Lee Ruddin: Understandng Pakistan through the Film "Bhutto"
[Lee P Ruddin is Roundup Editor for HNN.]
Last week’s triple attack in Lahore has only increased talk of terrorists taking over Pakistan’s Punjab province. Commentators had expressed concerns for the existence of the Pakistani state long before suicide bombers struck the bustling capital city, though, given the fissures within the Army – the country’s strongest institution. Yet it is the decline in capacity of institutions more generally that has earned the country its “critical” status in Foreign Policy’s annual Failed States Index.
For answers to some of the questions concerning the turmoil in Pakistan, Bhutto: The Film provides just the tonic. In looking at the Bhutto family’s legacy, the producers hope westerners might better understand a country dominating today’s headlines. For Pakistani audiences, there is probably little that is new, save some footage recently retrieved from the archives. However, western audiences unfamiliar with the history of triumph and tragedy of the “Kennedys of Pakistan,” can learn a lot about the country’s 63-year existence. “The importance of Pakistan, the strategic importance as the only Muslim nation with nuclear weapons capability, and roiling in turmoil … it absolutely can’t be ignored,” said Duane Baughman, who along with Mark Siegel conceived of and produced the US$3-million movie.
Directed by Jessica Hernandez and Johnny O’Hara, the 115-minute documentary focuses on the late Benazir’s painful story of imprisonment, months of solitary confinement, the state-sponsored hanging of her father, the murder of her two brothers, political exile and accusations of corruption that resulted in eleven years of imprisonment for her husband, Asif Ali Zadari. All this is set against the backdrop of Pakistan’s tumultuous history, featuring archived news clips and interviews with Benazir’s (familial and non-familial) allies and rivals. Scenes with her widower, Pakistan’s current president, and her two daughters are particularly affecting yet help shape the material into what is a thoroughly gripping narrative.
The opening half an hour provides an essential background on the founding of Pakistan following partition with India at the end of British rule in 1947 and the (democratic) ascendancy of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to the presidency in 1971. Viewers are soon introduced to his daughter and eldest child Benazir, a charismatic young woman (so we are told by two of her peers, Peter Galbraith and Christina Lamb, from their respective time spent studying with her at Harvard and Oxford) with an eye on a career in the Foreign Service. But when a 1977 military coup engineered by handpicked Army Chief General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq ends in her father’s arrest and execution, she takes on the mantle of the Pakistani Peoples Party (PPP) and swears to avenge her father and restore democracy – or die trying.
Breaking the Islamic glass ceiling, Benazir won the 1988 national elections to become the first woman prime minister of an Islamic nation, only to have her tenure cut short after less than two years during which she was in office, but not in power (it was, as Zahid Hussain writes in Frontline Pakistan: The Path to Catastrophe and the Killing of Benazir Bhutto, “a transition from direct to indirect military rule”). Following her re-election in 1993, she was forced into exile three years later amid allegations of corruption which saw her husband arrested. A triumphant return to lead the PPP in the 2007 elections ended with her assassination in Rawalpindi.
Since her death, Benazir has acquired something close to sainthood status. Yet the brutality of Benazir’s untimely end should not blind us to her political record. First things first, it is more accurate to think of her politics as autocratic, not democratic. Lifetime president of her own party, Amnesty International reports that the martyr for freedom colluded in the killing of political opponents.
One alleged victim is her brother, Murtaza. Benazir’s niece, Fatima, has just released a memoir, Songs of Blood and Sword, in which she maintains that her aunt and Zadari were behind the death of her father. Allegations of conspiracy to murder are for others to discuss. For me, however, it is what the 27-year-old says about the woman who presided over the Taliban takeover in neighbouring Afghanistan that demands further discussion. Let us not forget, Pakistan was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban when it seized power in 1996 (Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates being the other two).
Notwithstanding support for the Taliban being omitted from Benazir’s obituaries, Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, reminds us that she “capitulated … to [Pakistani intelligence’s] persistent requests for unlimited covert aid to the Islamic militia.” Coll continues his indictment:
“Benazir Bhutto, who was secretly authorizing the Taliban’s covert aid, did not let the Americans know. She visited Washington in the spring of 1995, met with President Clinton, and promoted the Taliban as a pro-Pakistani force that could help stabilize Afghanistan … During her visit and for many months afterward Bhutto and her aides repeatedly lied to American government officials and members of Congress about the extent of Pakistani military and financial aid to the Taliban … Bhutto had decided it was more important to appease the Pakistani army and intelligence service than to level with her American friends.”
Understandably, Pakistan’s Central Asia interests came first for Prime Minister Bhutto. Less understandable, however, is Benazir’s interest in North Korea and her visit to Pyongyang in 1994. Yet given Siegel was her man in Washington, it is unforgivable that such a history is not included here. (He could have included a speech she gave to parliament for the breaking of ties with the Taliban in 1998 in an effort to even things up.)
This is the first but by no means the last film to be released about an epic tale of Shakespearean dimension. Earlier this year, a British-Asian film group announced they were producing a film at an event at the House of Commons in London. Given the working title, though – Benazir Bhutto and her People’s Hope – you would expect it to be more about the numerous bouts of military interventions and democratus interruptus than Zulfikar Ali/Benazir Bhutto having helped create a monster that they no longer could control.
All this is not to detract from the fact, however, that Bhutto: The Film provides a thought-provoking history lesson on a troubled legacy and an even more troubled country; one worthy of a place on university syallbi, yet one best suited for summer school classes on South Asian history.
For answers to some of the questions concerning the turmoil in Pakistan, Bhutto: The Film provides just the tonic. In looking at the Bhutto family’s legacy, the producers hope westerners might better understand a country dominating today’s headlines. For Pakistani audiences, there is probably little that is new, save some footage recently retrieved from the archives. However, western audiences unfamiliar with the history of triumph and tragedy of the “Kennedys of Pakistan,” can learn a lot about the country’s 63-year existence. “The importance of Pakistan, the strategic importance as the only Muslim nation with nuclear weapons capability, and roiling in turmoil … it absolutely can’t be ignored,” said Duane Baughman, who along with Mark Siegel conceived of and produced the US$3-million movie.
Directed by Jessica Hernandez and Johnny O’Hara, the 115-minute documentary focuses on the late Benazir’s painful story of imprisonment, months of solitary confinement, the state-sponsored hanging of her father, the murder of her two brothers, political exile and accusations of corruption that resulted in eleven years of imprisonment for her husband, Asif Ali Zadari. All this is set against the backdrop of Pakistan’s tumultuous history, featuring archived news clips and interviews with Benazir’s (familial and non-familial) allies and rivals. Scenes with her widower, Pakistan’s current president, and her two daughters are particularly affecting yet help shape the material into what is a thoroughly gripping narrative.
The opening half an hour provides an essential background on the founding of Pakistan following partition with India at the end of British rule in 1947 and the (democratic) ascendancy of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to the presidency in 1971. Viewers are soon introduced to his daughter and eldest child Benazir, a charismatic young woman (so we are told by two of her peers, Peter Galbraith and Christina Lamb, from their respective time spent studying with her at Harvard and Oxford) with an eye on a career in the Foreign Service. But when a 1977 military coup engineered by handpicked Army Chief General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq ends in her father’s arrest and execution, she takes on the mantle of the Pakistani Peoples Party (PPP) and swears to avenge her father and restore democracy – or die trying.
Breaking the Islamic glass ceiling, Benazir won the 1988 national elections to become the first woman prime minister of an Islamic nation, only to have her tenure cut short after less than two years during which she was in office, but not in power (it was, as Zahid Hussain writes in Frontline Pakistan: The Path to Catastrophe and the Killing of Benazir Bhutto, “a transition from direct to indirect military rule”). Following her re-election in 1993, she was forced into exile three years later amid allegations of corruption which saw her husband arrested. A triumphant return to lead the PPP in the 2007 elections ended with her assassination in Rawalpindi.
Since her death, Benazir has acquired something close to sainthood status. Yet the brutality of Benazir’s untimely end should not blind us to her political record. First things first, it is more accurate to think of her politics as autocratic, not democratic. Lifetime president of her own party, Amnesty International reports that the martyr for freedom colluded in the killing of political opponents.
One alleged victim is her brother, Murtaza. Benazir’s niece, Fatima, has just released a memoir, Songs of Blood and Sword, in which she maintains that her aunt and Zadari were behind the death of her father. Allegations of conspiracy to murder are for others to discuss. For me, however, it is what the 27-year-old says about the woman who presided over the Taliban takeover in neighbouring Afghanistan that demands further discussion. Let us not forget, Pakistan was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban when it seized power in 1996 (Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates being the other two).
Notwithstanding support for the Taliban being omitted from Benazir’s obituaries, Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, reminds us that she “capitulated … to [Pakistani intelligence’s] persistent requests for unlimited covert aid to the Islamic militia.” Coll continues his indictment:
“Benazir Bhutto, who was secretly authorizing the Taliban’s covert aid, did not let the Americans know. She visited Washington in the spring of 1995, met with President Clinton, and promoted the Taliban as a pro-Pakistani force that could help stabilize Afghanistan … During her visit and for many months afterward Bhutto and her aides repeatedly lied to American government officials and members of Congress about the extent of Pakistani military and financial aid to the Taliban … Bhutto had decided it was more important to appease the Pakistani army and intelligence service than to level with her American friends.”
Understandably, Pakistan’s Central Asia interests came first for Prime Minister Bhutto. Less understandable, however, is Benazir’s interest in North Korea and her visit to Pyongyang in 1994. Yet given Siegel was her man in Washington, it is unforgivable that such a history is not included here. (He could have included a speech she gave to parliament for the breaking of ties with the Taliban in 1998 in an effort to even things up.)
This is the first but by no means the last film to be released about an epic tale of Shakespearean dimension. Earlier this year, a British-Asian film group announced they were producing a film at an event at the House of Commons in London. Given the working title, though – Benazir Bhutto and her People’s Hope – you would expect it to be more about the numerous bouts of military interventions and democratus interruptus than Zulfikar Ali/Benazir Bhutto having helped create a monster that they no longer could control.
All this is not to detract from the fact, however, that Bhutto: The Film provides a thought-provoking history lesson on a troubled legacy and an even more troubled country; one worthy of a place on university syallbi, yet one best suited for summer school classes on South Asian history.