Right then. Benazir’s back.
Not that this is particularly surprising. Most of Karachi, at least those parts of town where I spend my time, look as though they’ve been haemorrhaging red, black and green (the colours of the Pakistan People’s Party, of which BB is the leader). There are posters and banners everywhere, most with incredibly poor grammar and spelling, and all inevitably bearing images of at least two or more of the following:
1. Benazir Bhutto (Our Heroine);
2. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (The Executed Papa);
3. A random procession (i.e. the Power of the People, or such-like); and
4. A fat politician with, at minimum, three chins and absurdly ugly facial hair (the constipated expression seems to be optional but quite in favour), who has sponsored the placement of said banner/sign/poster.
Generally all visuals include numbers 1 and 4, but 2 and 3 seem to also be quite popular. These are also captioned with incredibly catchy slogans such as “Welcome welcome Benazir” [sic] or “Chaaron soobhon ki zanjeer, Benazir Benazir” [lit. “The chain (presumably holding it all together?) of all four provinces, Benazir Benazir”].
It’s ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as the fact that my spell-check doesn’t seem to have issues with the word “Benazir”, and I’m pretty certain I never added her name to the dictionary.
Before this goes any further, let me make it abundantly clear that I have no intention of claiming any proficiency at political analysis. Like—I suspect—many people of my generation/social circle, the political situation has largely tended to happen to other people, but there are certain opinions and ideas that consistently float around, so here’s my take on them. I don’t pretend to speak for anyone else, yes? Everyone—and I do mean everyone—has their own take on what’s going on in Pakistan these days, and why it’s happening the way it is; personally, I don’t really give two shits because the situation is so fucking dire and dead-ended for so very many reasons, that I suspect democracy isn’t really a viable option for us, and all of the fanfare around “free and fair elections” and “the democratic process” is just cringe-worthy.
I think a lot of us had a great deal of sympathy for Benazir when she first came to power. She was young, well-educated (for a change), and played a fantastic publicity game, laying down the cards—on the heels of Zia’s nightmarish 1980s fundamentalist state (there’s an Orwell and 1984 joke in there somewhere…)—of liberalism, secularism, of minority empowerment, of her being a woman of import in a patriarchal society. It was a heady brew. Hell, even the second time she came into power, the rumours of corruption and theft were easy to dismiss, working on the oddly paradoxical “it’s her husband doing it, she’s only a young girl after all (you know what I mean, all women are “girls”, etc. etc.), what can she say to her husband?” logic pattern.
But there’s something just really off about her. If nothing else, the woman has fucked up twice already, why in the name of anything even vaguely sensible would people give her a second chance? Mainly because, I suspect, we’re not very rational people when it comes to thinking about politics. Rationality disappears (try talking to my mother about Nawaz Sharif’s foibles, and wooh! Explosions!), and the instinctive reaction to anything is to just fuck around, to stage “walk-outs” from Parliament (which accomplishes nothing), to engage in bloody rioting until the realisation hits that no one knows what or whom they’re rioting against, and to act like three-year-old children with blind faith and an utterly retarded belief in the ineffable “purity” of the politician in whom some sort of bizarre emotional investment has been made. Nothing done by Benazir in her years of power (and again, the same applies to Nawaz) can be held up as evidence to demonstrate that she has any sort of legitimate ability to rule. And of course the conspiracy theorists hiss about American interests, Jewish plots (it’s amazing how many nefarious schemes the Mossad can hatch at one time, almost on par with RAW), Indian attempts to undermine Pakistan…all the while ignoring that the only way to even begin digging the country out of the massive cesspool in which it currently stews, is to fundamentally alter the way in which the government operates.
By and large, the Pakistani population is not educated, and the bulk of it lives in feudal areas where they have little control over anything. It’s sort of a “One man, one vote, well I the feudal landlord am the man, and I have your composite vote, so suck it” situation. So when I read the BBC’s articles on Benazir’s popularity, and the uncountable numbers of protestors who have showed up to garland her with their love and some fairly grotesque floral arrangements, you’ll forgive my scepticism. And hearing about power-sharing deals with the army isn’t exactly encouraging either, given the military’s reputation for stellar behaviour through the ages, so combined with the fact that every time some sort of “political event” occurs, the city goes to shit, my instinctive reaction to Benazir’s arrival is to mouth “fuck off!” at the TV screen and hide myself in bed, hoping that it’s all a nightmare.
More to come later.
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