Assassination of Benazir Bhutto
10 January 2008, 18:00 PM
Engineer Shafi Ahmed, London, UK
Photo: AFP
Political assassination is a professional hazard for politicians. It has happened from time immemorial in history of all civilisations and many notable and apparently insuperable leaders have suffered this fate. Julius Caesar, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Ghandi, Liaqat Ali Khan, John F Kennedy, all these come to mind.
In recent years the murders of JFK and Robert Kennedy in the USA, Indira and Rajib Gandhi in India are notable. The killing of the father of the nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family and the four political leaders in jail were not assassinations in normal sense. There have been many attempts on the life of Sheikh Hasina, and although she survived, many others close to her in her political party have been killed.
The killing of president Ziaur Rahman was similarly not a political assassination but a by-product of an abortive military coup.
Benazir's father ZA Bhutto (who incidentally was one of the key players in the breaking up of Pakistan) was not assassinated but hanged by a judicial process for ordering the murder of a political rival.
Although murder and assassination are rife in the sub-continent, it would be wrong to dub such fate as "the curse of the Gandhi family", or the "Bhutto family" or "the Sheikh family" etc.
This is just a normal hazard for those who attempt to establish political dynasties in any part of the modern world.
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The assassination of Ms. Bhutto is a severe blow to the democratic fabric of Pakistan. This might lead the nation to the following consequences.
i ) The nation will never see a sustainable democracy.
ii) The faithfuls will turn into radicals.
iii) People will lose their faith in the politicians-- a prelude to civil war.
Syed Muhammed Azim
Chittagong
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Benazir Bhutto has left a will which seems to have solved the problem temporarily though of PPP leadership. This is clearly South Asian politics at its most dramatic a leader gets assassinated and while emotions are still raw and people are not thinking straight, a member of the next generation of the leader's family is pulled into the ring. Past instances from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and even Pakistan are all too vivid. The family halo glowing around the poor sacrificial lamb's head, all disparate elements in the party are intended to remain together to prevent the disintegration of the fabric of unity!!! Even the family surname is changed!
Clearly Benazir did not name Bilawal as her successor. We simply cannot believe that she would thrust her young son into such a volatile situation a situation where she herself feared for her own life! She had named her husband Asif Zardari the chairman of the party. However, Zardari is a controversial figure and might not have been acceptable to all elements in the party. Also with an election looming ahead and with his 'Mr Ten Percent' reputation, he would hardly be an appropriate choice to lead the party to victory. So it was probably a hurried decision by core party members to come up with the present arrangement son as titular chair and father as co-chair and de-facto leader!! You could see the apprehension on the faces of party officials at the press conference and the way they reacted to questions and random slogans that rose from around….
It has been said that Bilawal will go back to studies he has to, as he needs to be a graduate to contest elections but at what risk! Surely, security will be a constant issue. And most importantly, this dynastic handling of the PPP leadership will only contribute to tarnish Benazir's image which in the aftermath of the assassination was assuming saintly proportions.
Her death has been a real tragedy. The party succession charade is yet another tragedy!
Prof. Arifa Rahman
University of Dhaka
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