Benazir Bhutto

The Murder of Benazir Bhutto

What Pakistan, If Not the World, Lost

by Charles Strohmer

Two months before she returned to her homeland and was murdered, I had the opportunity to hear Benazir Bhutto address a group at the Council on Foreign Relations. Twice a former Prime Minister of Pakistan, she struck me not so much as a politician but as a leaders with a clear, bold message. No one listening could misunderstand her vision for a democratic Pakistan or her keen grasp both of the military dictatorship and of the religious extremists who stood in the way of implementing democracy. Her vision was supported by her husband and family, though they knew that she could be murdered, if not by one enemy, then by any of several others. I did not know Mrs. Bhutto, but having heard her speak I feel a sense of loss from her death. You should, too. Here’s why.“This suppression of democracy in my homeland has had profound institutional consequences,” Bhutto said.

She was safe enough living outside Pakistan. So why return to what is often called the most dangerous nation on the planet? She was returning, she said at CFR, because Pakistan had changed dramatically since the last time she left office (1996). “Military dictatorship has fueled the forces of extremism,” she said, “and has put into place a government that is unaccountable, unrepresentative, undemocratic, and disconnected from the ordinary people of the country and their aspirations. Military dictatorship is born from the power of the gun, and so it undermines the concept of the rule of law and gives birth to a culture of might, a culture of weapons, violence, and intolerance.” She was willing to return to her homeland and risk death in order to stand again for election and to seek to democratize the institutional structures.

Her vision was no less than to change the nation. “This suppression of democracy in my homeland has had profound institutional consequences,” Bhutto said. “I plan to return later this year to Pakistan to lead a democratic movement for the restoration of democracy. I seek to lead a democratic Pakistan which is free from the yoke of military dictatorship, and that will cease to be a haven, the very petri dish, of international terrorism.” She believed that “people empowered by democracy, human rights, and economic opportunity will turn their backs decisively against extremism,” but she did not see quick fixes as the solution. She knew that if she were elected a third time, it would mean walking cooperatively with others down the long and hard slog of institutional changes.

Mrs. Bhutto did not strike me as a dreamy idealist when she outlined her proposals for economic, social, and political change, for she had in her sights opposition that included high levels of social and religious intolerance, suicide bombings, and the blind eye of a military that at times would look the other way while the Taliban and al Qaeda regrouped and reorganized in the western provinces.submit or die ideologues do not negotiate with others

About that threat she was no fool. She was keenly aware of the long-term religious-political goal that lies in the militant worldview of those whom I call the “submit or die” ideologues — those who have seen in their radical interpretation of men such as Mawlana Maududi (of Pakistan), Sayyid Qutb (of Egypt), and Ayatollah Khomeini (of Iran) the rule of nations, if not the world.

Qutb, for instance, until his execution in Egypt (1966), wrote prolifically about what he believed Islam was and the method by which it was going to rise again to play the role of the leader of mankind. In Milestones, a short book with a militant tone that summarizes his religious-political ideology, he wrote: “In order to bring this about, we need to initiate the movement of Islamic revival in some Muslim country. Only such a revival will eventually attain to the status of world leadership.” “Three possibilities are placed before the people of a conquered country,” he explained, “one of which everyone must choose — Islam, the poll tax, or war…. For to refuse both Islam and the payment of the poll tax indicates clear insistence on maintaining the material forces that intervene between Islam and the minds of men. Hence this insistence must be removed by physical force, which is ultimately the only way.” Submit or die ideologues do not negotiate with others. Mrs. Bhutto knew she would be risking death to try to rid her homeland of that threat. What more could she do?

I often hear, she said at CFR, that you’ve got to placate the hardliners [Qutb called them the “vanguard” of the movement], bring them in to the mainstream. So we’ve given them two provinces, and even some opposition political power; but, she asked, “has it quenched their thirst? No! They want more and more. They want to take over the whole state of Pakistan, not on the basis of having the popular support, but on the basis of having the support of the militants and the militias. So this is a battle to save Pakistan. We have to save Pakistan from within, and by saving Pakistan from within I think it will be having a profound affect on our region, on Afghanistan, on India, and on the larger world community.”

Mrs. Bhutto knew that submit or die ideologues do not negotiate with others, and that she would be risking death by returning to her homeland with her vision of change in the face of that threat. What more could she do?

Her voice carried a sense of urgency and, to me, a dead honesty so unlike the political hedging we usually get from our leaders. To a question from Richard Haas about the difficulties of ending the extremist threat from western Pakistan, she candidly replied, “You’ve got to take them on. If you don’t take them on, then they win the battle anyway. Whereas if you take them on, well, either you win, and if you don’t win, well, you’ve tried, and somebody else is going to come in and try harder.”

I sensed in her wisdom that Mrs. Bhutto believed in the cooperative agreements and arrangements that are possible from the kind of honest and open inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue that underscores the common humanity of us all. May we not long be awaiting that “somebody else” to come along.

Charles Strohmer is a visiting fellow of the Center for Public Justice, writing a book on U.S.-Middle East relations. For a transcript of Bhutto’s talk at CFR: click here.

Copyright. Permission to reprint required.

Discuss the article here