Pak Tea House

an unsponsored panegyric by kinkminos

The following item appeared [undated as usual] on the online version of The News:

The PPP finally nominated Makhdoom Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani for the prime ministerial slot…. [The] announcement… was made on behalf of Asif Ali Zardari by party spokesman Farhatullah Babar before the media outside the Zardari House. The statement read: “I have great pleasure in calling upon Makhdoom Yousuf Raza Gilani in the name of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto to accept the heavy responsibility and lead the coalition government and the nation to greater heights and a glorious future and Makhdoom Yousuf Raza Gilani is not afraid to lead and he knows the way.”

What struck me as odd was the invocation. Until (more…)

This eloquent piece by Nighat Said Khan*, published by the Friday Times, is a reminder for the bright and ambitious Fatima Bhutto that she should get her politics sorted out before she ventures to settle intra-family scores in the public domain. I have also noted that the upper middle classes of Pakistan have given huge attention to Fatima’s recent invective against her late “Adi”. Fatima is surely a budding literary talent but her politics alas falls short of historical consciousness and betrays a lack of understanding of the nuances of Pakistan’s homegrown struggle for democracy.

In her earnest attempts to say the right thing, Fatima not only negates herself but also reinforces the Pakistani establishment’s long held biases against the murdered Bhuttos. The two Bhuttos - father and daughter - were no saints nor the best of administrators. However, they represented a threat to the status quo as Nighat mentions and thereby personified the struggle for democracy.

If Fatima does not believe in heirs or dynasties then why is her immediate family doing political business in the name of late Murtaza Bhutto. And why above all she plays the Bhutto card with such ease and aplomb.

Perhaps good advice from Fatima, like charity, should begin at home.

Two quotes from this excellent piece deserve attention:

But the detractors, the middle class, urban progressives, intellectuals, academicians, “left” activists and “left” pretenders who add to this, “they didn’t do anything” refrain, are to my mind either unable to understand liberal bourgeois democracy or are unable to see reform for what it is – a slow, laborious, tedious and frustrating process. I don’t expect mainstream politicians to bring revolutions.

And you, Fatima, is not the media and political and social circles focusing on you only because you are a Bhutto? Surely every young Pakistani professional woman is not being interviewed by the London Times and the Guardian? Do you also not play the Bhutto card every time you accept or court celebrity status? Do you not already have an edge that you have not earned?

We are publishing the full text of this letter for those who may not have seen the print version. (more…)