Crans Montana Prix de la
Foundation
Miss Bakhtawar Bhutto
Zardari:
28th June 2008
Response
by Miss Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari following presentation of the Prix de
la Foundation to Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed.
Your Royal Highnesses, Excellencies, Ladies
and Gentleman,
It is with great pride and sadness that I
accept this award on behalf of my mother, Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto
Shaheed. It goes without saying that I wish that she were here -
standing where I am now standing - to receive it. I know that she would
have been greatly honoured to have been recognised amongst so many other
world leaders. That she has been singled out to receive the award
posthumously as ‘a martyr for liberty, inseparable from world history’,
is also a great honour for our family, my father, Asif Ali Zardari, my
brother, Bilawal and my sister, Aseefa.
As you know my mother was a martyr for
liberty. She returned to Pakistan last year to fight elections in order
to enable Pakistan to resume, once more, a democratic system of
government. As leader of the populist Pakistan Peoples Party, her
participation was essential in order that the election should have some
credibility. She knew that in returning to Pakistan, she was putting her
life at risk. As she said often to us while we were growing up, where
there is dictatorship, the forces of extremism can flourish. And this is
why she believed so passionately in democracy. She had no illusions. She
knew that she could not wave a magic wand and make a country democratic
overnight. But she also knew that she had to try. And I am sure you will
all agree that her courage was unflinching and enduring. Ever since she
left University, at a time of life when her contemporaries were enjoying
themselves, getting jobs, starting families, she was challenging the
military dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq. During that time she spent
six years in prison or under detention, often in solitary confinement.
Elected as the youngest Prime Minister of a Muslim country, she rose
to the challenge, even though the problems she faced of governing a
developing country were immense.
As a woman, she also had to realise that she
was working in a predominantly male Muslim society; and she had the
daily challenge of fulfilling her duties as a wife and a mother. As
children, we may not have seen her as much as other children see their
mothers but what I hold dear to me is the certain knowledge of her
devotion to us. At the same time, we always knew that her life was on
the world stage, amongst the people. She did not want to become a
drawing room politician; and it is of some consolation that she died on
December 27 last year, among the people she loved and who loved her.
Thank you for honouring her with this award.
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