Benazir’s Legacy

Re: # 26

bulleya

{what has brought democracy back is the lawyers and media (students didn't do much)......specially the lawyers......and the defiance of the judiciary shown by resigning...}

Common perceptions drawn from media bites have very little to do with reality. Lets examine the facts.

1. Lawyers movement was limited to some cities in Punjab, rest of the country was either lukewarm or totally oblivious of a few protests here and there.

2. Day BB arrived she was greeted by her people, the voters of this country in the hundred of thousands. That was also the day of the first assassination attempt that saw 150 people being killed.

3. Thanks to BB and her political adviser Hussein Haqqani they were successful in garnering enough political support in Washington to persuade Musharraf to (a) hold fair and free elections (b) relinquish his uniform.

4. Assassination of BB was seen as a total failure of the Government i.e., PML-Q and Musharraf, particularly in Punjab where people came out and voted against Musharraf & Company, since Asif Zardari was unpopular they voted for the other party in the fray, PML-N.

Had it not been BB, NS had decided to boycott the elections, it was her initiative and principled stand to contest elections which not only saved Punjoos ass but was the main reason we have semblance of democracy in Pakistan.

{this can be seen by the fact that nawaz sharif arrived in pakistan the day his party was to file papers....2/3rd of his party had left him and joined pml-q.....him and shahbaz were disqualified.....he put up candidates at the last minute....and still won big......}

Do you have any idea how much money was poured by NS and company? Saudis were extremely generous to their illegitimate child and according to insiders these guys pumped $50MM of Saudi money in the election campaign.

Give some time for the people to settle down and allow democracy to flourish and you will see how quickly this new demi god comes crumbling down.

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Re: # 29 Dear Masadi, first I must make very clear that I'm the furthest thing from a Mullah you will ever come across, so I can never write like one. Second, since you are in denial mode you keep dismissing all my valid points as idiosyncrasies of the great people's leader, however having a hand in the dismemberment of one's country, planning murder of political foes, jailing and punishing others, misuse of public property, funds and personnel, rigging of elections, hypocrisy and otherwise just doing diddly crap for the people that you purportedly are trying to empower are not idiosyncrasies but serious character flaws, which could be pretty damning against any leader, even more so one that some are bandying as the greatest in the Third World.

#32 Posted by masadi on April 16, 2008 4:48:11 am


Islam grants maximum freedom to the individual


This is where I bring up the fact that saudi women aren't allowed to drive and have a bunch of other restrictions....and then you tell me it's only that way because of the US elite...

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From book to transcripts

All through the interacts on chowk, there is a recurring mention of jinnah and his dream for pakistan. This is very unique, for pakistan, there is no parallels in india, sri- lanka or any other country.

The reason is simple, pakistan being an islamic country, it has to be ruled by the book. In the case of pakistan, jinnah comes in because he secured freedom for the paki muslims from the hindus.

Under the islamic system there can be no scientifc or any other kind of neutral moral values or any kind of civil norms to guide the society. Hence, because jinnah never wrote any book, he gave speaches to suit teh aidience, people keep selctively quoting from his opportunistic speeches.

Here is one, from a letter editor in dawn, about how the civil servants should behave. There is no self evident value in pakistan, it has to come from an old book, if not fron an opportunistic speech.

Good luck to the paki intelectauals.

from dawn of today


f all of us were all ears to the following premonitory but sagacious admonition of the Quaid-i-Azam delivered in March 1948, I am sure something good must emerge for us to bring harmony in our state structure.

The Quaid said: “You have to do your duty as servants; you are not concerned with this political or that political party; that is not your business. It is a business of politicians to fight out their case under the present constitution or the future constitution that may be ultimately framed.

“You, therefore, have nothing to do with this party or that party. You are civil servants. Whichever gets the majority will form the government and your duty is to serve that government for the time being servants not as politicians. “How will you do that?

Mohar, you need to read the context of the 1946 elections, which begins with Jinnah strengthing his position with the colonials because of the anti Britain WW2 initial stance of the Congress, the incorporation of the feudals into the ML to save their land holdings and use of Islam and its symbols to manipulate public opinion and MAJs desire to convert the politics of the congress into Hindu only politics. It was manipulation and not democracy for the sake of the feudals and the colonials. The stark difference of results and opinion compared to 1937 is there for all to see...

Goldfinger writes "Particularly, it's highly fallacious to put the tab of great savior or anything of the sort upon a leader who helped split the country, and whose policies caused a civil war in the eastern wing in which thousands brutally perished. He said that he believed in democracy, yet when he lost elections, he refused to concede defeat. He preached socialism and roti, kapra aur makan to everyone to instigate civil unrest to grab power only after being booted out of employment by Ayub Khan, yet refused to shun his personal feudal/wadera life style, and at public expense built palaces worth millions of dollars to live in, bought a private jet also at public expense, as well as being the first of our high and mighty leaders to commandeer PIA airliners for himself and his cronies to jet set the world in, wore designer people’s suits, conspired to/and murdered political foes, brought religion into politics for personal gratification while hypocritically at the same time himself being hugely inebriated by the intoxication of alcoholic beverages, massively rigged elections to have himself re-elected, and ultimately like a dunce drove himself right into the gallows.."

You write like a mullah, who has no clue of our society and the political structure into which ZAB stepped in. He had nothing to do with the Bangladesh civil war, nor with the split. The military was calling the shots, he tried to save the union by the idhar hum udhar tum. The "democracy" you talk about would not have been possible were it not for his rabble rousing, he and not mujib shook the establishment, and for the first time in the history of this whore nation, gave the people self respect and incorporated them into the equation of power without invoking Islam khatray mey hai , using social issues. Regarding his personal idosyncrasies, these are ad hominem arguments that do not take away from the fact that the person resolved the conflict with Afghanistan, with India, strengthened ties with the ME, China, pulled out of the Commonwealth, and CENTO, nationalized our industry to enhance the share of the people in them, and given time would have accomplished land reform, and went against the wealth families for whom this country was being run. The military and the imperialists considered him a force to reckon with, and the people loved him. I think these more than the BS that you have produced tell us about the man and his great leadership....

#18 by majumdar

....I wud strongly like to refute that it had anything to do with MAJ (pbuh). Pak's current state happened purely becuase the country strayed from the path that was envisaged by its founder.

Majumdar bhai, do you seriously think a country that was created on the basis of slogans that repeatedly used Islamic symbols, past glories and victories as motivation could have been secular? If that is the case, there's a bridge on the river Musi that I'd like to sell when you're here in Hyd on your visit :-)

Re: # 14 Masadi, in what way was the feudal gentleman able to move the masses for the better? While the masses languish worse than ever, and while I in no way wish to condone the shenanigans of any establishment as none has done anybody any good, we must call a spade a spade and come to the conclusion that if there had been even a single great leader in the checkered annals of our existence, things would not be in as sorry a mess as they are. Particularly, it's highly fallacious to put the tab of great savior or anything of the sort upon a leader who helped split the country, and whose policies caused a civil war in the eastern wing in which thousands brutally perished. He said that he believed in democracy, yet when he lost elections, he refused to concede defeat. He preached socialism and roti, kapra aur makan to everyone to instigate civil unrest to grab power only after being booted out of employment by Ayub Khan, yet refused to shun his personal feudal/wadera life style, and at public expense built palaces worth millions of dollars to live in, bought a private jet also at public expense, as well as being the first of our high and mighty leaders to commandeer PIA airliners for himself and his cronies to jet set the world in, wore designer people’s suits, conspired to/and murdered political foes, brought religion into politics for personal gratification while hypocritically at the same time himself being hugely inebriated by the intoxication of alcoholic beverages, massively rigged elections to have himself re-elected, and ultimately like a dunce drove himself right into the gallows. How sad and pathetic to deliver nothing for all the love and support the people bestowed on him, whom no doubt he had roused by his rhetoric jugglery.

i don't think benazir's death is the cause of democracy emerging in pakistan......most people supporting democracy in pakistan, were against her dealing with the usa and generals......

what has brought democracy back is the lawyers and media (students didn't do much)......specially the lawyers......and the defiance of the judiciary shown by resigning...

this can be seen by the fact that nawaz sharif arrived in pakistan the day his party was to file papers....2/3rd of his party had left him and joined pml-q.....him and shahbaz were disqualified.....he put up candidates at the last minute....and still won big......

why?.....because he had one stance: freedom of judiciary (a bit ironic, since he had the supreme court raided ten years ago)........

ppp actually lost seats, in the sense that it only gained 7 seats over the last elections.....despite the fact that all the winds were blowing in its favor......benazir's death only resulted in 7 extra seats.....even though ppp was intact as a party and its leaders had shown the most defiance......

had ppp followed nawaz's strategy, it would have swept completely....

...Benazir is going to have a complicated legacy......

.....corrupt, feudal, dictatorial and administratively incompetent......

....exceptionally courageous, very charismatic, genuinely popular amongst a large group of poor masses, very defiant.....

the biggest tribal and fedual leaders and the most powerful generals were sh//t scared of her......a rarity in a patriarchal society like pakistan.....

....after seeing various politicians in pakistan, i have come to the conclusion that the pakistani voter respects two things: defiance and a sacrificial death.......not administrative competence and honesty.....

both zab and bb rate at the top of the list in defiance and sacrificial death....and very low in administrative competence (with bb low on honesty also)......

hence they will always remain popular in pakistan.......