Resorting to political harlotry, Benazir Bhutto has returned to Pakistan, having found new clients among the American establishment and its stooges in the Pakistani military. She remains unashamed after having struck a bargain with the Pakistani military, which is the greatest enemy of democracy in our country. She remains unashamed of herself even after more than 130 people were blown to bits all around her armored vehicle. The bombs were aimed at HER, and she has the audacity to refer to them as an attack on “democracy”.
Benazir = democracy?
What absolute bullshit!
Imran Khan, writing for the Telegraph (UK), is damned right: Benazir and her new pals are the only ones responsible for the attacks in Karachi and the strangling of democracy:
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Benazir Bhutto has only herself to blame
By Imran Khan
I’m sorry to say this, but the bombing of Benazir Bhutto’s cavalcade as she paraded through Karachi on Thursday night was a tragedy almost waiting to happen. You could argue it was inevitable.
Everyone here knew there was going to be a huge crowd turning up to see her return after eight years in self-imposed exile. Everyone also knows that there has been a spate of suicide bombings in Pakistan lately, especially in the frontier region where I am campaigning at the moment.
How was it ever going to be possible to monitor such a large crowd and guarantee that no suicide bombers would infiltrate it?
This may sound equally harsh, but she has only herself to blame. By making a deal with Musharraf’s government — a deal brokered by the British as well as the Americans, by the way — she was hoping to get herself off the corruption charges that have been levelled against her.
What she hadn’t taken into account was Musharraf’s unpopularity. He is regarded in Pakistan as an American stooge. And the US war on terror, which he supports, is now perceived as a war against Islam.
That is why there is no shortage of recruits for the fundamentalist cause here. By siding with him, Benazir was making herself a target for assassination.
The sad thing is, she didn’t need to do it. Musharraf was sinking and isolated. He was on the point of declaring a state of emergency. Just when it looked as if he had no lifelines left, Benazir came back and bailed him out.
Worse, by publicly siding with a dictator, she has deliberately sabotaged the democratic process. We have an election coming up in January. As leader of the Justice Party, I am running in it but it will be a free and fair election if Musharraf is still in charge.
He has dismantled state institutions, such as an independent judiciary and an election commission, and has introduced a controlled assembly, a controlled prime minister and a controlled media.
The polls show he can only win this next election if he massively rigs it. That is what he did in 2002, as confirmed by the EU monitoring team.
Given the way that she has undermined democracy by siding with Musharraf, I don’t know how Benazir has the nerve to say that the 130 people killed in those bomb blasts sacrificed their lives for the sake of democracy in Pakistan.
Meanwhile, you can take your pick as to who was responsible for the two bombs that went off. At least three jihad groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban were plotting suicide attacks — but one thing is for sure, there is no shortage of candidates.
The war on terror is turning everyone in the tribal border regions into potential guerrillas. Not militants necessarily but disparate groups who are becoming united by their suspicion of America. A coalition is forming, and al-Qaeda is going to be only a small part of it.
Benazir has made enemies for herself in this respect also. She alone among Pakistan’s political party leaders has given public support to the massacre of women and children that Musharraf caused when he ordered his troops to attack the Red Mosque in Islamabad.
She also backed his attacks on civilians in the tribal regions. Note that Musharraf has called the civilian deaths there “collateral damage” — an American euphemism.
Benazir also gave her backing to Musharraf’s plan to allow Nato troops to hunt down maybe 200 or 300 Taliban and al-Qaeda supporters in the border region, but in doing that they have merely recruited a million potential supporters for the terrorists.
No one in the West understands that the tribal regions of Pakistan have always been an independent entity. They have never been conquered. Every man is a warrior and carries a gun. Even a superpower like the British Empire could not control that terrain. It had to bribe the tribes.
I have known Benazir since we were at Oxford together, but we have drifted apart politically since then. Perhaps I could have warned her that her life would be in danger if she returned to Pakistan and had a parade, but I doubt she would have listened.
After all, there has been no shortage of warnings from other quarters. But I can tell her this: it is not going to get any easier for her. Whenever she goes out campaigning in public, her life is going to be threatened.
It is different for me campaigning in public, even in the frontier region, because I am not perceived as an America stooge, or a supporter of the war on terror.
The British do not have clean hands in this latest suicide bombing outrage. Britain is providing a safe haven for Altaf Hussain, the Musharraf-supporting MQM political party leader who currently lives in London.
He’s been living in London for 15 years and from there he controls Karachi with an iron will through his mafia-like party. It was this political gangster who persuaded Benazir that he could ensure her safety if she returned.
The only positive thing that might come out of this horrific bombing is that it will force everyone in Pakistani politics to sit down together at a big table and review our strategy on terror. We have to accept that it is not working, that, in fact, it is making matters worse.
It is an idiotic policy because the Americans are pushing people who are in favour of democracy at the moment towards extremism. Pakistan is in danger of turning into Algeria, a country where you had government forces firing on their own civilians.
Once the Pakistani army started its latest operation at the behest of the US, the whole border area rose up against it. And because the US has also bombed the area, killing many tribesmen, anyone who opposes the US becomes a hero.
The tribesman’s culture is a revenge culture. When one is killed another takes his place. That is where the war on terror has been so misguided. It has benefited the people who caused 9/11. And it has made Musharraf — and now his ally Benazir Bhutto — look even more like puppets of America.
Filed under: Colonialism, Comprador bourgeoisie, Imperialism, International Politics, Pakistani politics
Although some parts of the article are correct, I don’t find it accpetable to blame everything on the Benazir and absolve the religious extremist elements in our society and ruling circles (such as intelligence agencies). This can be expected from a right-winger such as Imran Khan. He has completely ignored any schism in the Pakistani polity between secularism and religious fundamentalism as if this is not part of the equation.
I’ve found that Imran has consistently taken an anti-imperialist and anti-military line, and he doesn’t spout religious-fundamentalist rhetoric either.
So I’d be cautious about referring to him as a “right-winger”.
The schism between secularism and fundamentalism, or moderates and extremists, is a figment of the Liberal imagination.
As I see it, the fundamental conflict in Pakistani polity is between supporters of the military-dominated establishment (and consequently US imperialism) and those who oppose it.
While it is true that Imran Khan has spoken against Imperialism and military, he has mostly done that from the Right. His opposition to the Women’s Protection Bill, his presence in the APDM, and his friendly gestures towards MMA and Qazi Hussain Ahmed proves my point.
The conflict between secularism and fundamentalism is not a figment of Liberalism but a product of historical conditions. That the religious groups are making attempts towards State power is not too difficult to trace, especially after the Lal Masjid incident. Underestimation of this conflict can be problematical.
Lastly, your understanding of the fundamental conflict leaves one with a lot of questions when we see the religious clerics chanting anti-military and anti-Imperialist slogans. Surely, there has to be something more to it.
I have at my blog, a post written by my Pakistani comrades.
The crowd size is something that shouldn’t be ignored. It seems to be way bigger than anything Islamists can organize.
Are you sure the Islamists are behind the bombing?
Some very interesting points there, Vidrohi. We’ll go over them, but before I go on, let me clarify one thing: I view Imran Khan as a national-bourgeois democrat at best. As such, he has many of the limitations and weaknesses of a national-bourgeois politician.
But I believe he has the most clear, consistent and correct policy among all the bourgeois-democratic opponents of the Musharraf regime.
According to you,
I feel that using terms like “the Left” and “the Right” makes for a superficial analysis.
By sheer dumb luck, Imran Khan has correctly identified the principle contradiction in the political struggle currently going on in Pakistan: i.e. the contradiction between the national-bourgeois democratic forces (supported by the working-class) against the comprador military regime.
Having correctly identified this principle contradiction, he has tried to preserve the unity of all bourgeois-democratic forces opposing the regime. When we talk of “the Opposition”, we’re talking of a wide spectrum: from the religious MMA to the ethnic-nationalist ANP to the centre-right PML-N to the secular liberal PPP.
Imran Khan alone, among all the bourgeois-democratic leaders, recognizes the need for unity in this opposition bloc.
I don’t think we should take his “opposition to the WPB” out of context. He opposed the passage of the WPB only temporarily, because he correctly saw it as a cynical ploy on the part of the governing coalition to sow discord between the PPP and the MMA. To oppose the timing of a bill doesn’t mean that you oppose its actual content.
Come now, surely you don’t believe that Musharraf and the Chaudhry brothers were motivated by some desire to liberate Pakistan’s women? Isn’t Musharraf the same guy who said that Pakistani women have “made a business” of getting raped, so that they could find asylum in Canada?
The Womens’ Protection Bill itself is a good thing, but its TIMING was a cynical ploy…just as cynical as G. W. Bush supporting a liberal-democratic movement in Myanamar/Burma.
And here’s the vital point: Imran denounced the MMA’s misogynistic and reactionary Hasba Bill at the same time as he denounced the timing of the Womens’ Protection Bill.
Here, read this:
http://www.dawn.com/2006/11/20/nat7.htm
If Imran were selling out to the religious Right, why would he oppose their Hasba Bill?
….only because Benazir wants to turn the mass organization of the PPP into a pillar of the military establishment.
Perhaps all members of the opposition should be making “friendly gestures” towards each other, and not-so-friendly gestures towards the Musharraf regime.
Oh well, Benazir has seen to it that PPP is no longer in the opposition anyhow.
I would be grateful if the comrade were to shed more light on these historical conditions.
Surely the comrade doesn’t believe that the Lal Masjid mullahs were anywhere close to achieving state power? The state crushed them easily.
Tomorrow, you and I could find 100 lunatics, and repeat the same.
There is no denying that religious extremism is a force which retards progress in our society, and there is no denying that we progressives must counter it with all means at our disposal.
However, to unnecessarily magnify a secondary contradiction would only throw us into the arms of the military-dominated establishment.
Unsavory allies as they are, perhaps we should be temporarily on the same side as them, instead of following Benazir into the arms of the establishment, simply because she makes a lot of noise about secularism.
Bah. When she was last in power, in the 90s, her government sponsored the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
If she represents secularism, then I’m an Oompa Loompa. And I’m NOT.
Second Editorial: Fatima and Jemima Vs Benazir
Miss Fatima Bhutto and Miss Jemima Khan have attacked the PPP chairperson Ms Benazir Bhutto on different counts. Fatima, in her early 20s, is, rightly or wrongly, a disgruntled niece of Ms Bhutto. She has actually criticised BB for being in the reinforced truck “while her supporters were dying outside”. Thus while she may be well-meaning, objectively she has jeopardised her political career by throwing overboard the entire bulk of political analyses which the media in Pakistan have made of the political implications of BB’s return. There are many “one-seat leaders” who don’t care if they stand alone in their thinking. Is she preparing to become one of them? Fatima is allowing her personal anger to cloud her political judgment. Silence would have been more dignified in the current situation.
Meanwhile, Jemima Khan has given vent to her spleen in a diatribe against BB in the Daily Telegraph of London. Ms Khan calls Ms Bhutto a “kleptocrat”, which is all very well except that it comes from a woman who is an heir and beneficiary of her father Sir James Goldsmith, one of the twentieth century’s most notorious corporate raiders. Ms Khan’s diatribe against Ms Bhutto is a reflection of her contempt for the Pakistanis whom she met and whom she variously labelled the “fain-fain crowd” and “Mummy-Daddy types” in articles she wrote for local and British newspapers when she was still Imran Khan’s devoted, dupatta-clad wife. So, standing on her high moral pedestal, what does Jemima Khan think of Eurotrash like Hugh Grant (of LA black hooker fame), and other friends and family whose serial infidelities and drinks/drug abuse are legion?
Ms Khan talks of Benazir “kow-towing to the mullahs”. What was Jemima Khan doing in Pakistan with that demure dupatta on her head, writing sanctimonious articles in the press about her great conversion to Islam? It didn’t take the same woman long to throw off her hijab and cavort in skimpy bikinis on French beaches with her man of the moment. Jemima Khan should think twice before she writes about other people’s “expedient alliances” and lack of morality. She is a ditzy socialite who dumped Imran Khan and her adopted country and religion the minute she got bored of them. She should go back to her habitual partying as a card-carrying member of the decrepit global flitterati and spare us her moralising. *
sorry that was from the daily times – today’s e-version
The editorial represents the typical intellectual limitations of our intelligentsia.
There is no concrete criticism of Fatima Bhutto.
As for Jemima Khan, the editorial resorts to shameless mud-slinging, proving that the writer is incapable of distinguishing ideas from personalities.
The vitriolic response to Jemima Khan clearly shows that the Daily Times (or at least its editorial staff) are happy to act as mouth-pieces for the Benazir-military nexus. What a pity.
[...] me be honest: long have I wanted to write a political obituary for Benazir Bhutto, a leader whom I criticized in the harshest of terms and denounced as an untrustworthy opportunist. Who could have imagined, though, that soon a time [...]