Archive for the 'Pakistan' Category

This is one of the events that You can within hours from the moment when it happened find hundreds of news on the web. In the same day as she died, Benazir had a page on Wikipedia dealing with her assasination…

What I think of her? Hard to say… I have met a person who was her advisor and he claimed that she was not corrupted and all of it were untrue accusations, I have met people who have no doubt that she, or at least her husband (thats nearly for sure) had stolen a lot of money, I have read articles about her being the Prime minister and was not too impressed… but now it doesnt matter much.

I want to share with You the moment of the event and what came after, from my point of view.

1. Assasination, 27th December 2007, 5 pm (I think)

I am sitting in the common room of the university dorms, writing some stuff for the conference. In one moment a bunch of boys run in, turn on the TV and speak to each other in excited (not at all grieving) voices. My assumption is that Pakistan won some cricket match… I am told what happened, still the tone of voice is “maaan this is so cool!”. I can imagine my face looking like somebody kicked my balls – my first thought: “We (Pakistan) are so fucked, so fucked!” The boys watch the news. Quatations:

random guy: “Yeah, one gone, good”
me: “what do You mean?”
random guy: “one of the old ones gone, only Nawaz Sharif and Musharaf left”
me: “and who comes after, please tell me?”
random guy: “[unsure] I dont know, anybody!”

random guy: “man, whats up with You? You look like it was Your country? ”
me: “well, it somehow is and I do think we are fucked, so fucked, all gone, AIESEC is fucked, but thats just the top of iceberg…”
random guy: “oh come on, its not like its the end of world, it will get fine, dont worry, dont be scared, we have survived worse”
me: “well, honestly, You are fine because You have seen worse and can wait months or years till it calms down, I want it to be get calmer NOW, I wanted to have a conference and have only 6 months left to do what I want here before I leave…”
random guy: “[quiet for a moment] well, we will live here…”
me: [this time me quiet]

2. reactions, 27th December 2007, 10 pm

random friend: “Whats up? How are You?” [in an optimistic voice]
me: “Honestly, You know whats up and I feel shitty ” [snapping back]
random friend: “Oh, well, yeah…” [shocked goes away]
…meeting him after a while again
random friend: “I want to tell You something: When I asked You I didnt think You would care too much, thats first, and second just a while before I have met You, [insert name] has told me that I should not act that pesimistic and rather be myself, in order to chear up people…”
me: [feeling pretty bad] “well, sorry, I didnt mean to… Its just the thing that when You ask me `How are You?` I actually tend to answer, because I am not a Native English speaker… ”
unknown guy walking by : “Hi [friends name] ”
random friend : “Hi, how are You…. ” [turns to me] “Actually You are right, I did it again…”
me: “Well, doesnt matter, I am still sorry… I just feel like this will be pretty bad…”

3. Coma of Pakistan

In books they sometimes write that the country went into a stand still in shock… Pakistan didnt… People have been talking and looking for more people to talk with about the event (educated part) or went to the streets and starting to burn random stuff (uneducated part)…

The country went into stand-still only for those who didnt dare for the next three days to enter the streets and stayed at home scared of the random violence on the streets…

….and from there its known history: mobs started to burn down the cities – cars, banks, shops, stalls, anything that comes under their hands goes down… My opinion on this is in the article called “Day 212 (29.12.07) – Why does man kill angels? In everyone of us is a beast… “

I just felt like giving a little bit food for thought to those who talk about PPP (Benazir) and democracy (in general) in Pakistan…

I am not going to tell You much, only basic assumptions of mine (no objectivity is guaranteed): what kind of promise for Democracy can bring a political party that for the last three generations is lead by the same family?

See… PPP was founded by Zulfikar Bhutto, who became hero while being the leader of Pakistan because he had people (left wing) oriented orientation. At the end of his rule, he rather became unpopular (some people say he started to behave like a dictator) and was executed after the military coup. After this, and after it was clear that General Zia (who did the coup) is even worse,  Zulfikar became a hero again.

And thus first his wife and later his daughter (Benazir) was appointed to bethe head of the party, the daugther actaully as a life-long chairman (!). She lead the party and, after General Zias mysterious death (plane explosion), became a prime minister twice, she didnt show herself very skilled when it comes to managing the country. During this time she has accepted an arranged marriage with Asif Zardari. A rich man, who got famous for very huge corruption scandals, while being an important person in Benazirs government and PPP. In both cases of her prime-ministering she was discharged due to corruption cases…

She got back from exile when it was obvious that Musharafs power is decreasing. After first unsucessful terrorist attack in Karachi (150 ppl dead) she was killed on the 27th in Rawalpindi…

Her 19-year old son Bilawal and husband were chosen to be co-chairmans of the party (also Benazirs sister was one option). One of the party officials said that the “PPP workers would not accept a non-Bhutto leadership“. The roles have been clear already at the begining = Zardari said news-guys should ask him as Bilawal is in a “tender age” and sent him to finish school…

Am I bias? Might be… Most of all I wrote this because very soon BB will become a martyr and talking about the negatives will not be appropriate (it actually already is) and secondly and more importantly – I am sad, that the “only hope for democracy and peace”, how BB was called e.g. in Slovak newspapers, was a person with such a history… end