I return to America one year after the terrorist assaults.  The catastrophe that struck America on September 11^th, 2001 continues to reverberate across the globe.  Its impact ripples emotionally, morally, politically and economically.

 I see three primary victims of the Al-Qaeda murders of that day.  Of course and above all, the victims are the 3025 innocent people and their families in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, and others like Danny Pearl who have been struck down directly by hate. Added to them are the hapless citizens of Afghanistan caught in a war forced on them by the forces of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Second, I see as a victim the image of Islam around the world, which was distorted by extremists who do not speak for one billion Muslims around the world. 

And finally, I see as a victim…democracy, which is being sacrificed for expediency in my homeland of Pakistan, and in other areas of this planet. 

The world is a very different place from what we had dreamed in those wonderful moments when the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended. 

The era of peace for which we prayed, became a time of war.

Civility was replaced with brutality.

Tolerance was replaced by terrorism.

Democracy in Pakistan is threatened with dictatorship.

This is a difficult, extraordinary and very dangerous time.  

The war against international terrorism, triggered by the catastrophe of September 11^th, 2000 is in a new, ambiguous and difficult phase.  The senseless execution of Wall Street Journal Bureau Chief Daniel Pearl underscored the treacherous lack of ground rules of these terrorist warriors. 

The reality of suicide bombings has struck my homeland  -- Christian churches, Muslim Mosques, urban hotels, foreign consulates and western journalists are all targets, and scores have been brutally murdered.  

Simultaneously, the nuclear-armed nations of Pakistan and India stand perilously close to war, once again over the disputed province of Jammu and Kashmir. 

And in Pakistan, a military dictatorship once again rules with an iron fist, crushing dialogue, debate and democracy. 

This is not the way we had hoped and expected the new millennium to begin, but life has its own plan.  It is our task to address the new realities, and find opportunity in the phase of tragedy.

 At the outset, I wish once again to express my condolences to the people of this Nation on the savage attacks against you.  As it has been made very clear over the last year, the vast majority of the people of Pakistan join with me in expressing our grief and sorrow to you.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is difficult to shake the haunting image of the Twin Towers and three thousand innocent victims, collapsing under the weight of hate.  It is an image that shapes everything that has come after it  -- politically, emotionally and morally.

My commitment to freedom was nourished here in this land of hope and opportunity. Your nation -- and its dream  -- is a beacon for all men and women denied human dignity across the world. 

 At this time of continuing crisis, the American people and American leaders must understand those who would use violence and terror in the name of Islam. 

They are men of the bomb, not men of the Book. 

According to Islamic teaching, “Whenever the Apostle of God sent forth a detachment, he said to it: ‘Do not cheat or commit treachery, nor should you mutilate or kill children, women or old men.’”  And there is a specific prohibition in Islamic law that bans “killing by stealth and targeting a defenseless victim in a way intended to cause terror in society.” 

Ladies and gentlemen, it thus further grieves me that included in the list of innocent victims of the perfidy of September 11^th is the image of Islam across the world.

 Our religion is not only committed to tolerance and equality, but it is committed by Koranic definition, to the principles of democracy. It is ironic that despite the strong commitment to democracy, most Muslims are living in dictatorships. The Muslim people want freedom, they need support in their search for empowerment. Much as the people of the Communist world were, so too the Muslim people are hostages in Authoritarian regimes that flourished during the days of the Cold War.

In the west, you often talk about the so-called “Muslim Street.”  But there is a Muslim street that western governments don’t seem to see. 

It is a silent street of women who are discriminated against in every aspect of life.

It is a silent street of students who are not educated.

It is a silent street of businessmen and women who are not allowed to compete.

It is a silent street of human rights activists who are jailed.

It is a silent street of political parties who are decimated.

It is a silent street of political leaders who are now political prisoners or exiles.

It is the street of the people, constrained by the authoritarian powers of the state. 

It is the street of the future in the chains of the powers of ignorance, intolerance and dictatorship.

And it is a street far more likely to explode than the street of the marginal religious extremists.

In Islam, dictatorship is never condoned. Nor is cruelty ever condoned. 

According to Islam, those who commit cruel acts are condemned to destruction. 

Irrespective of the ignorance often demonstrated to our faith by some, and the political manipulation and distortion often shamefully practiced by fanatics, there are several key concepts that play a substantive role in the development of democracy in Islam. These include three principle of consultation known as shura, consensus known as ijma and independent judgment known as ijtihaad.

 In this the twenty first century, the Muslim people search for freedoms that exist in other parts of the world. They search for a society that is representative and accountable and which they determine for themselves. Too few are the Muslim Nations where people are truly free.

 While Christians and Jews have the Bible to guide them, the Muslims have the Holy Koran to seek guidance from. The Koran teaches that the principal operations of the democratic process  -- consultation between the elected officials and the people through ijma is are fundamental to Islam.

 Islam teaches that Islamic society is contingent on  --  “mutual advise through mutual discussions on an equal footing.” 

 The terrorists who attack America are not fighting for Islam, they are fighting for themselves.  Their goal is to establish linked and intertwined theocracies of ignorance that they can control and manipulate for their own political ends. 

 Terrorism and fanaticism will fail unless we fall into the psychopaths’ trap.  Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard wrote of an inevitable clash of civilization between the West and the Islamic world.  Ladies and gentlemen, this clash is far from inevitable, unless we make it so. 

There are many similarities between Islam and the Judeo-Christian traditions. These three great religions were born in the cradle of the Middle East. The word “Muslim” actually means those who follow the Prophets Moses, Jesus and Mohammad.

This is why the British, during their rule of Muslim countries, referred to the Muslims as Mohammadans.

According to Islamic belief, all humanity is descended from Adam and Eve. Islam agrees that paradise ended when Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit.

In the Holy Book, Abraham is our father. He built the holiest place of the Muslims known as the Kaaba, the House of God, in Saudi Arabia, with his son Ismail from whom the Muslims believe they are descended.

After building the Kaaba, God asked Abraham what he wanted as a reward. Abraham replied that many Prophets should be born to my family.

Muslims believe that Christians and Jews are descended from Isaac while they are descended from the brother of Isaac namely Ismail.  But we are all the sons and daughters of Abraham.

Muslims accept the Prophets of Judaism and Christianity as their own Prophets. They accept the Holy Books of the Jews and the Christians as their own Holy Books believing that the messages of God were sent through generations through different Prophets to show humanity the path of redemption and that Mohammad was the last Prophet sent by God.

The Holy Koran has a chapter on Mary, the Mother of Jesus, whose Arabic name is Maryam.  As in Christianity, the Koran speaks of the miraculous birth of Jesus and of his healing powers. It quotes the infant Jesus saying in his cradle, “God commanded me to pray and to give alms so long as I live, and to cherish my Mother”. Muslims believe that paradise lies at the feet of the Mother.

The Christian King of Abyssinia, Negus, gave refuge to the Muslims believing that only a slim line separated them from Christians. When the Prophet Mohammad fled Mecca, he was given refuge by the Jews of Medina.  So too did Muslims give refuse to the Jews when they were persecuted in Europe. Muslims believe that Jews, Christians and Muslims are one people who are Ahle e Kitaab that is who have religious books containing the message sent by God through his Prophets.

Contrary to what the fanatics preach, Islam preaches the importance of knowledge. The very first word of the Koran is “Read” while the Prophet of Islam exhorted his followers to go far and wide in search of knowledge and education.

Many of the teachings of Islam are similar to Judaism and Christianity. Islam says;

Do not commit adultery;

Do not cheat;

Do not kill your children for fear of poverty;

Do not lie;

Do not spy;

Do not speak ill of anyone;

Do not drink alcohol;

Do not gamble;

Do not hate or envy each other.

Like other great religions, Islam is a moral compass for its followers that gives faith and hope and offers a path for the redemption of the soul on the day of Judgment.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

September 11 will go down in history as a defining moment in our civilization. The attack on the World Trade Towers was a second Pearl Harbor that ended one period in time and heralded the beginning of another.

On that fateful day, the world tumbled out of a time when Communism was the threat, the fear, the bloc that was to be contained. The world tumbled into a different period when Islam and the Muslim Nations seemingly replaced Communism as the new threat, the new fear and the new world that was to be contained.

In the one year since the world shook with the shock of America the invincible attacked, much has changed. Civil liberties suffered a set back. Many Muslims in America live in terror of being hauled up on suspicion and taken away. Muslims face hate crimes.  Individual choice is now constrained. Many Muslims shaved their beards and changed their attire to avoid hate crimes. Hate breeds hate. And the hate of Osama and his men created hate in many otherwise generous hearts towards Muslims.

Now security rather than fundamental rights are the new messages of a new era. Many Americans seem willing to sacrifice  constitutional civil rights and civil liberties  to live in security.

The World Trade Center attacks shook the west and it also shook the Muslim world. Almost every Muslim country joined the war against terror. They sympathized with America and the American people.

Many Muslims wonder why, given their solidarity with America, and their condemnation of Osama and his men, they are viewed with suspicion. The reality is that racial profiling points the finger of suspicion at Muslims. Muslims have suffered for the actions of Osama and Al Qeda as a community.

This is the time to distinguish between those who commit crimes in the name of religion and those who belong to a community that wishes to live in peace and harmony with other religions. It would be a tragedy if suspicion towards Muslims led to a backlash that created a clash of civilizations.

Osama and his cohorts use commercial airliners as bombs against cities creating a new global chessboard.

All Nineteen of the hijackers that hit the world trade center were Arabs. That Arab countries could have produced men who could launch such an attack makes them the center of scrutiny in the twenty-first century. Whether one likes it or not, for the coming decades the Muslims in general and the Arab Nations in particular, will be watched and contained as carefully as were the Communist countries in the days of the Cold War.

This has triggered a growing siege mentality within the Muslim world and a change is clearly discernable since that fateful day one year back. Then the Muslim world rallied round the United States as it led the War Against Terror. Now many in the Muslim world are moving away from the new objectives set by the United States as part of the War Against Terror.

One year ago the Iraqi regime of President Saddam was isolated. Today it has rejoined the Arab World in a Summit held earlier this year in Lebanon.  At the summit, embraces have replaced distances.

Although President Bush has repeatedly stated that his goal is to pre-empt danger to the world community through regime change in Iraq, most in the Muslim world remain unconvinced. Many see an attack on Iraq presaging a wider attack against an array of Muslim countries including Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and eventually Pakistan.

Today the intellectual opinion in the Muslim and Non-Muslim world may be on a collision course. Many intellectuals in the United States see the Arab/Muslim countries as failed Nations that gave birth to evil men who could plan the cold blooded murder of three thousand innocents in New York, Washington.

And although most Muslim intellectuals condemn the attacks on the World Trade Center, they believe that unaddressed political problems provided the atmosphere for evil to be born and that a more peaceful world can thrive only when the unsolved political issues are resolved.

America emerged stronger from the day of tragedy when airliners crashed into skyscrapers.  It united as a Nation and rallied round the flag remembering the dead and sharing the sorrow as well as the determination never to let it happen again. Many Americans asked: “Whey did they do this?” or “Why do they hate us so much”.

President Bush provided the leadership that could give comfort to the American people when they were attacked and fears of fresh attacks proliferated. The huge military response as well as the domestic measures saved the American people from further attacks. Washington is determined to keep up its guard and Muslim countries everywhere pray it succeeds. Muslims know that an attack by fanatics could easily increase their own vulnerability.

Yet a military response is only part of the solution.

Some American leaders recognize this. President Carter’s National Security Advisor Mr. Brezinsky is quoted to have said, “lurking behind every terrorist act is a specific political antecedent”.

There is no  grievance that could justify the senseless killing of innocent people. No religion permits such senseless killing. Those who planned the September 11 events were evil. The concern is that the evil of some men now threatens to taint otherwise good men and women within the Muslim world unless there is an agreement that terrorism knows no religion, no sect, no people, no culture and no civilization.

The United States is a great country that invokes great admiration in much of the Muslim world. At this time of trial, the American people could remember that the Muslim people are with them in condemning the events of September 11. A safer world can come about through greater understanding, greater freedoms, greater attention to resolving conflicts through political means.

The bombing of Afghanistan and the continuing violence in the Middle East  and Kashmir impacts upon the people in the street. No one knows when the masses can become a mob. So far demonstrations in the Muslim world remained few and far between. Most Muslims recognized that America was wrongly targeted and  it had a right to self defense, to pursuing the criminals that planned the bombings and trained and harbored the terrorists. The concern is that with a broader conflict within the Muslim world, mob fury could develop focusing on foreign targets.

The attack on the American Embassy in Iran during the time of Ayotullah Khomeni when American hostages were taken is an example. The burning of the American Embassy in Islamabad under General Zia is another. Fanatics would love nothings better than to provoke a clash of civilizations  venting itself on western targets.

Today America is the world’s sole superpower. Its military power is awesome. Frankly it has little need of any other country in planning an action or taking a measure to defend itself and the security of its people. The rest of the world must acquiesce, in practical terms, whether it agrees.

The American President Woodrow Wilson promoted the concept of collective security and the principle of self-determination. The war against terror is a righteous cause. One year later, the need to prevent it turning into a clash of cultures, civilizations and religions is as righteous.

Ladies and Gentlemen: During my tenure in office, Pakistan became one of the ten emerging capital markets of the world. Billions of dollars in investment flowed in creating trade, business, jobs and fuelling the housing sector as well as the financial markets.

It was a remarkable transformation of a society.  It was a transformation that our underprivileged wanted. 

It was a transformation that helped the poverty stricken people of my land giving them hope and opportunity. It was a transformation that helped women and children, government staff and labourers, traders and farmers, youth and intellectuals. It was a transformation that attacked ignorance and illiteracy and injustice.  It was a transformation that was bringing Pakistan into the modern era as a model to all one billion Muslims around the world of what moderate, enlightened Islam could accomplish for its people. 

And thus to the fanatics and the extremists, we became the enemy, the threat, and the obstacle.  To Islam at the crossroads, a modern Pakistan was one fork in the road, fanaticism and ignorance the other.

My government was making progress in relations with India and with containing terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  But moderation and progress is not what the Army hard-liners and religious extremists could tolerate.  I was their threat, and I was eliminated.  I am afraid, ladies and gentlemen, that the consequences continue to ripple across Asia.

Ladies and gentlemen, sometimes tragedy can lead to resurrection of hope and spirit.  Sometimes disaster requires us to examine routes, policies and unheeded warnings. 

In our governments’ combined and admirable zeal to defeat the Soviets, we did not plan or work for a post-war Afghanistan built on democratic and Islamic principles of coalition, consensus and cooperation. 

The fundamental mistake, which contributed to a long-term historical calamity, was that we were not consistently committed to the values of freedom, democracy and self-determination that ultimately undermine and belie the basic tenets of terrorism.  America must not repeat that mistake again. 

Just as democracies do not make war, democracies also do not sponsor international terrorism.  The Party that I am proud to lead supports the decision of the government of Pakistan to join the US led alliance against the forces of terror. Each Muslim country joined the war against terror.

America need not coddle dictators to promote its own interests.  America’s interest is democracy, not tyranny.  In Pakistan those of us who are committed to human rights and democracy abhor terrorism in all of its murderous forms.  At this time of political crisis in Pakistan, with a military dictatorship strangling our Constitution, the United States could be standing with the people of Pakistan in their search for empowerment.

Let us remember that building a moderate, stable and democratic political structure in Afghanistan would have marginalized the Taliban and the Osamas of this world well before they had unleashed their war against the people of Afghanistan and the people of the United States. 

The goal of US policy must always be to simultaneously promote stability and to strengthen democratic values. 

The military dictatorship of Pakistan was unable to prevent Al Qaeda regrouping in Pakistan. Al Qaeda poses a threat to the Pakistani people and the larger world community. The military regime has a vested interest in the continuation of the Al Qaeda threat. It believes it can continue with its dictatorship so long as the world community is searching for Osama, for Mullah Omar and for other leaders of that organization.

Osma Bin Laden’s right hand man, Abu Zubayda, was arrested by the FBI from a house in Punjab. Al Jazeera television interviewed two most wanted Al Qaeda terrorists Khalid Shaikh and Bin Shibli in Karachi this August.

Moreover, a farce is being expensively conducted in Pakistan in the name of elections. Forty percent of the real representatives of the people are prevented from contesting the elections. The stage is set for a dummy parliament again at the expense of the poverty stricken people of Pakistan.

Huge funds, including $100 million dollars from a pension fund, disappeared with the regime covering up the tracks. The state offers deals and does deals with the corrupt with a view to frame the innocent. In one case of corruption filed by my government against the corrupt, the persons were given safe passage in exchange for committing perjury against the PPP leadership. Such offers were made to many others.

Judicial orders are written by the regime and announced by the court. In my husband’s case, a court was kept waiting until nine p.m. at night as the order was re-written against my husband.

One Judge resigned publicly saying he was not prepared to lie which is what the regime asked him to do. Other judges lack this courage. One lawyer was wrongly sentenced for six months for criticizing a judgment in my election tribunal matter. In the rest of the world, justice is guarded by the watchdog of public opinions.

In Islamabad there are no watch dogs. Only the hungry hounds that wail for the blood of the people of the country impoverishing them with their tyrannical rule.

The military regime staged an unconstitutional referendum to rubber-stamp its dictatorship for five years that opened Pakistan to ridicule throughout the world.  Five percent turnout, no voting lists, no fixed polling stations, pictures of eight year olds voting.

It unilaterally and brazenly amended the constitution itself unlimited dictatorial power for the next five years. Powers that only Ayotullah Khomeni and Mullah Omar previously invested themselves with in Iran and Afghanistan.

He ruled by dictat that only college graduates can sit in the National Assembly, thereby disenfranchising 99% of the people of our great country.  By such edicts, Harry S. Truman could not have become President of the United States because he did not attend college.

Retroactive decrees were issued to prohibit me from contesting the October parliamentary elections that observers and analysts universally predicted I would handily win.

Why does this military dictatorship so fear this woman?

I recall the words of Stalin when he mocked the power of ideas by asking, “how many divisions does the Pope have?”

Years later it would be a Polish priest and human rights organizations and democrats all over this planet that brought down the Soviet Union not by the strength of their arms, but by the strength of their ideals.

The Generals have a huge army.

They have nuclear tipped missiles.

They have thousands of tanks.

But ladies and gentlemen, they know that I have something far more powerful than their legions.

I have the people of Pakistan.  The men and women of our rural villages. The middle-class businessmen and businesswomen in our cities.  The students and faculty in our universities.  The workers of organized labor. The poor farmer in the field. The honest soldier on the front line guarding his country.

The democratic forces of Pakistan which I lead are like Robert Kennedy described when he confronted the power of apartheid in South Africa in 1966  -- “tiny ripples of hope” coalescing together in a huge tidal wave that will bring down oppression and tyranny.

The Generals exploit the war on terrorism to protect their dictatorship.  Like their military predecessor, they use Pakistan’s critical importance to the United States in Afghanistan as a smokescreen for dictatorship.

Human Rights Watch this September called upon President Bush to "make it clear that US support for Pakistan because of its role in the anti-terrorism effort does not give the military leadership a blank check to abuse human rights and undermine democratic processes". It also said that "By undermining democratic institutions and restricting channels for political activity, Musharraf only helps the extremists in Pakistan".

How many more September llths, how many more Danny Pearls, before we all come to realize   that the greatest protection of freedom from terrorists, is replacing dictatorships with governments responsible to the people, governments based on the values of democracy and liberty.  

The stakes are high.  The long-term implications are great.  Democracies don’t start wars, just as they don’t promote and protect international terrorism.  Dictators start wars and coddle terrorists, because they are not accountable, they do not need a popular mandate behind their policies. 

Democracies, which operate under pluralistic and public constraints, must provide for the public welfare, must provide social services, and must provide education, health and housing.  Dictatorships need not.  They are free to divert their resources to military schemes and international destabilization.

Parliamentary elections in Pakistan are scheduled next month.  The US and its allies must insure that these elections not only take place, but that they are free, fair and open to all parties and candidates.

 I should not be here today, I should be free to campaign in the villages and towns of my country. But I am stopped from doing so by special laws passed by decree without sanction of the constitution of my country. The military regime’s October farce must not be allowed to stand.

The Generals are putting hopes on a different course.  They are betting that the White House is so distracted by the war on terror and the violence in the Middle East and South Asia that it will backburner the cause of democracy.  Maybe they are right.  But if Pakistan’s nuclear-armed military dictatorship is allowed to exploit the war on international terror to legitimize its own domestic reign of terror and illegitimate power, the consequences of 911 will build like a tidal wave through the young century. 

Let us recall John Kennedy’s warning in his Inaugural Address over forty years ago:  “He who rides the back of the tiger, usually winds up inside.”

A democratic Pakistan is the world’s best guarantee of the triumph of moderation and modernity among one billion Muslims at the crossroads of our history. 

The best and only control for the excesses of extremism, is accountability to the people.  It is for this we pray in Afghanistan.  It is for this we pray in Pakistan.  It is for this we pray all over the world.

In my father’s last letter to me before he was murdered by one of Pakistan’s many military tyrants, he quoted Tennyson: 

“Ah, what shall I be at fifty if I find the world so bitter at 25.”

Looking at the victims of the terrorist attack  -- those thousands murdered, the image of the Islamic people hurt, the forces of democracy set back a generation, it is tempting to be bitter.  We must all resist this temptation. 

We must be strong but never bitter.

Life is at times difficult.  But history teaches us that ultimately we shall prevail, because victory belongs to the forces of truth and justice.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen.