunt. Fatima is exquisite to look at, beautiful and slender as only the very rich can be. She is 28, and I cannot remember having met someone else of that age who has been as confident in their carriage and as clear about their view. I think some of the things she believes quite strongly today, she will review over time. One is the notion that America is responsible for most of Pakistan's problems. Another is that the army's dominance of Pakistan is linked to a universal problem that poor countries like Lanka and Bangladesh also have.

The questioning from the audience was quite good, which is unusual for India.

In Delhi, where she was in conversation with the writer William Dalrymple, Fatima said she was asked for her thoughts on Shoaib Malik and Sania Mirza. She scolded us for our obsession with trivial things, and rightly.

The first question in Bombay was why the cover of her book was so deliberately gruesome. The book is black, with writing in red that advertises its author as: 'Granddaughter to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, executed 1979; niece to Shahnawaz Bhutto, murdered 1985; daughter of Mir Murtaza Bhutto, assassinated 1996; niece of Benazir Bhutto, assassinated 2007'. What was the need to make it so sensational, she was asked.

Fatima admitted the cover was disturbing, and added she had to live with not just the cover but the facts on the cover. I thought it was an excellent answer. Other questions she was asked were on dynasty and politics; on her father's terror group Al Zulfikar; and on Benazir choosing to wear a dupatta over her head (which Fatima thinks is a sign of her hypocrisy).

As a writer, Fatima is quite good and her book is a very easy read despite its heavy material. She can nail a person with a couple of lines. She tells us Benazir had her 70, Clifton bedroom painted black and its shelves were full of Mills and Boon romances.

She disliked her aunt, because Benazir robbed Murtaza of his inheritance, but there are lines through which Fatima also associates with Benzair. One is about Fatima keeping a bottle of her father's perfume, Shalimar. Benazir also writes about Shalimar in Daughter of the East, because it was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's favourite perfume too. It is strange that the Bhutto men should have used it, because Shalimar, made by the French firm Guerlain, is a perfume for women.

As the writer Nadeem F Paracha has noted, Fatima's book is quite partisan. She makes her father out to be perfect, which he may not have been. She alludes to conspiracies against him, writing that Murtaza's friend Suhail Sethi and his college friends in America appear to know some secrets about people wishing to harm him. Fatima says they hint at dark things, but choose not to tell her. But the impression a reader might get is that nothing happened.

She speaks of "they" trying to get the Bhuttos, but we do not know whom she means. She says Benazir created a "saprophytic culture". That means feeding off the dead. But Fatima makes much of the fact that she and her brother Zulfi are the only living Bhuttos, which is also living off the name. She delegitimises Benazir's inheritance, by alluding to her being a Zardari. But it is a fact that after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto died, his charisma transferred to his daughter and not his sons. It struck me a couple of days after reading the book that I had not come across a mention of her cousin Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the PPP's co-chairman and Benazir's son. I went back to the book's index to check, and he's been excluded.

Fatima Bhutto is intelligent and energetic and she says she's disinterested in politics. I do not think that is true, but if so it is a shame, because she is charismatic and crowds will love her. If someone had shouted "Jivey Bhutto!" at her Bombay reading, we would have responded. She wants to bring change through her writing, she says, but that is not going to be possible. Fatima says her father taught her neither Urdu nor Sindhi.

I do not think it's possible for Indians and Pakistanis to understand their country without being immersed in their languages. I do not mean the ability to read Urdu, Hindi or Gujarati, knowledge of which most English speakers acquire at school. I mean actually reading and writing in the language regularly. One reason this doesn't happen is that the vocabulary of corporate governance is in English, and people use Hindi or Urdu only for emotional expression, such as music or entertainment.

It will be impossible for Fatima to connect with Pakistanis without being able to understand what they are saying or writing. The problems of her book also arise from this lack of literacy, which might get corrected over time. She is a classic third-world liberal, with a reflex against America. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto studied in California, Benazir in Radcliffe, Sanam and Murtaza in Harvard and Fatima in Columbia. The Bhuttos rely on America to educate them, but then decide to hate it after they come back.


Source:
http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=233721

Tunes of turbulence

UTPAL BORPUJARI

It comes as no surprise that Fatima Bhutto’s new novel, ‘Songs of Blood and Sword’, where she dissects the politics of her own family has evoked much curiosity. UTPAL BORPUJARI in conversation with the young Bhutto. She’s articulate, beautiful, young and surely has a point of view. Reason enough for people to connect with her. But if the world is noticing her, it is more likely because she answers to the surname Bhutto. She has publicly accused her aunt, the slain Prime Minister of Pakistan, the late Benazir Bhutto, of having blood on her hands, the blood of her father and the latter’s brother, Mir Murtaza Bhutto. She has harsh words for Asif Ali Zardari, the current President of Pakistan, whom she calls a “criminal”. That’s probably why she mentions in the just-released Songs of Blood and Sword (Penguin Viking) that she is constantly under watch, so much so that she had to be really discrete while meeting a lot of people during her research for the book, which recalls her father’s assassination. Bhutto shares her views in a freewheeling chat with Sunday Herald: Why did you decide to publish the book at this particular juncture? I have been researching and talking to people for six years, and I started writing it two years ago because it occurred to me that the government that was coming to power was going to erase this history. And as it turned out, they all exonerated themselves. So I realised that now was the time to preserve history, otherwise we were going to lose it. A constitutional amendment has been moved in your country to curtail the President’s powers. Do you think it is a move in the right direction? They should never have been given the immunity in the first place. So this is like somebody breaks your leg, and then they express concern. Well, it should not have been broken in the first place. But again, I think we have to wait and see, because there is a big gap between what people say and what people do. Certainly, those in power have a different law than the ordinary citizens. They can get away with everything, though it should have been the converse. Those in power should be even more scrutinised as they are more accountable. Do you think such repeated intrusions by the army into the democratic space has also impeded the growth of Pakistan’s democracy? Democracy is a very loose word. If you see, Asif Ali Zardari became President the same way as Gen Musharraf became the President. They were both elected by their own Parliaments, not by the people. Whoever comes to power, democratic institutions are not strengthened. They put censorship laws, they make repressive laws, instead of removing them. And what really impedes democracy is that we don’t have a participatory system. You have written about having to be careful while speaking to people during the research for this book. Do you think this is because you are a critic of the government or because you are a Bhutto? I think in this government it’s because I am a Bhutto, because this is a government that has hijacked my family’s name. The government is in power only because of a name, not because of their public policy or commitment to public service. When Musharraf was in power, I was very critical of that government too, but it was a different scenario. In that case, the fact that I was a Bhutto didn’t really matter. I was probably just an irritant. But have you ever thought of forcefully laying claim to the legacy of this name, by directly confronting them at a political level? No, because I was born a Bhutto. I don’t have anything to prove. And at the end, if there is a legacy of the Bhuttos, it belongs to the people of the country, not to the family, not to just one person. Does that mean you don’t ever plan to join active politics? No. I am a writer. I am active in political causes but have no interest parliamentary politics. What does the name Asif Ali Zardari mean to you? Well, the man is a criminal. Before he became President, he had four murder cases proceeding against him, involving the deaths of 11 people. Besides that, he had corruption cases against him in Switzerland, Spain, UK and in Pakistan. And he was alleged to be the ‘Mr 10%’ too at one point of time... Exactly, and corruption cases in Pakistan amounts to billions of dollars. So, that’s what most Pakistanis think of when they hear his name. And in terms of the friction between my aunt (and me), you know there were those who benefited from her in power, those who benefited from her corruption. Those of us who live in Pakistan, we can see the effects of her corruption. In Larkana (the Bhutto hometown), the last things that were built — in terms of schools, colleges — were built in the 70s, during my grandfather’s time. It’s a town of four million people. It does not look like a place that had a Prime Minister after Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Benazir did nothing. The only thing she did was to build the family’s graveyard. But for living people, there are no houses, no roads, no schools. Do you think your aunt was used by the people around her, or was she a willing partner? I think she was a willing partner. You are the Prime Minister, how can you not know what is happening under your watch. If you don’t know what’s happening under you, then you should resign. Are the political parties in your country equipped enough to strengthen the democratic process? Like in India, where you have Congress and BJP, we have PPP and PML (N) who are taking turns being in power. Since the parties in government receive billions of dollars through foreign aid, how would a small party compete with them? If you are a small, secular, provincial party, how do you compete with the PPP which has got 10 billion dollars from America? This funding process is very undemocratic. So if you really want to talk about democracy, these governments need to stop being funded. The more the number of parties, the better, because there should be representation for anyone, and everyone should be given a chance. Did you ever think while writing this book that it would have been better had it been fiction? Yes, absolutely. I wished all the time that I didn’t have to write this book. I mean, I wish none of these things had happened so that there wouldn’t have been a book to write. The violence especially is so brutal, it’s very difficult to accept that not only was it real but it continues. Source: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/63081/tunes-turbulence.html

I hate Facebook: Fatima Bhutto

Author Fatima Bhutto came to Delhi last week for the launch of her memoirs, Songs of Blood and Sword. Belonging to Pakistan’s most famous political dynasty, Fatima lives in Karachi. While she spoke to HT City, we couldn’t help but notice her blood-red nail polish, a designer handbag and a copy of The International Herald Tribune.

On wearing a saree at her book launch
It seems Indians are unaware that Pakistani women also wear sarees. But the same ignorance is on other side too. We’re so curious about each other but don’t have access to each other’s nations. So when people said that what a nice Indian dress I was wearing, I said, “My grandmother wore sarees all her life. My mother, too, wears sarees. You see,Pakistani women put on shalwar kameezes during the day and sarees in the evening.”

On hating Facebook
The idea that this company owns everything you put on it is ridiculous. I don’t know why it doesn’t scare more people. And then for people to spend hours looking at other people’s pictures, reading other people’s messages and looking at other people’s friends... scary.

On the best thing about Karachi
I love our Sunday bazaar. It’s held near Sea View (beach), in Defence (a posh neighbourhood). Every Sunday, Itvaar Bazaar pops up at a place where there is nothing through the week. The booksellers arrive to sell old New Yorkers and Vanity Fairs and if you’re lucky you can get rare old books for Rs 100! While I go straight for the books and magazines, my mother looks around for handicrafts. I recently got a first edition Graham Greene. In first-hand bookshops, you only get Kite Runners.

On partying
(Laughs) I’m boring that way. Because Karachi is a bit of schizophrenic city… you know, it’s a very large city but you are limited to certain neighbourhoods… so if you go to a party, you see the same 200 people, and after about three of such parties, it gets dull. I prefer having friends over dinner.

On her writing schedule
I was writing this book for two years. I would wake up at 8 am, write till noon, take a break, go back to it at five or six in the evening and write till eight in the night. Sometimes I would be in front of the computer the whole day. The thing is, you have to write everyday. You have to sit there. You need to have the discipline.

On Delhi
It’s my second trip here. I went to Khan Market. I saw the Humayun’s Tomb. Now I want to hop onto the Metro train. They say it’s great.

Source:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/celebwatch/I-hate-Facebook-Fatima-Bhutto/Article1-529239.aspx

Fatima Bhutto- Book reading at Crossword Mumbai

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32THZGXM4RQ

A daughter’s tale

Fatima Bhutto was caught unawares. The petite author had just wrapped up an interview and gave a tiny jump when she found me standing right behind her. “Sorry, I didn’t notice you,” she said, apologetically. She was cheerful-maybe because her book Songs of Blood and Sword has been receiving an overwhelming response across India.

On her last stop in the country, Fatima was gearing up for the launch of her book in Mumbai in the evening when I met her on Tuesday. Since she wanted a decaf, we moved to The Taj President’s Trattoria. Undisturbed by the racket of a children’s party at the cafe, Fatima started talking about the book, which she calls “a daughter’s memoir”.

The book had kept her occupied for the last six years. “It’s just the beginning. The book was first released in Karachi. After touring India, I will be travelling to England, Canada and other countries to promote the book,” says the 28-year-old journalist-turned-author. At the age of 14, she lost her father, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, who was killed along with six of his aides. The book starts with this bloody incident. And the casual statement by Asif Zardari—husband of her aunt Benezir Bhutto and the present President of Pakistan—informing Fatima about his death seems to have set the book’s tone. In fact, Fatima repeats his words—“Oh, don’t you know? Your father’s been shot”— many times in the memoir.

Songs of Blood and Sword has been called “partisan”. And Fatima doesn’t mind the term. “The book doesn’t pretend to be otherwise,” she says. In fact, right below her name on the book’s cover, there is a list of her relatives who have been killed in the last three decades. “Asians tend not to talk about the violent incidents that have affected the region. These stories need to be told before they are lost in the world of reality TV,” Fatima says.

About the interest her book has created in India, she says, “People of India and Pakistan have always been curious to know about each other.” However, it’s not just her book that’s being appreciated in India.

Fatima’s sari-clad appearances at the book releases too have become a talking point. “Both my grandmother (Nusrat) and mother (Ghinwa) love saris. And for the events in India, I decided to wear only saris,” she says.

Source :

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/adaughterstale/602083/1

Speaking from silence

BOOK Fatima Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto's niece has grown up amidst violent circumstances in Pakistan. Her book, Songs of Blood and Sword, comes with a sense of urgency, before any more of her past gets blurred, she tells KALA KRISHNAN RAMESH

Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

Living the past Fatima: ‘Fear is a strange beast — it only comes when you are safe'

Closely related by blood to three famous people who were killed for their political lives, including her father Mir Murtaza Bhutto, Fatima Bhutto has sworn off electoral politics, but that doesn't mean she stays off political topics. This feisty young woman has on numerous occasions spoken out against the powers that be of the political world, whether it was her aunt Benazir Bhutto's government or that of the U.S. In India to promote her book “Songs of Blood and Sword”, Fatima discusses the writing of the book and her hopes for Pakistan.

What did you feel at the moment you decided you were going to write “Songs of Blood and Sword” ?

I had the idea four years ago, but it was in 2008 that I started writing. I felt a sense of great urgency because the same people were returning to power, with the same aggressive campaigns and I feared that more erasing was imminent since during their previous term they had already destroyed a lot of records. There was a feeling that I couldn't delay, but also a feeling that I had to do it right - right interviews, the right perspectives, and finally people were just so much braver than I expected, so many more people spoke to me.

Do you remember the first line you wrote?

Yes, it's the opening line of Chapter one: “9 September. It was close to three in the morning…”

How did the idea of having the launch at the spot where your father was shot come about?

My mother, Sabeen (whose father was also killed along with mine), and I were talking about the launch, and various places were suggested, but none of them seemed right. Suddenly I found myself saying “I want to have the launch in the street where it happened.” We had to fight for it, it was quite a struggle and till the evening before the launch we were not sure we would get permission, or that people would turn up.

Did you feel that your father was watching?

Yes, I very much felt his presence. It was a powerful moment, and sad, because everybody there had stories, not just me or my mother or Sabeen, but so many others, many of whose stories would go unheard.

What do you think the book means to people who dream of a democratic Pakistan?

It stands for the fact that people will speak, its' a huge sign of solidarity. So many people responded came for the launch, and they made it happen; without people the launch would have been meaningless. I feared till the last but that's a condition of our cities: we just don't know anymore how people will react.

There's a curious movement in the book, you let the reader catch glimpses of a pushy, calculating Benazir much before we finally see her as the woman who sat by and let one brother get murdered, and possibly let another be poisoned, almost as if you're easing the reader into this knowledge. Was that consciously done?

Benazir was a hard character for me… people knew the snippets, but I had to relive my life, I did remember her like that, in different ways at different stages. She always seemed so fragile, and when I was a child, she was still accessible, only later did she completely change into the public, official person.

What about you, are you conscious of being a “public” figure?

No, I'm always getting into trouble; most public figures develop an innate ability to withhold, but I 'm curious, I want to know and if someone asks me something, I want to answer fully.

What's your fantasy for Pakistan?

I would like to see a Pakistan free of foreign control, that doesn't answer to the U.S., that's not reeling from its proximity to the U.S, a Pakistan that is transparent, accountable, where corruption is not acceptable, a Pakistan that would engage more with its neighbours.

In a column you quoted someone saying that the Sufi influence in Pakistan would win eventually. Why?

Sufism has withstood Zia and Al-Qaeda; Its philosophy really transcends the image of men in beards.

You have said that you “try not to pay attention to fear.” How do you do that?

I'm very lucky to have a very loving mother; when you can give and receive love, there isn't much room for fear. And fear is a strange beast — it only comes when you are safe!

Source :

http://www.hindu.com/mp/2010/04/08/stories/2010040851580100.htm

'I am horrified to see these two nuclear countries entangled in this bizarre love story'

History sits rather lightly on the slender shoulders of the petite and elegant 27 year old who has journeyed nearly 555 miles from across the border, with a bulky hardback to promote in India's [ Images ] book bazaars.

The title of her book -- Songs of Blood and Sword -- seems incongruous with the delicate, fashionably-dressed author, clad in a black embroidered jacket and slacks, facing you, just prior to the book's launch in Mumbai [ Images ].

But you chide yourself for not remembering that this young woman has nerves of steel.

Fatima Bhutto: Daughter of the murdered Pakistani political leader Mir Murtaza Bhutto, niece of the slain former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto [ Images ], granddaughter of the former Pakistan leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who was hanged by General Zia-ul Haq 31 years ago Monday.

Fatima made headlines in the Indian and Pakistani media as well as the international press in 2007, a few months before Benazir returned to Pakistan, when she accused her aunt of having had her father (Benazir's younger brother) killed.

Fatima was 14 when she virtually witnessed her father being killed in the street below her family home, 70 Clifton, in the posh, beach-bordering neighbourhood of Karachi.

Nearly 14 years after his death, from an even more violence-torn Pakistan, now ruled by her uncle Asif Ali Zardari [ Images ], Benazir's husband, she followed up her accusations with a voluminous, intense book/memoir that focuses on her father, the Bhutto family feuds and the research (often conducted, out of fear, in the middle of parks and anonymous hotels) that backs her conviction that her father was murdered.

Fatima, who is part Afghan, born in Kabul and spent her childhood in Syria (where her exiled father lived for 16 years), had the book, which was written in her father's memory, launched in March, not without difficulties, in Clifton Gardens, Karachi, very close to the spot where he was killed, with, she says, 700 people in attendance.

She has now made a trip to India, obtaining a hard-to-get visa, to launch her book in three cities including Mumbai, where her grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto once lived on Worli Seaface, central Mumbai.

Ironically and sadly, Fatima's boundless courage to find justice for her father -- now through a book, when legal redress was denied -- is quite similar to the stout bravery her twice-exiled aunt Benazir brandished in 2007 when she returned to a hostile Pakistan, averse to democracy, and was assassinated.

Like Benazir, and all the Bhuttos, Fatima's strange and fateful life path was punctuated and molded by tragedies witnessed first from the young age of three when her uncle Shahnawaz was murdered in Nice, France [ Images ], and she lived through the abandonment of her mother.

Songs of Blood and Sword is not Fatima's first book. A journalist and poet, her maiden book was a volume of poems. Representing the Last of the Bhuttos, she writes angry columns, that intensify her vulnerability, on events in Pakistan for international publications like New Statesmen, The Daily Beast.

It is not surprising to realise that her destiny is entwined with this book, penned in her father's memory, and her writing. Hence, the urgency to see that Songs of Blood and Sword is widely read. Fatima Bhutto spoke to rediff.com's Vaihayasi P Daniel:

The newspapers and television are full of interviews with you.

It is just an amazing opportunity to be here. So great to be able to bring the book and talk about it. This is my third time in Mumbai, my fifth trip to India.

My grandmother Nusrat (Bhutto) actually was based between Pune and Bombay. My grandfather's father had a post here, but did not live in Bombay but he came and went before Partition happened.

I haven't (had time to find out where they lived in Mumbai) because it's very hard to move around. On this trip I am just here for a day, whirlwind. I want to come when I am not doing anything and go to Pune and discover a bit more of Bombay.

Can you tell us a bit about your daily life in Karachi? Do you move around with security? What is everyday life like in Karachi for its citizens?

I think people are always highly disappointed with the view of what my day to day life looks like. They think it is going to be a James Bond [ Images ] movie or something.

It's frighteningly normal in that I write in the morning. I got a six-year-old (adopted) brother (Mir Ali) who is in school, so a lot of activity goes in taking him to school, picking him up, doing his homework. I also have friends, who I love to have over at home for dinner or we get together and watch a movie.

The danger/safety aspect is an issue now under this current government but for most of the time that I have lived in Pakistan it hasn't been. I have made a conscious choice to live normally and not to be prisoners in our own city.

What is a conscious choice to live normally?

That means if you sort want to go to the Sunday book bazaar, you go, you don't think 'Oh my goodness, do I need six, seven battalions of people with me?' You live as you want to live, which is freely.

Certainly there are always people who will say to you: 'Oh look, you musn't go and do this thing (or that) because it is dangerous.' Well, everything is dangerous nowadays. I just was researching a story on Afghan refugees in Karachi and for the piece I had to go to northern Karachi where a lot of the refugee camps are.

Most people tell you things like '(Gasp) you can't go and if you go imagine what will happen.' But you go. That makes these things normal.

Who looks after your personal safety, and how do you stay safe?

I look after my safety (laughs). We have people who have worked with my father and work with my mother -- they are political workers. So if I say I want to north Karachi to this piece they say 'Okay we want to come with you' and they come to protect me with themselves and they are like family. So we don't think of it in terms of guards and things like that. We have to be individually careful and mobility then gets restricted.

How should the world look at Pakistan? In the media it is portrayed as a country falling apart and a country in descent. But that is how people sometimes feel about India.

I think with all of these sub-continental countries -- Sri Lanka [ Images ], Bangladesh, Pakistan or India -- everybody has to remember that we are all new countries. We are all countries that really were occupied for hundreds of years by a brutal colonial power and so you are talking about countries that are independently 60 years old, 30 years old, 40 years old and that gets left out. That gets left out. Certainly, nowadays all we (hear) about the sub-continent is poverty, violence, edifices that are crumbling.

What people don't know about our countries is that they are full of these amazingly resourceful people. Somehow (even) with the poverty and the violence amazing things get done. It is really because of the strength of what's possible in a new country.

Pakistan -- now with the war on terror you get a (solitary) picture. You either get: 'Oh my goodness, isn't everything frightening?' Or you get the other side of Pakistan that is only shared by a few people: 'Oh look, there is a Pakistan fashion week happening.' Or: 'Oh Pakistan has just had...' something large and extravagant...

But there are great swathes of people who don't get their voices heard and that for me is a big issue. The fact that we are a country, in this day and age, that has problems getting water to most of its citizens is something that should be looked into and is common with a lot of South Asian countries.

And how is Pakistan frighteningly different from India?

If I wanted to go out, right now, in Bombay, I could probably walk out of the hotel, walk over to the (Colaba) Causeway. I could do that at any time of day and be fine. I probably couldn't do it in Delhi [ Images ] because Delhi is dangerous at night. But in Pakistan, because of this current government, you know, because of this book, I can't do that, in my own city.

But these are things that change. They don't last forever. When this government goes with its excessive and enthusiastic use of violence then I will be able to do that again.

Were you able to do that before your uncle's government came to power?

Ya! Ya! Karachi is a huge city, it's like Bombay, it's a mega city. But again it's what you make of it. If you want to sit at home and be frightened of it, you can, but if you want to get up and do what you like... my brother (her half-brother Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, 20) and I would always go -- there is a bookstore quite near our house and we would say okay we are going to walk to the bookstore today, we would go together, we would walk, we would take Mir Ali for a walk, get an ice cream and come home.

We used to do this sort of thing. Our friends don't do them. Our friends would say: 'Are you mad? It's dangerous!' But nothing has ever happened.

How should India look at Pakistan? Should we not fear Pakistan? But there is also warmth between the countries that does not get translated.

I think the most amazing thing when I come to India is that people want to know so much about Pakistan.

I remember the first time I came to Bombay I was with a friend who is this monstrous shopper and we were in a store bargaining. I hate bargaining, so I was sitting there waiting for her to finish and she said to the guy, 'Oh come on, don't do that! We are from Karachi.' I thought: 'What has she said? We are going to get lynched.'

But the minute the man heard we were from Karachi he said: 'Oh, why didn't you say that?!' He pulled up some chairs, we met his wife and he gave us chai and did all these things.

People in India should know that the Pakistanis feel the same way about them. We don't have access to you, to your news, to be able to travel and vice versa. But ultimately we share the same language, we share the same food, the same culture, the same history -- it is all these things. I feel we never talk about those things.

We always talk about: 'Oh, you are Hindu we are Muslims, you are blah blah and we are blah blah' and it never translates how you feel when you are in India as a Pakistani or how you feel when you are an Indian in Pakistan.

We are sort of like cousins, who should really get along, but sometimes don't.

Does India have a role to play in the future you would wish for Pakistan?

I think Pakistan's future has to be made by Pakistan, in the same way that it has to be done here.

I think the role that we have to play in each other's countries is that we clearly see that our governments have had 62 years of opportunity to make it easy for us to live as siblings or to make it easy for us to live in peace. And they have always failed, whether it's because of American interference, you know like in the pipeline issue, which would have been amazing for our countries. Or whether it's because -- like right now -- I am so horrified to sit in India and see Pakistan and India, these two nuclear countries get entangled in this bizarre love story of two athletes.

What about 26/11? I remember hearing voices on Pakistani television on YouTube ridiculing India and its assertion that the terrorists who masterminded the attack were Pakistani. Where does that come from?

I think the 26/11 thing has been so badly reported between these two countries because the government and media have their own agenda and the government and media are always going to portray their own stories.

I remember watching 26/11 in Karachi and seeing a hotel that I had stayed in, that I had driven past (attacked). I heard friends of mine say, 'Well, you know, I was in the Mariott in Islamabad [ Images ] when it was attacked' or 'My cousin lost a relative in the Mariott.' So in fact they have not just an understanding but a solidarity.

That said, I think you are never going to hear that side of what is going on in Pakistan through the Indian media. And we are never going to hear your solidarity through our media. It is only going to come through people. For my part I never heard anyone ridicule what happened.

Any violence anywhere is frightening. Pakistanis very much feel that when we talk of things like 26/11, there are 26/11s happening every day -- you know whether you are talking about the Maoists, whether you are talking about Chhattisgarh, Karachi, riots... Both of us share these things and it is in nobody's interest to create gaps over these (issues).

What do you make of the moves by your uncle, President Zardari, to reduce the powers of the Pakistan presidency?

The fact that the president had an immunity in the first place is ridiculous! These moves of Zardari now to say: 'Oh well, as president I am graciously giving up my immunity is like someone saying: "Oh I broke your leg but now I am going to put a cast on it."'

The president, or no one in power, should ever have that kind of immunity. We have only heard this being brought up as an option for parliament (to pass). It has not yet passed, so I think we need to keep in mind that there is a big gap between doing and saying.

Also, if the president's immunity is removed, but the prime minister retains it -- is that much of a difference?

The issue of Washington is a very upsetting one for most Pakistanis. Pakistanis, like many people around the world, don't really feel this is a just war, don't believe that America should have the right to fly planes over our country.

Every time an American plane kills a Pakistani citizen it creates more anger and more hatred of the American government and it makes more people feel that this is a country that hates us as Muslims and Pakistanis. Absolutely... Violence begets more violence. I definitely believe that.

And what creates these militants and fundamentalists? (It) is that they feel that they do not have a government that represents them. When they have a government that does not give them schools and water and hospitals they will turn elsewhere) to fill the vacuum. Anybody who offers an alternative has a place.

What is the future of Pakistan? Do you think there could be military rule in the future?

I think democracy always has to be the option. But democracy has to be more than just about holding elections. Zardari was elected to the presidency the same way (General Pervez) Musharraf was -- by his own party. So what's the difference?

When we talk about democracy it has to be a participatory system and it has to be democracy from the lowest level. For example, Karachi is a city like Bombay -- a city of 16 million people cannot have two representatives. It needs hundreds of representatives for every neighbourhood and every district, so I hope that's the option, because we have seen other things, we have given everyone their chance and it hasn't changed the state of things.

Isn't it better to have benign military rule than a democracy gone wrong?

You are definitely asking the wrong person here (laughs). A democracy gone wrong can be as harmful as military rule. But military rule still says 'You don't know what's good for you so I will tell you.' That should always make it not an option.

And it should make failed democracy (not an option) -- if you have a real sense of democracy you can boot out the failures and you can still say we are going to push a no confidence motion because you as a failed democratic system or a so-called democratic system have lost our confidence.

Is there much difference between a man who puts himself up for president when he is not truly elected and a general who puts himself in charge?

Certainly in this current case we have seen them come to the presidency in the same way. So it is not even a matter of my opinion, but it is a matter of fact that they were both voted in by their own parliament and that makes it problematic.

But I am always hopeful for Pakistan. I am never hopeful for governments because governments are pretty much uniformly deserving of this vision that people have of them. But people I am always hopeful of.

I think we have to again remember it is a young country. We have to give them time. Also, things like America funding these bad governments with billions of dollars makes it much harder for people to have a voice.

You recently spoke about how you are against dynastic politics. Dynastic politics is not something any of us countries wish for. But in India's case, at present, it is the best that India has. And probably the same goes for Pakistan?

I wouldn't speak on India's case because I don't know. I obviously can only speak on Pakistan's (case). Ultimately, if you have a participatory system then it shouldn't matter what someone's last name is.

Unfortunately in South Asia, one of the things that the British legacy left for us, because they were so divisive, they did divide and rule so well, we still have countries where if you don't belong to one of two parties, you are not really going to make it. If you don't belong to one of two universities, if you don't belong to one of two families.

In Pakistan we have had our dynasties been marked by corruption and bad governance. We don't have the option to say to them to get out and go away because they are the ones that get billions of dollars in aid. I really do think that maybe in 20 years? Maybe in 30 years? Maybe in a 100 years? It won't matter what your last name is, but right now it certainly does.

Why is that you don't have a relationship with your cousin Bilawal Bhutto Zardari (Benazir's son)?

I am not going to answer that question, come on (she says emphatically with mock anger). That is a question I have answered a hundred times. I don't have a relationship with them.

Is that something you have chosen or he has?

That's how it is! We come from very different backgrounds, we have very different trajectories and very different parents!

Source:

http://news.rediff.com/interview/2010/apr/08/interesting-encounter-with-fatima-bhutto.htm

Fear does not come to mind: Fatima Bhutto

Mumbai: Journalist-turned-author Fatima Bhutto is irked.

Fatima Bhutto

The Kabul-born beauty and daughter of the slain Pakistani politician Mir Murtaza Bhutto (and niece of the late Benazir Bhutto) is ‘angry’ at the constant telecast of the ongoing controversy about Sania Mirza’s marriage to Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik.

She says, “On Monday there were several blasts in Peshawar but the Shoaib-Sania marriage was everywhere. While the media reported on random people, they didn’t tell us what happened in the blasts.”

Apart from this, Fatima is also annoyed at the fact that people from both sides of the Line of Control are curious to know about each other, but cannot do so due to complicated visa procedures. She says, “I was in Bangalore two days ago and met two people who told me their visas were rejected for going to Karachi. We all go to London, America and Canada, but it is so difficult to visit our respective countries that are so close.”

Over the last few days the 27-year-old has been constantly flitting between cities promoting her new book Songs of Blood and Sword. She made sure that she draped herself in stunning sarees for the book launches in this country. Fatima laughs, “I grew up with my grandmother who came from Mumbai and always wore a saree. My Mumbai friends got me to wear a bindi too.”

Her book paints a horror picture of her aunt Benazir Bhutto and her husband conspiring to bring her father down. But even then ‘fear’ seems to be an elusive word for Fatima, who might run a risk of irking the positions of power in her home state through the revelations in her book. She says, “Fear does not come to mind; instead survival instincts kick in.”

Born to an Afghan mother, Fatima prefers to call Murtaza’s Lebanese second wife Ghinwa her own. She even excitedly shows off her new blue blouse that Ghinwa bought for her, especially to wear while on her trip to India. Breaking into a wide grin, she says, “My mother is a fantastic cook. We also love reading and watching historical dramas. I beg her to come with me when I go shopping for fabrics.”

Source:
http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/report_fear-does-not-come-to-mind-fatima-bhutto_1368760

Fatima Bhutto photos by Mayank Austen Soofi

Location : Delhi

Fatima Bhutto at the Bangalore launch of SoBaS

Credit: team Bangalore mangalore