Daily Times

April 4, 1979. It was a spring day, the type that makes you want to dance. I was only nine but I remember that day because I was flying back to Lahore from Delhi with my mother. Delhi was in full bloom with every type of flower imaginable growing in my grandparents’ garden, not to mention its roundabouts. And yet I could not wait to get home.
I remember that plane ride because it was laced with the anticipation that comes with returning home after a particularly good vacation. But that is not the only reason. My mother was carrying something that could have landed her in jail. Hidden inside her hand luggage was “If I am assassinated”, the book written by the deposed Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and banned by the military regime.
When we landed in Lahore we were told that Bhutto had been killed. I remember my mother saying “ab dekhna log kya karein gay”. But nothing happened: no revolution, no strikes, and no protests. No one even asked about the book at the airport. Driving back home from the airport we saw life go on as usual: the rickshaw wallahs continuing to drive without silencers and the fruit vendors continuing to blare music on their radios. It could have been any other day.
Years later she would show me a poem she wrote that day. Disappointed with the people’s apathy and lack of fervour at the murder of a man who had once roused the nation with his revolutionary speeches, my mother compared the conscience of the nation to a dead body. Years later, when she showed that poem to Benazir, Benazir cried.
December 27, 2007. Today my mother flies from Lahore to Delhi. When she reaches Delhi she will hear that Benazir has been killed. Twenty-eight years later, it is a winter day in Lahore, the type that makes you want to cry; not because it is cold but because a brave woman has been murdered in cold blood, her entire family wiped out. The Lahore-Delhi flight continues to shuttle confusedly between the two nations. But this time there is no apathy.
There is anger and rage, a general feeling of a grave injustice having taken place. As the people take to the streets this time, they are sending out a clear message to the powers that be: the cruelty and vindictiveness meted out to anyone who dares to stand up to them is not acceptable.
I, for one, continue to hear the news again and again. It is only when there is talk of burial does it finally strike me: Benazir Bhutto is dead. And her barbaric murder bears witness to nothing but how low those obsessed with self-preservation are willing to stoop.
As the news channels show emotionally-charged footage of Benazir’s burial, one thing is certain: there will be no poems about people’s apathy this time. Instead, the question now is how to channel that anger so as to maximise the results. Rioting and destroying public property does not help: neither does turning one province against another. What we need is unity, to stand together against the powers that be. Then faith. We need a firm unwavering belief that her death was not in vain; that the darkness is there only so we can recognise the light and that there is a light at the end of this long, dark tunnel in which we find ourselves. Finally, discipline. This requires mobilisation and organisation, being proactive during the election process, and most importantly, breaking out of the biradari system and voting the corrupt rulers out of power.
The story of the Bhuttos remains an especially tragic one. Often compared to other famous but troubled political dynasties, the Bhuttos have been likened to the Nehru-Gandhi family of India and the Kennedys of America, all of whom suffered unnatural, inexplicable deaths. Many have gone so far as to say that these families were cursed.
Free will or destiny — I don’t know. It is a pretty big question. But I cannot help recall the words of an unusually eccentric Vancouver taxi-driver, seven years ago, who described to me in great detail a plan hatched by Bush Sr to eradicate the Kennedy family. According to him, the Bushes wiped out the Kennedys so that they could rule America. According to him, the downfall of the Kennedys was not just due to a series of unfortunate events but a deliberate conspiracy.
I dismissed him then as one of those conspiracy-theory freaks with too much time on their hands. However, seven years down the line, I can’t help but wonder. If one were to apply that same logic to Pakistan, who would benefit the most from the end of the Bhutto dynasty?

Ayeda Naqvi has been a journalist for 16 years and a teacher for three. She specialises in Sufism and can be contacted at ayedanaqvi@yahoo.com