Ifs and buts
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Gibran Peshimam
There is something deeply troubling about the revival of the discourse surrounding the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The United Nations Commission invited by the current government to probe the assassination, far from giving us any answers, did little but resurrect painful questions – ones that may never be answered, leaving us hungering more, for closure we will never get.
It is, however, not the efficacy of the commission that troubles me most; it is the generalised rhetoric surrounding the assassination. That Benazir wasn't protected and insulated enough.
If the security were better, she would still be alive, they say; if she hadn't stuck her head out of the sunroof, she would still be alive; if she had heeded the ISI's advice and not addressed the mammoth Liaquat Bagh gathering, she would still be alive. If her chief of security was more competent and got her vehicle out of the crowd, she would still be alive.
Perhaps.
In retrospect, everything always seems obvious – and it is also more agonising, more infuriating, when you begin to lose sight of extenuating factors and immerse yourself in that obviousness.
Yet, I am also inclined to believe that if she hadn't stuck her head out of the sunroof, hadn't addressed that mammoth rally at Liaquat Bagh, incidentally one of her finest public addresses, on the advice of agencies of questionable intent; if she hadn't immersed herself in the people, she wouldn't have been Benazir Bhutto.
You see, the politics of Benazir, like her father's, was populist – she and her father, unlike any leader of Pakistan, including Jinnah himself, drew their energy from crowds. There is a reason Benazir's speeches, no matter how awkward the Urdu, still had an energy that far outmatched speeches by fluent and more natural speakers of local languages, including the Sharif brothers.
The crowds powered the Bhuttos and the Bhuttos powered the crowds. It was a relationship that manifested a strange political creature called the Jiyala – faithful, blind and dedicated. I am yet to understand what fuels these creatures – because nothing and no one derives as much dedication from any section of our generally apathetic public – least of all a political leader. Political fidelity is not a Pakistani specialty.
It is something I witnessed firsthand when I travelled by road to Garhi Khuda Bux on the first death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto. Hundreds of thousands of supporters, of mourners flocked the Bhutto mausoleum from far and wide. On foot. By car. In buses. In rickshaws. On scooters and motorbikes. Families. Young. Old. All came without any call or arrangements by the leadership of the PPP. All came despite the very real threats of yet another attack.
Just like Benazir did.
You see, what the commission does not understand is that asking Benazir to step away from a crowd at that time was the equivalent of asking the armed forces to drop their weapons in the heat of battle.
On that fateful day of Dec 27, 2007, she raised her head from that sun roof on her own accord, as is testified by Naheed Khan. "Safdar [Abbasi], how about some naras," Benazir is reported to have said to the man sitting behind her in the Land Cruiser before standing up to wave to the massive and adoring crowd that had encircled her vehicle.
I am inclined to believe that she didn't have a choice but to stand up. She did it because of her political instinct; because of her populist genetics. She couldn't help it.
Just like she was warned of the threats upon her return to Pakistan, but return she did anyway. Just like she was warned against joining a rally of supporters upon her return to Pakistan, and just like she refused the offer to be transported by helicopter. Just like she continued her rallies and public appearances despite the twin blasts of Karsaz.
You see, Benazir had returned to a different Pakistan – a post-war-on-terrorism Pakistan. It is a Pakistan in which leaders are required to be smarter and more secure. It is a Pakistan where roads are closed sometimes for hours before a VVIP passes. It is a Pakistan where people are so thoroughly searched that they have just stopped attending public gatherings and addresses. A Pakistan where motorcades zooming by are the only real-life glimpse the masses get of a leader.
It is a country in which a roadside fruit vendor, fearing for lack of income for his already starved family, was beaten mercilessly, and had a motorcycle driven over him a number of times by law-enforcers, because he resisted moving his cart from the road where the Sindh Assembly speaker was to pass.
It is Pakistan the security state.
Leaders are now required to be at a distance from the public – but that just wasn't Benazir; it wasn't Z A. There were many reports of how the authorities were left pulling out their hair as Benazir constantly broke security protocols.
Yes, there are still many unanswered questions regarding the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. And we are no closer to figuring out the conspiracy, if there was one, even after the multi-million-dollar commission. I have read the commission report. It only takes me, and, I am sure, many other Pakistanis, back to the confusion and despair that had just begun to fade.
We may never know many things as they transpired on that fateful day – and, for some inexplicable reason, I do not think it is important any longer.
Amidst all the talk of how her security failed to keep her away from her people; her people away from her, there is one thing that I have come to realise.
If today, through some miracle, Benazir came back to life, she would, despite all these now-obvious analyses, stand up through the sunroof of her vehicle yet again.
And again. And again.