What Might Have Been by William Milam, The Daily Times
Saturday, January 12, 2008
[mukto-mona] Fwd: What Might Have Been by William Milam, The Daily Times
Excerpt: "Clearly, she was not the perfect vehicle for the expression of the general yearning for a better, more modern, democratic Pakistan. Yet who else was there? Look around! Is there another national leader, one who commands solid support among the people, who can replace her as the voice of moderation, and democratic change for Pakistan? She was it!....None of the politicians now scrambling to assume her mantle — not just as PPP leader, but also as a national leader who can bring civil society together to face the twin enemies of jihadi extremism and militarism — has her stature. The woman embodied the hopes of millions for a democratic and modern Pakistan. That is what might have been: a Pakistan led by a civilian politician who could articulate a specific vision of modernity that appealed throughout the society, even if she hadn't always lived it. Isn't that what societies need to move ahead on the hard path of modernisation and democratisation — leaders who not only embody the hopes and aspirations of their people, but are able to articulate them in words that the average citizen can understand and relate to. Benazir Bhutto appeared to do that for many Pakistanis. Tragically her message calling for modernisation of the society led to her death. Another such leader will appear, but when and in what guise is unclear.
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William B Milam is a senior policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington and a former US Ambassador to Pakistan and Bangladesh. His columns reflect his personal views and not those of the United States Government
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Comment: What might have been —William B Milam
None of the politicians now scrambling to assume Bhutto's mantle — not just as PPP leader, but also as a national leader who can bring civil society together to face the twin enemies of jihadi extremism and militarism — has her stature. The woman embodied the hopes of millions for a democratic and modern Pakistan
It will be almost two weeks by the time this is published, but the feeling remains acute that some malevolent force has again ripped away what could have been a turning point in Pakistani history. Whittier's words came to me the moment I heard of Benazir Bhutto's murder and have stayed with me since: "For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'it might have been.'"
In Pakistan, I fear that, more than in most countries, promise itself is dangerous, and those who embody promise do so at great personal risk. Liaquat Ali Khan was killed on almost the same spot as Ms Bhutto in 1951 for reasons as yet dimly understood, but perhaps linked to the promise he symbolised that the policies of Jinnah would continue. Ms Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, as long as he was alive, implied a promise of a return to civilian dominance in politics. In these cases in which promise was thwarted by violence, and there are a number of others, society and politics have been wrenched away from a path of change which might have led the country in a far different direction.
Of course, "what might have been" works on two levels.
At the national level, it is what might have happened if Ms Bhutto had lived, taken political power, and carried out her promises and programmes. The country would have been different.
The other level is personal. Was her determination to take on all elements and refusal to be cowed by threats an effort to make up for two failed tenures of national leadership? Was this her last chance to make good on the long-delayed promise she had shown in her early years?
I am sure, like other traumatic events, we will all remember exactly where we were when we learned of her assassination. I was spending a day in London in transit back to Tripoli, Libya when the news reached me. It came like such news frequently does — the VOA television service called on my cell phone to ask if I would give an interview about the implications and the consequences of Bhutto's murder. Unfortunately, in this era of cell phones, satellite TV, and the Internet, one cannot duck away from being involved, on some level.
My phone rang many times that afternoon until I turned it off. The calls were all from American media outlets, and all had the same first question: who would have committed this heinous crime? When I dared to mention that Al Qaeda and the Taliban had the most to gain from her death, the callers seemed clearly surprised and sceptical. It became clear that at least that part of the American media calling me shared the feeling that appears to have dominated in the Pakistan media, that the Musharraf government must have been involved in her murder.
The government's fumbling and error-prone response did not help quell such suspicion. Perhaps the investigation into the assassination that is now, after a good deal of slippage, underway with the outside help of Scotland Yard, will reduce the doubts. However, given the slip-shod way it was handled in the first few days after the attack that took her life, I doubt that there will ever be complete confidence that the government's role was benign, if careless. But, while the spotlight is on the question of culpability, it is not the sole question we should be contemplating.
The encomiums began immediately—paeans of praise for her courage, her determination, her tenacity, her firm opposition to jihadi extremism, her beauty, her qualities as a mother, her foresight, her liberal and modern outlook, her defence of equality for women, her firm belief in democracy, and much more. There is a quality of truth to it all; many of those virtues were apparent in her actions and speech but not all in equal proportions.
A friend of mine wrote a day or two after the assassination that we could expect that demonisation would also follow hard on the heels of praise. Sure enough, not long after, articles began to appear in the press and on the net that reviewed the charges of corruption that led to her two dismissals from office and, finally, her exile. The demonologists also laid at her feet the alleged corruption of her husband. Additionally, her second government's support of the Taliban in Afghanistan was thought unseemly and unwise. Finally, critics believed that she sought power above principle.
If nothing else were in the negative ledger, her writing a will that handed down PPP leadership to her son and husband in case of her death was the action of a dyed-in-the-wool feudal, a believer in dynastic succession in politics, not a passionate democrat, as she had claimed to be on the campaign trail. There are scattered voices questioning whether she wrote that will, but we haven't seen any evidence to the contrary.
Clearly, she was not the perfect vehicle for the expression of the general yearning for a better, more modern, democratic Pakistan. Yet who else was there? Look around! Is there another national leader, one who commands solid support among the people, who can replace her as the voice of moderation, and democratic change for Pakistan? She was it!
For all her faults and flaws, it seems to me that she spoke to some inner part of a large segment of society who want to live democratically and peacefully in the 21st century. Her appeal appeared to transcend ethnic boundaries (though there seems much effort now to ethnicise her death) and patronage claims. It was vaguely ideological and stretched across traditional political categories.
Whittier's words raise, thus, the question that will continue to haunt us long after the facts of her murder and her will are generally known and accepted. What direction would Pakistan have taken if she had remained alive and had been part of, perhaps head of, the next elected government? Would she have risen above the unseemly history of her first two governments to be a truly national leader and one with a fixed modern vision for Pakistan? We will never know now. The assassins saw to that.
None of the politicians now scrambling to assume her mantle — not just as PPP leader, but also as a national leader who can bring civil society together to face the twin enemies of jihadi extremism and militarism — has her stature. The woman embodied the hopes of millions for a democratic and modern Pakistan. That is what might have been: a Pakistan led by a civilian politician who could articulate a specific vision of modernity that appealed throughout the society, even if she hadn't always lived it.
Isn't that what societies need to move ahead on the hard path of modernisation and democratisation — leaders who not only embody the hopes and aspirations of their people, but are able to articulate them in words that the average citizen can understand and relate to. Benazir Bhutto appeared to do that for many Pakistanis. Tragically her message calling for modernisation of the society led to her death. Another such leader will appear, but when and in what guise is unclear.
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