Ottawa Citizen : Bhutto is the last best hope for Pakistan

Bhutto is the last best hope for Pakistan

David Warren | The Ottawa Citizen | October 20, 2007

Out of the bloody mess in Karachi -- hundreds killed and maimed in al-Qaeda's latest effort to gain power through psychopathic violence and intimidation -- comes a kind of order.

The position of Benazir Bhutto -- the seemingly perpetual once and future prime minister of Pakistan -- has been immensely enhanced by the failure of the blasts to kill her. If she can remain alive, she now has an unprecedented and almost miraculous opportunity to pull Pakistan together, and inspire her people to fight against their worst enemy in the world -- not "Hindu India," nor "Imperialist America," but the Islamists who are feeding on the country's entrails.

The power-sharing agreement Ms. Bhutto's agents have apparently hashed out with President Pervez Musharraf's agents must certainly be vague, and constitutionally incomprehensible. That is because it is founded only on necessity -- a principle that trumps all constitutional law. Pakistan's surprisingly independent supreme court may throw spanners in Musharraf's recent "re-election," or in the deal to withdraw corruption charges against Ms. Bhutto and her husband (that were themselves presented in a corrupt way). But for all their self-regard, the country's nit-picking lawyers and judges are now more likely to realize what is at stake if they try to stand in the way of necessity.

Ms. Bhutto, and not President Musharraf, has the mass appeal, without which, at this moment, no politician or general in Pakistan has a chance against the whirlwind. It was demonstrated in the crowds of hundreds of thousands that turned out to welcome her home from exile. This "champion of democracy" has that appeal through her dynastic claims, as the daughter of the "martyred" Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. She represents the last hope of the (frankly aristocratic) older ruling order in Pakistan's political life.

The judicial murder of the secular leftist Ali Bhutto, directed by the late Gen. Zia al-Haq, can now be seen more clearly as the tipping point in Pakistan's political evolution. Before that, real power was mostly in the hands of the chief landed families, whose children were raised and educated in essentially Western ways, whose assumptions and ideals were essentially secular, and whose aspirations were to "modernize" Pakistan, whatever that word might mean from day to day.

After that, a new generation emerged of relative arrivistes -- families whose children had not been sent to universities in Britain, Europe, or America; having not attended the short list of preparatory schools in Pakistan itself (founded by Catholic missionaries), but the better "madrassahs" instead.

The notion of "separation of Church and State," which is a Christian and not an Islamic one, is in the bones of that "old class." It is easy to understand why sincere Muslims resent them, even while trying to form reasonable accommodations with them.

Pakistan's "new class" were hardly fanatical Islamists -- Musharraf himself is not a fanatic anything but survivor. But their aspirations for Pakistan have tended less to "modernizing" and more to "Islamicizing." They assisted, I think mostly unknowingly, in creating the conditions for fanatical Islamism to flourish. And that is the whirlwind all now reap.

"Modernization" and "Islamization" are alternative courses. You can't have both. And one country after another, across the Islamic world, is being wrenched, hideously, in the conflict between these two incompatible aspirations -- the natural ground for civil war. I would go farther and say that the soul of every sincere Muslim, trying to make a way in the world for himself and his family, is wrenched between these competing aspirations.

Before considering Thursday's bombs, we must consider the nature of the welcome Ms. Bhutto received in Karachi. Throughout the vast, surging rally, the slogans and signs proclaimed that Ms. Bhutto, and she alone, could "save" Pakistan, and solve not just some problems, but all. I am not criticizing Ms. Bhutto when I say that this is quite a tiger to ride. She has many frailties. But she is now on the tiger.

The Pakistan People's Party has wandered over the years from one position to another on passing political and economic issues, but has remained the voice and force of secularism. It is also, at this moment in Pakistan, the only path out of hell. Many who despise the PPP now realize this -- the rally included thousands of its former opponents -- and the bombs have helped to clarify the situation.

In conclusion: Pak zar shamin zad bad. God save Pakistan. God bless her people in their hour of trial.

David Warren writes Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2007