Weighing In
Pakistan has moved up to the top of my list of “places-I-wouldn’t-want-to-be-right-now”. It’s awful and harrowing, thinking about what has happened and what is currently unfolding there. The worst part it--It feels like Bhutto’s assassination was inevitable. She had missed the bullet (literally) several times and her father and brothers were all slain by oppositional forces; she must have known that it was only a matter of time. And I wonder--what is it like to live with that knowledge? To know that there are hordes of people plotting your death? And to continue on nonetheless?
I wouldn’t have known anything about Pakistani politics had it not been for the readings of Dr. Ahmed’s play that I worked on in July and November. Bhutto had returned to Pakistan during the time between these two events, and Ahmed was cautiously hopeful about her presence there—stress on the word “cautious”. His editorial in the Forward from just about three weeks ago seems eerily prophetic in its warnings.
This editorial in the Post refers to Bhutto as, possibly, “the only answer” to the current backsliding into the morass of “violence and Islamic extremism” happening in Pakistan. That strikes me as a dangerous idea to posit. If one person is the “only answer” they take on a savior-like quality. And then when they are gone—what next?
As for our part now in the West? We watch. We wait.
Anyway—HPMelon has a much better statement posted that celebrates Bhutto’s gumption rather than wallowing in uncertainty like I do. Read it here.
Update: Everyone's writing about Bhutto. Hanvnah saw her speak.
posted by SAS @ 11:58 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Her assaination made me think of Rushdie's book, The Ground Beneath Her Feet. Like the earth in Pakistan is just crumbling away. Bhutto was an amazing energy, and anyone that magnetic certanly causes tremors in their wake. It feels like without her there everything will just fall apart, as it already is. I am not sure she was the perfect answer, but she certainly was an inspirational one. Forging ahead as she did knowing that her life was hanging in the balance, was a true test of her courage and love for her country. Pretty amazing.
Wasn't it amazing that a woman like that having been exposed to accusations during her tenure as prime minister(some true, some not as is always the case)of her husband murdering others (including as stories have it one of her brothers), corruption, like money laundering, all out political shenannigans and all that jazz would venture out of exile to go back into an environment rife with that? She HAD to know there was a possibility someone would kill her. I thought, when she went back to Pakistan to become politically active, "Someone is going to kill that lady." She was too much competition for the opposition. They weren't about to share power with her.
I read someplace that an October attempt on her life involved a baby being rigged up with explosives. She was being handed the baby but something distracted her, she bent down and the explosive detonated. Damn. The baby, she said, was probably kidnapped. Sigh.
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