By: Alam Baloch

Alam Baloch — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:25:51 +0000

If gret leader Muhatarma Benazir Bhuto Shaeed would alive then people would not see the current face of Paksitan. She was the leader leaders.She is alive in the hearts of people here name will remain for ever. I pay her my Salam.
dilljan2001@yahoo.com

By: Mike Donovan

Mike Donovan — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:27:05 +0000

Sound great…let’s go

By: Flawed

Flawed — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 05:43:00 +0000

Interesting that a small piece praising Bhutto’s courage should engender so much blame and denial. Whatever promises of safety she may have been given, she put her life on the line — not by being a politician in an environment where an occasional dissident may turn assassin but in a land of assassins and madness. Surely none of our leaders exhibit signs that they would behave as bravely. Whatever her motives, whatever her flaws, this rare valor deserves our admiration.

By: Abhinash

Abhinash — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 05:39:00 +0000

Perhaps you would find this correlation of Orwell to subcontinent interesting:

The violence and ethnic strife that ensued in the wake of Indian independence must have weighed heavily on Orwell. India was in no position to implement the kind of vision that Orwell had had for its future. At the time the violence was mounting between India and Pakistan, Orwell retreated into self-imposed exile to the island of Jura, off the coasf of Scotland. The move was in reaction to the sudden fame he had gained after publishing Animal Farm. However, the Jura climate aggravated his tuberculosis. During the last three years of his life, Orwell was in and out of hospitals. In a race against time, all of Orwell’s remaining energies were focused on trying to complete Nineteen Eighty-Four. On 21 January 1950 Orwell died in London at the age of forty-six from tuberculosis. In a poignant confluence, on the day Orwell was buried, India was proclaimed a republic - a final moment of connection between the two.

By: Adnan Khan

Adnan Khan — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 05:35:00 +0000

In Pakistan, Orwell would have felt right at home, when friends, foes, and allies spinning around in farm.

By: Rubab

Rubab — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 05:31:00 +0000

Benazir’s assassination would have made the new foreman proud.

By: Rumta Jogi

Rumta Jogi — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 05:30:00 +0000

No, you heard wrong at the end, we are rotting ordinary chickens.

We suffer in silence.

By: Kamil Paracha

Kamil Paracha — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 05:28:00 +0000

I might have enjoyed this post, but its pricky right now atleast for me.

By: Dr. Ayesha

Dr. Ayesha — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 05:26:00 +0000

wow starts now, Dan, what a piece, what a thoughtful piece. And I am so much intrigued as how much Pakistanis can see in this post of yours, and while we are at it, even every nation can see some thing for herself in this post, including US.

Well done.

By: Farhat

Farhat — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 03:51:00 +0000

General Musharraf’s promise, this time before the Supreme Court in writing, to doff his uniform soon after his re-election as president from the present Assemblies is an apt occasion to review the promises made in the past and how they were kept. After taking over in October 1999 he titled himself as chief executive. At a press conference soon thereafter, a journalist asked him when he planned to enter the Presidency. Without a moment’s hesitation the general retorted that he would never become president. He said that was ready to write there and then that he would not barge into the Presidency. But when on June 20, 2001, he dismissed Rafiq Tarar and assumed the title of president he described it was “one of the most difficult decisions,” but completely forgot his pledge not to become president. In early 2002, when rumours of a referendum were doing the rounds, General Musharraf was asked in a press conference whether he, too, like Ayub and Zia before him, would hold a referendum to “legitimise” his rule. No, I will never adopt that route, he thundered. “I am neither Ayub, nor Yahya nor Zia,” he yelled at the questioner. But despite his public disavowal, he went ahead with a referendum on April 30, 2002. People were asked if they would like to elect Musharraf for another five years “for the establishment of democracy, end to extremism and to fulfil the vision of the Quaid.” If they said “yes” to the stated objectives he would be deemed to have been “elected” even without elections and without any opposition candidate to oppose him. Five years later, and with the benefit of hindsight, he came to regret it. “The whole exercise ended in near-catastrophe,” he said in his memoirs. He also said that he realised “in Pakistan, unless there is an opposition candidate that can monitor the process, any opinion poll would end in fiasco.” In a claim that would make his predecessors Ayub and Zia turn in their graves, he said the opposition was responsible for the catastrophic referendum. “I later found that this absolutely unwarranted support was helped along by the opposition in certain areas so as to provide supposed evidence for claims of foul play” (In the Line of Fire, page 168). How true that he was neither Ayub nor Yahya nor Zia. General Musharraf’s stress on truthfulness, conscience and keeping promises has been saintly. Addressing the nation on Nov. 20, 2002, he recited verse 34 of the Sura “Bani Israil,” “Always fulfil your promises. No doubt you will be questioned about them.” To reinforce it, he quoted a verse from Sura “Al Maeda,” “O Believers, act upon what you say.” After employing to dramatic effect the diction of Holy Quran he said, “You can judge how far I have kept my promises. You have to decide whether I have ever told a lie; whether I have gone back on my promise.” Then he looked straight into the camera, “Al Hamdo lillah (Thank God) I have always spoken the truth and kept my promise.” He knew that people’s memory is proverbially short. Who would remember his public pledges neither to become president nor to hold a referendum, he must have thought. On Dec. 24, 2003, after an agreement with the MMA, 160 million Pakistanis watched him looking into their eyes and speaking in a tone that seemed remarkably measured and reassuring: “I have decided that I will remove my uniform by December 2004 and relinquish the office of chief of the army staff.” Although some people had advised him not to doff the uniform, he claimed in the speech, he had decided not to heed them because it would be against the spirit of democracy. Then I witnessed him address the joint session of Parliament on Jan. 17, 2004, the first and, unfortunately for him, the last during his eight years. As boos and jeers drowned his speech, he seemed to speak as if in soliloquy. I only recall his raising clenched fists in a show of bravado challenging the MPs before briskly walking away from the House, grimacing and in a huff. From the press reports the next day, however, one learnt that he had also quoted the Quaid-e-Azam, “I assure you that there is nothing more precious in the world than your conscience.” For a fleeting moment I recalled the pledge he had made barely three weeks before to doff his uniform by December that year. Juxtaposing it with “nothing more precious than conscience,” one felt somewhat reassured, despite a serpent of doubt lurking in the mind. But a year later we watched and heard him on TV on Dec. 30, 2004. “The Constitution allows me to retain both offices until 2007. And I shall never violate the Constitution.” There was no value of the promise he had made to the 160 million people, General Musharraf seemed to tell the people on that day because the Constitution, in his view, had given him the right to keep the uniform. After all, the Constitution is the most sacrosanct document that cannot be violated even if it meant breaking a promise. “The uniform was a non-issue,” he said in the same address. “Non-issues” must not bother one’s conscience, he seemed to assert. I vainly searched the dictionaries to find if there were other meanings of “conscience” which were hitherto unknown to me. The lurking serpent of doubt had finally bitten and poisoned the soul as never before. On Sept. 8 this year, General Musharraf invited the intelligence chief of a very dear and brotherly country to his camp office in Rawalpindi to give us a lecture on the hidden meanings of “conscience” and “promise” that were not to be found in the archaic dictionaries. Waving a bunch of papers at the journalists, the visiting prince declared to stunned journalists that a promise made to a member of the royalty was more sacrosanct than the Constitution of Pakistan or the verdict of its Supreme Court. As the prince was lecturing in a ceremony conducted by the press secretary on the value of promise and conscience, the General must have been within hearing distance. The words “promise” and “conscience” acquire strange meanings in an Orwellian state. That is why people put no trust in them even when they are referred to before the most exalted forum.

Note:
Written before the demise of Benazir Bhutto.

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