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The Sunroof
Benazir Bhutto swooped into Pakistan like a beautiful apparition, poised to lead the great Muslim nation out of the autocratic wilderness and into a promised land of democracy and modernity. But she never got there. Instead, this once and future shepherd of her people was smote by a fundamentalist sunroof.
And the world teeters.
In the aftermath of her violent death, Bhutto’s nation is a dormant volcano bubbling to life with fissile zealotry. The jihadists and nuclear arsonists just may have their day. Or at least they will as soon as they get around to killing the country’s actual leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Mrs. Bhutto has become a martyr in death, inevitable given her sensational physical appearance and her well-crafted rhetoric. When she returned to her country last October, she wrote a manifesto for The Washington Post that painted her as a kind of Lady Liberty in a veil.
Undoubtedly marketed to the American political infrastructure, she wrote: “My goal is to prove that the fundamental battle for the hearts and minds of a generation can be accomplished only under democracy.”
She went on to state her belief that the struggle between moderation and extremism is the most important issue facing Central Asia, all Muslim nations, and the entire world today. She was right about that.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Bhutto had more in common with Western leaders than a mere facility for the English language. She was tailor-made for American-style politics in her iron grip of the superficial.
She was beautiful, impeccably educated, and had a brand political name by the standards of her country. (Her father was also a leader of Pakistan, though he left office swinging at the end of a rope.) In other words, she had the one trait universally admired by those who make their living from the public payrolls. She was electable.
Though Mrs. Bhutto piques our sympathies for her positions, for her courage, and for her grisly death, she may in fact offer us a glimpse of what we don’t want in our democratic leaders.
She was removed from office by two different Pakistani presidents for “corruption.” Mrs. Bhutto and her husband are alleged to have stolen more than $1 billion from the Pakistani people.
For democratic principle to survive, it must offer clear and better alternatives to fascism and religious fundamentalism.
Here in the United States, the standard bearer for democracy for more than two centuries now, we tend to see ourselves and our process as superior to the circuses we observe elsewhere. But just look at our slate of candidates! Vey’z mere.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is a serious candidate primarily because she’s riding her popular husband’s coattails. And the jig may already be up on that. Barack Obama seems to be on a one-man quest to show the world how superficial we really are, as he now leads his party with no experience other than as Oprah Winfrey’s pet.
The Republicans aren’t much better. They offer us a B-minus actor, Fred Thompson; an American Taliban, Mike Huckabee; and a potential wife collector who was named after a baseball glove, Mitt Romney.
We need a philosopher king who can articulate the advantages of freedom for all people, everywhere in the world. Is that really so hard to find?
Now that Christmas is over, maybe Santa Claus is available for the job.
Posted by on 01/11/08 at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)
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