Mass Difference: The Bhuttos and Civil Society

About bloody time. . . . .Nothing further to add at this point that already has not been said.

NFP,

This writing is as accurate as it gets.

But you are wasting your time on a number of

CHOWK "know it alls" who are living in a world of

make believe. Their intentions are good but they

have been brought up believing too much "Bull" from

the Zia era.

Please keep writing in Dawn because you can make more of an

impact there.

HP is quite right in his observation too. You do not

need to hold back.

Ras

{"... It was then that the soft conservatism of this class became drastically reactionary, especially when the Bhutto regime started initiating its various populist policies...
As the political representatives of the urban bourgeois battled Bhutto’s populist economic and political enforcements, the bourgeois and the petty-bourgeois became ready instruments in carrying out their social propaganda against Bhutto. ...It was this class that was again seen actively attacking Benazir Bhutto throughout her two stints as PM. ... therefore throughout the ‘90s as well, this class was largely involved in giving momentum to all kinds of slanderous propaganda against Benazir and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari....
This is not to suggest that the couple were angels, and neither was Z A Bhutto. ...But the bottomline is, just as Z A Bhutto’s sweeping electoral victory in West Pakistan in 1970 had gripped the bourgeois with unprecedented dread and eventual reaction, the sight of millions of common people coming out to greet Beanzir on her return from exile on October 18, 2007, left the majority of the urban bourgeois reeling under a mix of fear, disdain and confusion. "}

Paracha Sahib,
I guess you are saying that the "urban bourgeois" and their children were not concerned about ZAB's false slogans of "socialism" while he did nothing about the pernicious feudalism that had been strangling the country. Also, I suppose that the Swiss were in cahoots with the so-called "urban bourgeois" who were out to get BB as she stashed $1.5B or more in secret accounts, while Mr. 10% rotted away in jail. The "unknown female" for whom Mr. 10% had purchased the Surrey mansion went unidentified. Interestingly, the mansion was decorated with antiques from Taxila and Gandhara - a serious crime, especially when committed by a PM.

Instead of using archaic communist cliches, my friend, you should be concentrating on the crooks, charlatans, and divisive politicians who have brought us to this day and proven MAJ to be totally wrong in seeking partition. Yes, I am blaming Bangladesh on ZAB.

"As I heard Zaka painstakingly tell me about the kind of statements coming from young people on certain websites, I could only imagine them as being the off-springs of the viciously intransigent anti-Bhutto mentality that was first cultivated in large sections of the bourgeois and the petty-bourgeois in the ’70s."

Very perceptive . Indeed the past contains the seeds of hatred that have grown now.

Thanks Nadeem for writing a reasonably decent, though a little circuitous, eulogy to a deceased woman politician victim of a deadly violence against women -- despite some ear jarring jargon.

Unless the Pakistanis quit demeaning their own politicos of their own country -- and sugar coating with ‘progressivism’ a patently delinquent disastrous debilitating one-man dictatorship -- before the eyes and the ears of the whole world -- the whole world would not stop demeaning Pakistan.

And there is already a lot of demeaning for Pakistan and Pakistan’s L’Enfant de Terrible Musharraf in the pipeline from abroad in coming months including the prospect of an invasion if Musharraf is caught cheating again in not providing the services for which he has already been paid.

Pray that Hillary is not the next president of the United States – because if she is -- it will be not so good for Pakistan – just to keep up with the Georges she has to invade yet another country on her watch – and guess which one that will be -- just to maintain the newly established ‘tradition’ of American Neo Imperialism – if I may be excused for borrowing one of your jargons.

Babu Nadeem,

The subtle references to the Lahore and Karachi based middle class did not need to be so subtle at all. We know what their role had been and what it would be in future. These people were opposed to Mujib too who hardly had any connection with the feudal in Pakistan.

I would rather call them as JI inspired middle class that controls the media in Pakistan and is always able to project its point of view as the Pakistani point of view even though their connection with the land is only sixty years old!