Fanatics seeking to bring about Clash of Civilization: Bhutto says Path to Leadership Strewn with Thorns
Indiana University – USA, November 06, 2004

 

Former Prime Minister and Chairperson Pakistan Peoples Party, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto has expressed concern that fanatics and extremists would try to bring about a clash of religions and cultures and expressed the hope that this could be averted.

She said this while addressing Indianapolis Colloquium at Indian University in the USA on Friday on "Women Position in Islamic Societies".

She said that few people realize that Islam is a monotheistic religion and part of the traditions of Hazrat Abraham. Abraham, Moses and Jesus are the prophets of Islam as much as they are revered in Judaism and Christianity, she said.

The former Prime Minister said that health, education, literacy, gender equality and freedom of press as well as respect of labour and peasant rights were keys to develop any society. However, such policy promotions needed peaceful borders, which is why PPP government worked for defusing tensions with its neighbours.

She said that as a woman leader she was particularly concerned about the plight of her sisters. This led her government to appoint women judges to the judiciary and had she remained in office, today there would have been women judges in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. She recalled that the PPP instituted a new program of hiring women police officers to investigate crimes of domestic violence against the women of Pakistan.

"The development of that police force had been stunted following the undemocratic end of the PPP government."

She said that she and her Party believe in an open and transparent society adopting technology and information to modernize society. She said that fax machines, satellite dishes, student unions, labour unions, women taking part in sports and other informative and technological activities were banned before her government and it was the PPP government which lifted ban on these to modernize Pakistani Society.

Democracy in Pakistan was important because an Islamic world at the crossroads, a modern Pakistan would be an inspiration whereas otherwise the danger was that fanaticism and ignorance could grow.

She said that had elections in Afghanistan been held in 1990 as they were recently held, perhaps the Taliban and Al Qaeda would never have emerged. She urged the international community to promote stability by strengthening democratic values.

She said that she had known both successes and setbacks but that she had never wavered from the commitment she made in the death cell with her Father. This was a commitment to fight for democracy and human rights and that she would continue to do so.

"The path of leadership was strewn with thorns". She said that often personal happiness had to be sacrificed for national causes. She said that she felt sad that because of her choices, her family had been made to suffer too. However, she had to carry this burden of sadness because of her commitment to a democratic and modern future for her people. She said that she was brought up to fight injustice, promote freedom and safeguard the rights of the weak and dispossessed.

She said that both her governments were destabilized by extremist elements who did not believe in democracy or a government led by a woman. She said that the judicial processes were violated to wage a psychological war against her, her family and her Party.

She said that she knew that her duty to her country and people came first. "My duty to Pakistan's democratic struggle is one baptized in blood. During this struggle, my father and both of my brothers were killed. Their legacy focuses my drive.  Their spirit empowers me. I have come too far to turn back now".

Expressing her resolve to fight for the rights of her people, she said that she was taught not to take "No" for an answer but to answer to the call of conscience. Hence she refused to take No for an answer when people said that as a foreign woman she could not be elected President of the Oxford Union, or that as a woman expecting a baby she could not campaign in an election or that as a woman in a Muslim society she could not run for chief executive.

She was grateful to the men and women of Pakistan for supporting her when she challenged traditions to modernize Pakistan and bring it prosperity through modernization. She recalled that as the Prime Minister of Pakistan she appeared before an historic Joint Session of the United States Congress in 1989. She said that in her address, her most important sentence was, YES YOU CAN! She said that this short sentence of three words meant so much to her as she had survived the murder of her Father and brothers, her Mother and husband's imprisonment and gone from prison to Prime Minister because, "Yes, you can if you refuse to take No for an answer".