Max McGuinness on why it's plus ça change in Pakistan.
The appointment by fiat of Bilawal Bhutto as Benazir Bhutto's successor at the head of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) suggests that the extraordinary contradictions and bad faith of the mother's career will also be passed on to the son.
For Benazir Bhutto was a populist and nominal socialist who embezzled millions of the people's money, a democrat who treated her country's largest political party as a family concern, a "pro-western moderate" (as she was invariably described in the Western media) who propelled the Taliban to power in neighbouring Afghanistan and scarcely challenged the rise of extremists in her own country, a Muslim who became President of the Oxford Union by providing free champagne and oysters to the society's entire membership on the eve of the election, and a personally brave woman who lacked the political courage to reform the feudal structures of her native Pakistan.
Her son, having been anointed by his dad Asif Zardari (known as Mr. Ten Percent on account of his venality) as dauphin to the largest political force in Pakistan, declared without a hint of irony that "my mother always said democracy is the best revenge." He added that "when I am at University my father will take care of the party." What I would give to eavesdrop on one of young Bilawal's politics tutorials at Christ Church college, Oxford next term when the institutions of representative democracy are up for discussion.
In the long run, Pakistanis better hope against hope that two and a half more years of the finest education in Britain might lead Bilawal to realise that dynastic politics is a sign of weakness rather than strength, as his mother's former friend Tariq Ali pointed out in an excellent piece in December 31st's Independent, picking up the thread of his lengthy account of Bhutto's career in last month's London Review of Books.
For now, Pakistan seems doomed to years of continued violence and instability. Washington's puppet Pervez Musharraf's days should be numbered but this vain, thoughtless autocrat appears determined to cling to the very last remnants of his power until all he has to bequeath to his shattered country is a complete vacuum.
The "democratic" alternative of Benazir's hubby and the Islamist fellow traveller and war monger Nawaz Sharif [if Musharraf neglects to rig parliamentary elections, which have been postponed once again following Bhutto's murder] offers no improvement. But maybe if the West, led by the incapable sycophant Condoleeza Rice, stopped trying to railroad the Pakistani people into accepting a foul alliance of this gruesome crew, they might just get the chance to start again and follow the example of their thriving neighbours in India, where a stable democracy has triumphed, seemingly against all logic.
My thought while watching the video was something like: democracy, surly it's more like nepotism?
Posted by: Cian | January 02, 2008 at 23:25