8pov

The world can certainly do better than this. Here's why.

Saturday, December 29

Leader of the Free World

Benazir Bhutto was a leader of the free world. In my opinion, for her time, she was THE leader of the free world. She spoke against tyrannic rule. She was a front-line commander of a population opposed to rule by militarized government. The leader of a movement to -- democratically -- remove a president seated atop a military coup and wielding command of both the military and the government. To the free people of the world, those that support transparent democratic systems, she had the capacity to achieve the kind of non-violent change that has become exceedingly rare. This decision of hers, to motivate and hopefully achieve such change, was undertaken from a position of authority. As a former prime-minister of Pakistan, she knew, precisely, the plight of her nation. It was for this reason she pushed, at the cost of her own life, for political change in Pakistan.

Her death is not a sacrifice. She, as yet, is not a martyr to any cause except that of dissent against the empowered. That al-Qaeda is blamed for her assassination has made her death less and act internal politics and more an act of international terrorism. The effect of this act will, in keeping with history's tide, be the product of politics, posturing, and power. All parties interested, from Pervez Musharraf, to George Bush, to the remainder of the PPP, to al-Qaeda, will have a hand in the shaping of this act.

It is widely believed that the alliance between Pakistan and America is becoming increasingly tenuous. The disappearance of Osama bin Laden from Afghanistan into the mountainous region bordering Pakistan, was the first loss of confidence suffered by Pakistan, in the eyes of the world. If Pakistan was such a staunch ally of America, believing wholly in the foreign policy adopted, certainly they would root out the cancerous threat themselves or would permit America to chase him down. Unaccounted for was the sympathy that tribal elders and other traditional Muslims in Northern Pakistan would feel for the fallen Taliban government. They, consequently, rebuffed Karachi and Washington, denying them their manhunt. Fearing a rise in instability spreading to Pakistan; when there were other, higher value targets in sight; Washington accepted a stalemate. For a year, this stalemate was the nexus of conflict about the allies of the war on terror, but, as America geared up for a war in Iraq, using a living Osama bin Laden and an operational terrorist network as elements of their pretext, the focus was shifted and the stalemate, forgotten.

As time wore on and the imbalances within Pakistan were shifted again and again to prop up the Presidency of Pervez Musharraf, culminating in his suspension of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court -- an event which spurned Bhutto's return from exile -- then, the dissolution of the top court altogether, and the declaration of a national state of emergency, it became easier for all to see that there was a growing problem within the nation. Musharraf was losing control of a sharply divided nation.

Since news of Bhutto's return began to surface and preparations were made, others prepared to kill her. On the day of her return, a massive explosion killed more than 140 of her supporters. This was just in advance of the declaration of national emergency. She would not be deterred. Two further attempts were made to kill her, the third one successful. No doubt she knew that elements within Pakistan would have her due. She knew this even as she contemplated her return. Yet, an exercise of her freedom to choose and her freedom to act in the world; despite the threat others posed to her life, she stood to contest what she knew had to be changed.

Control of the elements of Pakistani society are difficult, near impossible. Exampled by the flight of the Taliban into Pakistan and their establishment of new resistance to international forces and carried by the contemporary issues within Islam, widely divergent beliefs about the future of Pakistan are a constant powderkeg. To his credit, the embattled President Musharraf had attempted to protect Bhutto, his political rival. He had done so, however, by force of arms, confining her under house arrest. Perhaps he was right, perhaps this was the only way of saving her life. However, she did not want to be so protected, to be give shelter by the paternalistic decisions of an armed commander. It was not politically viable as she could not campaign and rally her nation from confinement. It was not politically viable for a progressive, western-educated, outspoken critic of the government to accept safe harbour from that same government. At the very base, it was not politically viable for her, as a progressive Muslim woman, to accept protection from a man -- especially one who is not her husband. Thus, she died as she lived, as she would have all people live, an example of freedom and the cost it can bear when there is when so much is at stake.

Her political legacy is to be an unsolved riddle. It is said that she ruled her party with an iron fist, even from her self-imposed exile in England. It is said that the governments she led in 1988 and 1996 were corrupt and that her husband embezzeled over a billion dollars from Pakistan. It is said that she is not a proper leader for a Islamic nation in an era of Islamic militancy because she was educated abroad, because she has strong cultural and idealistic ties to Western nations, and because she is a woman. For any of these reasons, in the age of a global war on terror, al-Qaeda would deem her dangerous and counter-revolutionary. For any of these reasons, she could be killed. Others, too, could apply the same logic, taking matters into their own hands, and lend assistance to creation of chaos -- possibly, probably -- profitting by it. Is this not the nature of assassination?

Had her return been for her own benefit, for greed -- political or monetary -- she had certainly decided that her life was some small payment for it. No person who is driven by greed willingly faces death. Those seeking justice do. Even if her mission was to atone for the past, would the cost of her life be enough to balance it?

What is to be done? Well, the talk now encircles the elections. However, justice must be served. Almost too quickly, al-Qaeda has been implicated. Whether or not this is true is for al-Qaeda to deal with. As I've said before, elsewhere, it is no longer a matter of truth it is a matter of politics.

Soon enough, America will have to bow to the pressure to act as, even though it transpired in another nation, a terrorist attack has happened and al-Qaeda is implicated. With recent Turkish raids of Northern Iraq and the demands of the US Marines to redeploy to Afghanistan, will a weaker President Bush and an even weaker President Musharraf, both seeking favourable outcomes in their respective elections, act in defiance of the forgotten stalemate between the tribal leaders of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region and favor of the interests of the global war on terror. Probably not. Pakistan is the poorest nation on Earth in possession of nuclear weapons. A single series of disaffected commanders and Islamic fundamentalists funnels one of these devices into the hands of a suicide bomber. The ultimatum issued from Washington to Karachi over six years ago was either you're 100% with us or 100% against us. I would ask, does the knife cut both ways? Maybe the time has come to co-opt Pakistan while it wrestles with political turmoil. Its lightning rod of freedom and progressive values now dead, perhaps only America remains. If so, can the threat posed by Pakistan's nuclear arsenal be contained? Can it be done without a President that simultaneously commands the military? This is, certainly, an anti-democratic situation. If, on the other hand, a Pakistani warhead is detonated in a Western capital, there will be no end to the misery that will be wrought.

At the outset, I spoke of Benazir Bhutto in terms of her leadership and her desire to bring democracy and freedom to the people of Pakistan. This effort is mirrored elsewhere in the world. The effort has, however, become an enterprise requiring more than strong leadership by democratic means. The dream once realized by people such as Ghandi and Mandela was sought out by Benazir Bhutto, but the world -- itself -- has changed since these men held sway. Now, the forces of arms and economy rule nations in tyranny and their people in fear. The face of this tyranny is sometimes explicit, as it is in Myanmar/Burma, and sometimes false, as it is in some western-style plutocracies. Change, in response to this degree of control, is deemed dependent only on the force of improvised explosives rending life from limb and sowing fear in civilians -- those who pray for peace and security the most. Those that believe in the dreams that freedom and democracy offer search for people such as Benazir Bhutto to lead fearlessly. It is this kind of leadership that the world has lost.

Post-amble(?)

This is a biased and incompletely informed view. Though, I suppose, I am entitled to the view that I have, it is, nonetheless, only the product of the information I have now and, further, it is the product of my views on what freedom is and who, in fact, is free in this world. I suppose, again, that the same can be said of any who write anything in this world, an assumption that should be taken for granted, but, with the bourgeoning population of those who would call themselves authorities of this world, I wish to make clear that I am no authority but that I hold an opinion. Sometimes it just needs to be said.