© Ben Heine Cartoons
Wrath of Hephaestus
Dying a violent, untimely and unexpected death, Benazir Bhutto joined the ranks of those political figures whose legacy in death is very different from the role they actually played in life. In life, she was an inconsistent democrat at best, and a willing tool of US imperialism, repeatedly making conciliatory gestures to a discredited military regime when she could afford to take a stand against it.
But in death, she has become the martyr of democracy and social justice. Thousands of working-class supporters of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) are rallying behind her name all over the country, and the military-dominated establishment is having a tough time controlling them.
Let 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 would come when a complete obituary would be required? Who could have imagined that the successor of the great Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, daughter of the East and darling of the West, would be killed in this brutal manner?
I wanted to see her sidelined in the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and hoped that her influence might be ended, so that there might be no compromise with the military regime. Instead, she was murdered in cold blood.
After Musharraf’s declaration of emergency, Benazir was unwillingly catapulted into becoming once again a faltering and yet important leader of the opposition.
I view this as an attack not just on her person, but on all progressive forces in the country. The most likely perpetrators are elements within the military establishment who are sympathetic to Islamic militants (possibly from within anti-Musharraf circles in the intelligence agencies). Either that, or else the attack was carried out by Baitullah Mahsud’s militant forces from north-western Pakistan. And incidentally, these two possibilities are not mutually exclusive, given the links of some elements in the military with militant political Islam in this region.
Whoever is responsible for it, their target was to terrorize progressive forces as a whole.
Even though Benazir Bhutto was a highly flawed leader, today I sympathize with her and her family. We must stand with the Pakistani working-class, which clung desperately to the legacy of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his daughter. We must stand with the brutalized and terrorized Pakistani masses, who flocked around Benazir’s quasi-socialist, populist slogans of “Roti, kapra aur makaan” (Bread, clothes and housing).
This assassination is the single worst outcome which I can imagine for the Pakistani political situation at the moment.
And yet, it opens up some opportunities for progress. The most obvious development is the radicalization of the PPP (especially its rank-and-file). Benazir Bhutto’s death has thrown the PPP firmly into the opposition against the military regime.
This violent death might allow consistent democratic leaders like Aitzaz Ahsan to take control of the PPP, cleanse it of opportunism and weakness, and once again make it a spear-head of the Pakistani working-people in their struggle for social justice.
Benazir was an unwilling and reluctant martyr, but a martyr she is.
Circumstances placed her in a position where she could take up the mantle of her great father.
Circumstances brought her back to Pakistan.
Circumstances upset her deal with the military establishment and its masters in Washington.
Circumstances placed her, once again, at the head of the anti-military opposition.
Circumstances made her follow her illustrious father in dying and becoming a martyr to the cause of the Pakistani masses.
Circumstances, not her own will, made her legacy what it is right now. And yet I respect this legacy.
Last month, I wrote the following:
On my blog, I have criticized Benazir Bhutto in the harshest of terms. This has meant that some readers took offence and chided me for what they perceive as an immature divorce from the realities on the ground. I beg to differ with them.
The reality on the ground is this: Benazir Bhutto is the only political leader in Pakistan who controls a real mass party, i.e. the PPP. At this moment, she is the ONLY leader with the street power needed to truly confront the military regime, launch a mass movement for restoring democracy and lead Pakistan to a brighter future.
Instead, she dilly-dallies, talks of deals with the military and speaks the language of her new patrons in Washington.
In my humble opinion, if Benazir does not take the hard but logical choice of openly confronting the military regime and severing her cosy ties to the US establishment, she too will be consigned to the ash-heap of history.
In life, Benazir could not do this. But in death, she has achieved it. And this is why I pay homage to her legacy: a legacy of resistance.
So I say: may she rest in peace, and may the Motherland find a way out of this difficult time.
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© 2007 Crimson East
SOURCE: http://wrathofhephaestus.wordpress.com/2007/12/28/benazir-bhutto-the-reluctant-martyr/
