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My mother-in-law called to commiserate about BB’s assassination. In the course of the conversation, she was surprised to hear that BB had some negative traits as a political leader. The way that the Western media is building her up to be a saint of democracy is appalling.
I love that she was the youngest person and first woman to be elected to lead a modern Islamic state. As a teenager witnessing her achievements, she broadened the possibilities – for me and so many others – of what a woman could achieve.
But she was also a corrupt, autocratic leader who, with her husband, embezzled millions of dollars from a poor country, had verdicts against her in a Swiss court, supported a pro-Taliban policy while in government, did not dismantle the Hudood Ordinance, preferred to leave Pakistan rather than take responsibility for her actions, and – whatever her rhetoric about democracy outside may have been – never built up a strong second tier of leadership in the PPP nor held internal party elections. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
The main reason she returned in October was because of a power-sharing deal floated by the Bush administration (meddlesome and condescending in itself). Granted, she had immense personal courage and I wish she were alive to contest the polls – to allow the people to decide her fate rather than a bullet to do so – but I am staggered by her near-deification in the MSM.
Frankly, the real exemplars of courage are those who choose to stay in Pakistan and to work for change every single day at the individual and grassroots levels in good times and in bad.
Take Mukhtar Mai as just one example. She was gang-raped and then chose to stay in the same Pakistani village where it happened in order to use her legal settlement to build a school there because she believes that education is the key to dismantling fanaticism.
The work of education isn’t sensational enough to make worldwide headlines. It’s a slow process that takes decades to come to fruition but that is exactly the type of long-term vision and commitment that is needed to make change.
It’s easy to get derailed when something like BB’s assassination happens, easy to spiral into depression, frustration, and hopelessness. But as Pakistanis abroad and as second gens, our responsibility is to not give into cynicism about Pakistan being a “failed state.”
Instead, our role and responsibility is to keep hope alive and support the Pakistani people, their schools and non-profits with our votes, pens, voices, lobbies, and, most importantly, our bucks.
For every rupee she earned, Mukhtar Mai was willing to put one right back into the school and welfare center.
How many of us have the vision to match her courage?
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Related:
The Pressure Cooker of Potential at Koonj
Pointing: Benazir Bhutto at Revolt in the Desert
“The democracy movement did not start with Bhutto and will not end with her death” at The Real News. (One of the only clear-eyed media views I’ve heard)
Check out this three-minute video at the NYT with 2007’s best travel photography from around the world.
[Benazir Bhutto walks with her children (from left) Bilawal, 10, Bakhtawar, 9, and Asifa, 6, in the UK in 1999, Reuters, by Ian Hodgson.]
Former Prime Minister of Pakistan and first Muslim woman PM Benazir Bhutto was killed in Rawalpindi at a rally in Liaquat Garden today, also the site of the assassination of the first democratically elected PM of Pakistan, Liaquat Ali Khan, in 1951.
I didn’t like her politically, but I am saddened at the passing of a precious human life in yet another act of senseless violence and mourning the fact that guns and bombs have become the accepted way to settle scores or get rid of people one disagrees with in Pakistan, in our Ummah, and in much of the rest of the world.
Adil Najam says it best at All Things Pakistan:
“At a human level this is a tragedy like no other. Only a few days ago I was mentioning to someone that the single most tragic person in all of Pakistan – maybe all the world – is Nusrat Bhutto. Benazir’s mother. Think about it. Her husband, killed. One son poisoned. Another son assasinated. One daughter dead possibly of drug overdose. Another daughter rises to be Prime Minister twice, but jailed, exiled, and finally gunned down.
Today, in shock, I can think only of Benazir Bhutto the human being. Tomorrow, maybe, I will think of politics.”
Inna lillahey -
I wrote that and the phone rang. It was my sister in Lahore, whom I had just spoken to an hour ago about the assassination. She called to tell me that my Dado (paternal grandmother) is dead.
She had a stroke nine years ago and has been paralyzed, out of her senses, and bedridden since then – this is an end to her mortal suffering. May God grant her peace in the grave and heaven in the afterlife, ameen.
I’m thinking about that house in Lahore right now, where my Dado – no – her body lies. All the people I look at as “adults” – my parents, my paternal aunts – are at another home waiting for the roads to open after Benazir’s assassination. So the people who witnessed her passing and surround her body now are my sisters and their four young children. With a new generation gathered around us, we are the adults now.
My Dado was the last of my grandparents to pass away…and in her passing, it feels like a torch has been handed on to us. The next deaths we will deal with will likely be those in our parents’ generation.
My six-year-old niece was the only child old enough to realize on some level that something had happened. She sidled up to her mother to offer her comfort saying, “It’s OK, Mama, my goldfish died and went to heaven. Now your Dado is in heaven with my goldfish too. Someday we’ll all be together in heaven with my goldfish and Dado.”
Insha-Allah, my love, insha-Allah.
Dadojaan, I’ll be praying and reading al-Ghazali’s poem, “Lord, I Obey Willingly” for you today. I love you and wish I could have kissed you one last time…I wish I was there to hold your hand when you breathed your last and passed over the threshold into the unknown that awaits us all.
May you find yourself freed from your paralyzed body, running in fields of gold, beautiful and young, peaceful and free in the protection of our Lord, meri jaan, ameen.
And may we meet again in a place beautiful beyond our imagination.
Inna lillahey wa inna illeyhey rajioun – We belong to God and to Him is our return.
Basil has a week off from work for the holidays so we’re enjoying the mellow, sunny winter days together.
We saw a beautiful production of the “The Nutcracker” by the SF Ballet today. I had one-third of my nosebleed seat view obscured by a young boy refusing to sit in his seat in front of me and felt the kicks of a little girl on my seat from behind me during the entire show.
Yet, for the most part, I didn’t mind. Children are such a rarity here (there are more dogs than babies in this town) that it was wonderful to be surrounded by their gasps of delight (and even their occasional crying) for the two hours we were in the gorgeous theater.
Having said that, I don’t think I could ever be one of those people who watches “The Nutcracker” every year. Once was lovely and quite enough. Though the music was familiar and soaring and I could appreciate the technique, strength and grace of the dancers, the dancers weren’t racially diverse, the ‘Arabian’ dancers had an “I Dream of Jeannie” woman rising out of a magic lamp (*yawn*), and the classical poses soon bored me.
Yesterday, we attended the 5th annual “Muslim Christmas” for the first time. We watched “Charlie Wilson’s War” and then headed over to the 24-hour Naan n Curry for a special buffet dinner with around 30 people.
The movie is the most fun political film I’ve ever seen, and though I could have happily skipped the Tom Hanks butt shot, he plays the lead role as a liberal libertine very well.
Though I enjoyed it, would it kill Hollywood to show a few in-depth Afghan or Pakistani characters instead of recycling stereotypes? We see any number of white characters, find out their stories and connect to them but the brown people do little but shout Allahu Akbar. Oh, and also win a war that the US won’t fight directly.
It’s an interesting look back at the radicalization of the Abrahamic faiths, the effects of which are in full force right now. I was surprised to learn that the covert military alliance between Pakistan, Egypt and the US (with Saudi Arabia matching US aid dime for dime, up to $500 million) that helped the mujahideen win against the USSR, also included Israel.
Looks like I need to read the book the movie is based on so that I can learn more about a time I lived through as a teen in Islamabad, yet have little real knowledge of.
Seeing families streaming into the theater for their annual Nutcracker tradition and American Muslims trying to create community on a mandatory holiday, made me think about traditions and of how we can create them in our lives.
Growing up in California and Pakistan, Eid was a big deal for us kids but once I left my parents’ home for college it ceased to be. Basil attends Eid prayer but otherwise it’s often just another day. Honestly, Thanksgiving is more full of traditions for us than Eid is right now living in a city with few Muslims who are not single professionals who travel home for the holidays.
As we consider whether or not we want to have children, I’m wondering what sort of memories and traditions Basil and I will create for them. Hennaed hands, new clothes, charity/volunteering, all might come into play.
NPR had an interview with Godtube’s founder a few days ago so, of course, I had to check out their most popular (and funny) video: “Baby Got Book” a parody of the infamous “Baby Got Back” from the 90s.
Check it out for yourself, here.
I love the San Francisco Chronicle’s Day in Pictures. You can see their selection of the best photos of the year, here.
I came across a comment somewhere in the wake of the tragic murder of Aqsa Pervez, asking how a 16-year-old girl could possibly make an informed decision to wear the hijab.
We live in a time where our ideas about children and the onset of adulthood are confused and confusing, a world in which a 13-year-old adolescent receives sex education in school in preparation for an imminent physical relationship, but a 16-year old can’t make an informed decision to cover her hair.
In the eyes of many it seems, a child is more capable of dealing with a fully physical, adult relationship with all its attendant emotions and responsibilities at 13, than a Muslim woman of any age is to make decisions about who gets to see her body, when, and how.
Instead of obsessing over the hijab (or lack thereof) or teenage sexuality, however, we (Muslim or not) need to address the larger issue by reexamining what constitutes adulthood and the ability to make informed decisions.
And, then – the most difficult part – we need to make sure that we bring up our girls (and boys) to become conscientious, thoughtful and intelligent adults capable of making those informed, long-term, and life-changing decisions for themselves.
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