An interview with Fatima Bhutto

By Hootsbuddy

Guernica is a magazine of art and ideas that author Howard Zinn called "an extraordinary bouquet of stories, poems, social commentary, and art." In its short time online, it has grown from one of the web's best-kept secrets to one of its most acclaimed new magazines.

This interview by Joel Whitney of Fatima Bhutto, niece of the late Benazir Bhutto, offers a behind-the-scenes look into a messy political situation that no one in America seems to understand, including our otherwise well studied president.

The story of Pakistani politics for the last four decades can be told through one family: the Bhuttos. Two Bhuttos have been heads of state, but four have been slain in the violence that riddles modern Pakistan. Fatima, the twenty-seven year old poet, stands in the wake of this carnage and is its heir. Her grandfather, Pakistan�s first democratically elected head of state and founder of the Pakistan People�s Party (PPP), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was executed three years before Fatima was born by General Zia-ul-Haq (who overthrew him in a military coup). Fatima�s Aunt Benazir was shot in her car on December 27, 2007, while campaigning. Her uncle was poisoned in exile. And when Fatima was just fourteen, outside her home in Karachi, her father was shot by dozens of police in one of Pakistan�s famous �encounters.� From that same home, Fatima insists that this violence points back to the family; she believes not only that her aunt was morally responsible, but that she played a direct role.
 ...
 ...Benazir�s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, is Pakistan�s current president. He is also a recipient of what Fatima describes as �millions and billions and scrillions� of American aid dollars. Fatima�s grudge against him is both seething and personal. But she makes a strong case that President Obama�s new Af/Pak strategy not only fuels Zardari�s murderous corruption, but also helps him bumblingly legitimize the Taliban.

... A graduate of Barnard College and the London School of Economics, Bhutto is the author of a book of poems...published when she was just fifteen, and an oral history of the earthquake that rocked the north of Pakistan... Like a Kennedy, like Hamlet (dad killed by uncle), catastrophe and politics have been her birthright. Rejecting dynastic politics, however, she insists that Pakistan is far better off with her as pundit than politico. But given that she still lives yards from where her dad was killed, it�s hard not to wonder, is she better off under this arrangement? I spoke with her by Skype from her home in Karachi, where she is at work on a book about the Bhutto family.

The interview is not too long and there are no blockbuster moments, but most Americans I know can learn a lot from reading what this young woman says. With the best of good intentions the United States has been throwing its weight around since before I was born. My first embarrassing glimpse at how we are perceived was The Ugly American (1958) about the time I was in high school. Sadly, to date we seem to have made little progress overcoming that image.

I got the link from 3 Quarks Daily. Go there or to the original article for a look at Fatima Bhutto's beautiful smiling face. One brief snip from the interview here.

I haven�t met President Obama. And I have to say that when he was running, like almost everyone in the universe, I was incredibly excited by the prospect of him and found him incredibly inspiring. But as you said, unfortunately, not only has President Obama continued Bush�s policies in the region, he�s stepped them up a bit. What�s so frustrating is that he�s a man who understands nuance. I mean, for that man to call the entire region �Af/Pak� is mortifying to us because we�re two distinct countries. And to be lumped together in this Af/Pak sort of bundle is so Bush-like it breaks my, it breaks my heart. I think the problem that Obama has made in Pakistan is an enormous one. Empowering Pakistan�s military and empowering this incredibly criminal and corrupt government with drone access and all the rest of it, and with billions and billions of dollars of aid, he�s just repeating the cycle. We�re seeing on a much larger scale a repeat of the earthquake. Pakistan took in, I think, $6.7 billion to deal with the earthquake. Four years later, we still have people in camps; that money has gone to some very high-up officials� bank accounts and nowhere else. Except in this case, the Pakistan Army has entered into a guerrilla war and what Obama has proved to people in the region is that American democracy is always going to come down against the people. I mean, American democracy means we�ll drone your village, it means we�ll bomb your schools, and it means you live in refugee camps. The idea then of reaching out to the Muslim world, reaching out to places like Pakistan to explain to them that we share a common battle in fighting extremism, has been entirely lost. If I were going to meet President Obama, I would have so many things to say to him�

One of the formative moments in my younger life was when I was in Korea with the Army Medical Service Corps. When I first arrived I was assigned to a transitional base in Seoul for OJT to be an ambulance driver, then later to the 121 Evac Hospital to learn to be an x-ray tech. (And you thought it took years...ha!) When my final orders came I was assigned to a small base near Taejon.

I didn't know where Taejon was, so a Korean civilian in the x-ray section said, "Here. I'll show you."
He took a piece of paper and drew a rough outline of Korea. He then drew a line through it and said, "This is the DMZ."

Even before he added the spots showing Seoul, Taejon, Taegu and Pusan I immediately learned something much more important. The "Korea" in my mind not the same as his. All I was thinking about was The Republic of South Korea. But Korea in his mind was the historic reality of a country that was a thousand years old when Columbus came to the New World. And the DMZ was a geopolitical artifact no more important (or permanent) than fifty thousand American military personnel encamped there as well.

Foreigners in one's country are occupiers at worst, guests at best. And those who imagine they will be welcomed with the same warm affection as citizens are not living in the real world.

When I saw the image of Barack Obama posed with the leaders of Afghanistan on one side and Pakistan on the other, I was impressed. When he said that the two of them and America have a common enemy in al-Qaeda I was also impressed, especiallly when he underscored the idea by saying that the threat of al-Qaeda was even closer to those two countries than our own.

But like everyone else, I was seeing what I wanted to see. And the two leaders were not in any position to burst the bubble. Too much military might and money at stake. 

And when I read the words of this young woman "...for that man to call the entire region 'Af/Pak' is mortifying to us because we�re two distinct countries. And to be lumped together in this Af/Pak sort of bundle is so Bush-like it breaks my, it breaks my heart..." it broke my heart as well. I was wrong. And the President is misguided. Let us pray for a corrective soon.