Benazir Bhutto in Sacramento

The 8th annual “A Woman’s Day Professional Conference and Exposition” was held at the Sacramento Convention Center on Thursday, October 18, 2001. Attracting over 2000 women from all over Northern California (and beyond) this event sponsored by the Sacramento Bee, The Golden 1 Credit Union, Northern California Women’s Coalition and The Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce amongst others, featured workshops, exhibitions and presentations from more than 150 area businesses.

This year the event had scheduled Tipper Gore to be the Keynote Speaker, but due to the death of her mother Margaret Ann Aitcheson, Mrs. Gore had to cancel a day or so before this conference. But the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto who was already scheduled to speak at Stanford University the same night agreed to replace her.

Due to the fact that ticket sales of the event ended on Tuesday and we were informed of Benazir Bhutto’s participation in the event on Wednesday, a handful of local Pakistani-Americans still were still able to make it there to see her speak. And on asking one of them as to the reason for her excitement on meeting Mrs. Bhutto, the lady replied: “Because, she is a woman, and has been Prime Minister of Pakistan, a Muslim country. Even America is not that advanced yet.”

Whether one is her supporter or opposes her, one thing is certain about Benazir Bhutto (BB). She is a political street fighter and has not given up on returning to power in Pakistan in spite of what her many opponents and the state apparatus has thrown at her to date. And keeping this in mind, one has to admire her ability to make our country of origin look good in the West, especially in the United States.

During a time when the very same morning in Sacramento, the Japanese American community that had suffered the indignity of internment during World War II when they had their patriotism questioned, held a press conference to support Muslim and Sikh Americans who have been targets of the September 11th terror attack backlash. At the Nissei Hall in the downtown area the Japanese American Citizens League expressed support for Arab Americans and Muslims who have been encountering mistrust and bigotry recently. It was during such a time when Pakistan’s role is being both praised and questioned in the US anti-terror effort in the American media, Benazir Bhutto is amongst a handful of individuals with the international stature necessary to present the moderate face of Pakistan. One can argue that she just may be in a league of her own in this regard.

Introduced as a woman of substance, an accomplished individual, a mother who is currently raising her children on her own due to her husband Asif Zardari’s imprisonment, and as leader of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) who lives in exile and travels extensively to promote democracy in Pakistan, a very confident Benazir made it to the stage in her usual shalwar kameez attire, with a dupatta covering her head and gave a couple of thousand women (plus just a handful of lucky men amongst them including this reporter) quite a keynote speech, lasting around 40 minutes.

“I express my heartfelt condolences to the people of America on the savage attacks against you on September 11th. I know that the vast majority of the people of Pakistan join with me in expressing our grief and sorrow to you,” she said “ I feel America’s pain.” She reflected on her time here in the US at Harvard as “four of the happiest years of my own life” and expressed her admiration for this country especially its freedoms, multi-ethnic and multi-religious environment where men and women work side by side as equals.

On the terrorists Benazir Bhutto held back no punches: “At this time of crisis, the American people and the American leaders couldn’t understand those who use violence and terror under the cloak of Islam. They are hypocrites, they are criminals, not clerics. Their actions contradict everything in the Islamic message. They contradict teachings of the Prophet of Islam. Their goal is to establish theocracies of ignorance that they can control and manipulate to impose their own special brand of dictatorship.”

She spoke of Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard University and his theory on the inevitable clash of (Islamic-Western) civilizations. She said that this clash was not inevitable “unless we make it so and allow ignorance and fanaticism to take control and shape the agenda.” On the terrorist’s who attacked New York and Washington she added

“Their goal is to make people all over the world believe that this really is a confrontation between Islam and the West. And those in the West who would target and beat innocent Muslims as a response to the terrorists are merely swallowing the fanatic’s poisonous bait.”

“I am not unfamiliar with these people. I know them well. I know how they operate.”

She added, “as Prime Minister of Pakistan I stood up to them. I battled with many of these same terrorists including Osama Bin Laden. I took them on and I paid the price.”

She went into the backdrop of the Soviet-Afghan war and how these groups came into being, and how she tried to assist in the earlier efforts to control them (extradition of Ramzi Youseff responsible for the WTC attack in 1993).

“Leadership means making tough decisions. Leadership means taking risks. And this is particularly true when dealing with terrorists and criminals. And they struck back. They struck back at my allies and at me. They destroyed the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad. They burned down our national assembly. Hijacked school buses. Gunned down diplomats and businessmen in the streets of Karachi and Lahore.”

She said that there was no alternative but to fight back. “One must not let fear stand in the way of justice. That is exactly what they want.” She added, “Ladies and gentlemen, the terrorist’s greatest fear is the spread of information, social equality and democracy.”

She said that these three “choke off the oxygen of terrorism.” She also spoke of the two assassination attempts against her by terrorists.

On her time as Prime Minister, she said, “we tried to bring Pakistan into the modern era.” She said that she tried to merge Pakistan into the global economy by ushering in the tools of information technology, by electrifying villages, eradication of disease, increasing literacy, empowering women and reducing population growth. And she added that by doing these things we became a threat to these fanatics.

“Ladies and gentlemen…included in the list of innocent victims of the perfidy of September 11th is the image of Islam across the world. Our religion is not what the extremists preach. It is not a message of terror. It is a message of peace.”

Benazir Bhutto also reiterated that in Afghanistan and the region, the mistakes of the past must not be repeated. She added that it was these mistakes that provided the climate for the genesis of terrorism. The promotion of moderation and democracy should be the goal of policy makers in the region. “Just as democracies do not make war. Democracies do not sponsor international terrorism,” she said.

She said that the Pakistan Peoples Party supported the decision of Pakistan’s current Military rulers to stand with the United States in this fight against terrorism. Speaking of the demonstrations in the streets of Pakistan she said that the problem has so far been contained. “There is no large scale violence in the streets of the cities of Pakistan. Yet there are people who have come out but they belong largely to the extremist groups.”

On the reasons why by and large the majority of the people have stayed away from the demonstrations, she said that it was because democratic forces including the PPP had stressed the point that “this is not a battle against Islam, this is a battle against terrorism.”

She said, “the goal of US policy must always be to simultaneously promote stability and to strengthen democratic values” (pointing to Pakistan’s current military rule).

On the difficulties of being a leader Mrs. Bhutto said, “I travel, never knowing when I will see my husband again. I miss my children. They are all under 13. Its difficult explaining to little children why their mother can’t be with them or why their father is a political prisoner?” “I think that women in particular have to make particularly difficult choices.”

She included in her speech recollections of the times that saw the downfall of her father Z. A. Bhutto, the Vietnam War era, the rise of Margaret Thatcher in Britain, life at Oxford and as Prime Minister of Pakistan and the movement towards empowerment of women worldwide.

She also said, “criminal terrorists hijacked my religion, just as they hijacked your planes. The solution will not be quick or simple but we shall prevail.”

Concluding her speech with lines from the poet Tennyson, via a final letter from her father on the prospects of facing the age of fifty while already being bitter at age twenty five she said, “Dear friends, be strong but do not be bitter. For time, justice and the forces of history are all on our side. Thank you very much.”

Now to some observations and concluding remarks here on finally meeting Benazir Bhutto in the parking lot before she boarded her limousine on her way to Stanford. She knew that I was from Pakistan Link and asked a couple of questions about it that showed that she followed the paper in some detail. No extra “photo opportunity” was allowed by her security, but she did ask me to convey her warm regards to Pakistan Link’s management. And since this was the first time that I had met her, she may have been a bit puzzled at this reporter’s stare (I was actually looking for traces of her late father in her face and was debating whether to tell her that any time she is in the Sacramento area the daughter of Z.A. Bhutto is always welcome as a guest of our family and to visit our home).

As a person who has been away from Pakistan for over a quarter century now, I cannot accurately comment on her periods of rule. But all I can write here is that Benazir Bhutto makes Pakistan and Pakistanis look good in this America (that is quite a feat by itself). For that she has my support and admiration. And if someone believes that she cannot return to lead Pakistan again, they should read Najam Sethi’s editorial in The Friday Times this week. President Musharraf can use all the support he can get from Pakistan’s politicians. And according to an old Bob Dylan song (one can hope) “the times, they are a changing”.