Jahanshah Rashidian
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Benazir’s Chastisement
28-Dec-2007
Following the last news of today’s German TV, a group of Al Qaeda was quoted taking responsibility for Bhutto’s death. If the news is authentic, then Bhutto has been assassinated by Islamic terrorist suicide bombers of al Qaeda who cannot tolerate any woman being a symbol of gender equality in an Islamic society.
Islamists have largely proved to be the carriers of death and self destruction in the name Allah. What concerns Pakistan, Islamic terrorist suicide bombers are being brainwashed in a number of Pakistani Madresseh (Koran schools).
Once such brainwashed Islamists in power, they would brutally kill any woman who does not match to their cliché from Islamic women, as it was the case of two Iranian women, Zahra Kazemi and, recently, Dr. Zahra Bani Ya’ghoob in IRI’s prisons, who were killed under torture by Islamic authorities of Iran. A “bad veiled” woman can be harassed and legally punished by the Morality Police of the IRI in Iran; it goes without saying that Islamists with the same misogynistic norms and belief system in Pakistan would not accept a woman as a PM of a Muslim country. We tend to forget that large areas of Pakistan and chunks of its population are in the sway of fundamentalist Islam. This killing is consistent with the ideology of such groups - either agree with their backward vision of the world, discriminating as it is against women and exclusionary as it is of non-fundamentalist Muslims or prepare to die. That ideology needs to be pulled up by the roots and chucked. Until that is done, there is little hope for reconciliation or progress in Pakistan. Since Zia-ul Haq’s coup in 1979, Shari’a (Islamic laws) was integrated in both social and judicial life of the country. Pakistani army is since charged with a series of mysterious killings of secular opposition in Pakistan. The army and intelligence community are the ones who want to keep the country away from secularism and democracy. They have been responsible for much of the covert activity that is responsible for terrorism.While the death of Bhutto is sad, it dose not spell the end of terror. Political assassinations (including of females) are not unique to Pakistan and most innocent people in the Islamic world suffer from it.
What is unique, however, is how this tragedy is being portrayed by some as evidence that Muslim countries cannot learn democracy and are doomed to their backward traditions. It is sad how these eastern traditionalists along with the western pessimists or demagogues contain a spectrum from the Islamic to Christian fundamentalists and are only too eager to use a nation's tragedy to air their prejudices and bigotry. It seems that these people are all too quick to jump onto the anti-democratic bandwagon.
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Shakespearean dimensions / Dariushabadi
by Rosie T. on Fri Dec 28, 2007 05:03 PM PSTJahanshah it's so moving to me that you chose that expression because I have often wanted to use it to explain here my feelings about the Shah, a complex flawed human whose conflicts and sufferings were of Shakesperean dimensions and who perhaps most embodied the complexities of a human and especially of one in power of any major figure in the 20th century. And it occured to me that she has many similarities to the Shah in this respect. Goodness and grace, selfishness and lust for power...in short, a human...
Driushabadi--Benazir was hated? She was hated by many, she was loved by many. She was killed no doubt for many reasons but not least of those because she was a THREAT to those who hated her because they were AFRAID, with good reason, that she would come to power again by the choice of those who loved her and still do. A nation is so complex, how complex is a nation? A nation is at least as complex as...a human.....
Al Qaeda executed her because she was corrupt....this proves what? Oh my my...al Qaeda, arbiter of justice. People who videotape slow beheadings by sword of journalists for all the world to see and hear their screams...
Anyway Benazir knew very well she could be killed. Whatever she has been in her lpast you can't take away from her that she didn't fear death and that alone makes her admirable.
PAKISTAN IS IN FLAMES! Who is lighting the flames? The people who "hate" her?
Re: Cheragali
by jamshid on Fri Dec 28, 2007 04:01 PM PSTI read the article in your link. I asked for prove and documentation for Binazir's corruption, not accusations.
However, in the article there were a few items that could be considered valid. But consider that ANY Pakistani government would have to deal with corruption, as long as the people themselves are corrupt. You can't expect Butto or anyone else to "import" people from other countries and assign governement jobs to them to stop corruption.
corruption article
by cheragali (not verified) on Fri Dec 28, 2007 03:21 PM PSTHere is an article about corruption charges:
//pakistanpolitics.net/?p=5
Wikipedia also has info on her. I'm not sure if its proof, but its published. Apparently the corruption in her administration was blatant and widespread. However, her death, as expected as it was, is driving Pakistan into further instability, which is the real tragedy here. She knew she was a target from the moment she returned to her country.
Corrupt or not, she was beloved, and she represented hope for many in a very volatile Pakistan.
Re: Darisushabadi
by jamshid on Fri Dec 28, 2007 02:34 PM PSTWhere is your evidence that Binazir or his father stole money? Provide references, not rumors and accusations.
Al Qaeda kills blindly; I
by Ye Irani (not verified) on Fri Dec 28, 2007 02:19 PM PSTAl Qaeda kills blindly; I don't know if they distinguish between sexes. To them, if you fit in the category of infidels,or traitors, no matter man or women, you're doomed. However, the only good women to them is the ones who are imprisoned at home!
I think the days of Al Qaeda is actually coming to an end. The more heinous acts they take, the more they loose popular base. I remember how MKO was in style in Iran after revolution, but over time they lost their popularity.
To dariushabadi: condemn all violence
by Mazloom on Fri Dec 28, 2007 01:01 PM PSTBenazir Bhutto was elected twice as Prime Minister of Pakistan, in 1988 and 1993, which is in the 20th century not the 21st. But assuming she was part of the most corrupt politicians of Pakistan in the 20th century, based on an understanding reached between her and President Pervez Musharraf she was granted amnesty and all corruption charges were withdrawn against her. From the legal point of view she was an innocent citizen of Pakistan and therefore she was entitled to life and liberty. However some lunatic decided that being corrupt is punishable by death, the same as body mutilation for theft, stoning for infidelity, and hanging in public for homosexuality.
If you do not believe these horrendous acts of violence is acceptable in any society, you need to come out wholeheartedly and condemn it. Not as you are doing in this thread, blaming the dead victim, but conveniently tying it up with the assassin. As if she deserved to be killed.
Al-Qaeda or any fundamental Islamic movement will never accept the roll of women in the society as equal. You need to come out wholeheartedly and condemn all violence against women without qualifying it with buts, ifs, or exceptions.
Re: Jahanshah Rashidian
by dariushabadi on Fri Dec 28, 2007 11:05 AM PSTRashidian, you have exposed yourself as hiding behind the veil of democracy, yet defending at all costs one of the most corrupt politicians of Pakistan in the 21st century. This woman was not hated because she was a woman, but because she was one of the most corrupt people in Pakistan's little history.
Her father was executed in 1979 for embezzeling money. Was he killed because he was a woman too? She herself was thrown into exile and all her assets frozen because she had embezzled millions of dollars illegally and unjustly. Yet you see her as a woman being martyred, while most of Pakistan saw her as assasinated. You made a martyr out of a corrupt individual, while she was a corrupt individual who both her assasin and herself BOTH need condemnation. She was no beacon of democracy and leadership.
(She only came back to Pakistan after Musharaf agreed to unfreeze her assets. What does that tell you?)
By the way, the only non-Prophet that is considered JUST and a GOOD LEADER in the Qur'an is not a man, but a woman; Queen Saba. Even Al-Qaeda did not claim they executed her because she was a woman, but because she was corrupt. But go ahead and force your own twisted intererpretation on everything.
R. Anan-she / MRX
by Jahanshah Rashidian on Fri Dec 28, 2007 08:08 AM PSTBenazir Bhutto was a flawed heroine on Shakespearean dimensions. She will remain a beacon to the tiny distant flame of democracy and modernity in Pakistan. As PM, she had close relations in 90th with the then US-backed Taliban in Afghanistan then turned the back to them when the world changed.
She could be a US desired alternative to Gen Musharraf, whose days seem to be counted. Her death will bring more chaos in the region.
Things on the face value
by Anonymous-she on Fri Dec 28, 2007 07:30 AM PSTWhy should we believe things on the face value? Why this couldn’t be a plot by the western imperialists and their puppet military government. Of course they play very easily with the mind of naive simple minded fundamentalists to achieve their goal, but the picture could be much larger than what we see, we only see the actors but who is the director!!! ...
She was asking for more security from current government and it was denied... Please don’t forget that she was the only strong opponent for president Musharraf...So now guess what...
I knew it was comming
by MRX (not verified) on Fri Dec 28, 2007 06:50 AM PSTIt was only a matter of time. But here is a thing, when she became prime minister she should have closed down the maddrasehs, maktab or what ever the hell these places are called. She should have also declared a war on isalmo facists period. The only language these skunk islamo facists underestand is force and nothing else.