I knew that Trouble had found me yet again when an Old Asia Hand cautioned me to not “jump off the deep end” and jeopardize my otherwise valuable credibility. Apparently, my second blog about Bhutto’s assassination had begun to ring all kinds of bells and whistles amongst my colleagues, friends, and readers. She felt, understandably, that my bringing a feminist perspective about honor murders to bear on the Bhutto murder revealed a lack of sophistication about Pakistani politics. Point well taken–but read on.
A second colleague informed me that Bhutto had not repealed the Hudud laws and had not used her time in office on behalf of women or the poor. He further insisted that Bhutto had been a wheeler-dealer and pro-Arafat and pro-Palestinian terror. If so–how awful, but what else is new? Islamists certainly did not kill her for this.
Today, my esteemed PJM colleague, Roger Kimball, views the profusion of alarmingly positive eulogies about Bhutto as an idealization, even a “Diana-ization” of a corrupt and frivolous woman. He chides Bernard Henri-Levy (he of the photogenic bared chest and actress-wife), for having written a “saccharine” piece in the Wall Street Journal in which Levy now views the murdered Bhutto as freedom’s “symbol and standard bearer.” Levy also takes world leaders to task for having “shamefully” avoided a show of “grief” and “public mourning” on her behalf.
I dunno. I think Kimball has a point–but so, too, does Levy.
Finally, someone else, who has until now happily forwarded my articles about Islamic gender apartheid, chided me for having suggested that Bhutto had been murdered because she was a woman or a feminist. (I do not think I said this). However, in a comment to someone else, (which was immediately forwarded to me), this critic wrote that “this (article) is an example of how feminists discredit themselves…(since) Bhutto’s father, who brought Pakistan into the nuclear age and wholeheartedly encouraged an Islamic revival was executed…Bhutto was not killed because she was a woman. She was killed because of her own corruption and duplicity.”
Say what?
Politicians do not always get assassinated because they are corrupt or self-serving. If they did–there would be few politicians left standing and fewer still willing to run for public office. More important: Political saints and other innocents are hardly spared the fatwa, the sword, the sniper or the suicide-killer’s exploding bomb. Does this woman really mean to suggest that Bhutto deserved to die because she was a bad…woman? Were Bhutto more to her liking, would she then mourn her death and would Kimball himself then eulogize her?
Let me suggest that these also-worthy comments betray an (unconscious) anxiety about Hillary Clinton’s race for office and perhaps a long-standing dislike of western feminists. When I criticize feminists for failing to stand up to Islamists about Islamic gender and religious apartheid–I can do no wrong. But, if I dare to venture a kind or compassionate word for a woman who is also flawed, perhaps mightily so, (just like her male counterparts) but who is also unacceptably powerful for a girl–ah, then nothing I say can be right.
Benazir Bhutto is not one of the imagined and acceptably powerless female victims of Islamism; my interpretation of how her assassination might function psychologically, symbolically, culturally is certainly useful as one of many ways to understand it and its consequences.
For the record: I did not say that Bhutto was a feminist nor did I say that she died primarily because she was a woman. However, her gender could not possibly have helped her case in the backroom caves and rat-holes that al-Qaeda or the Taliban use for offices–or indeed, in Musharraf’s well-appointed offices. More important: Bhutto’s very public assassination is a symbol which may have grave psychological consequences for the millions of women who are already living under the Islamist boots-and-turbans in their homes and countries.
As the world prepares to greet another New Year, let us not forget their plight or the plight of Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents whose ordinary, daily lives might constitute fates even worse than death.
NEWSFLASH: Emeritus Professor George Jochnowitz calls this article in the Jerusalem Post to my attention, by Herb Keinon and Michal Lando. The article further confirms that Bhutto might have served as a bridge between Israel and the Muslim World (see HERE).
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6 Comments
George Jochnowitz:Was it Bhutto’s father who brought Pakistan into the nuclear age and encouraged an Islamic revival? I though it was Nawaz Sharif.
Democracy—by which I mean human rights and freedoms, as well as separation of power, and not simply the right to vote—is inherently good for women. Furthermore, a secular state in the Middle East is capable of accepting Israel’s right to exist; a theocracy cannot do so. Bhutto was the most pro-freedom political figure in Pakistan at the time of her murder. Her death is a tragedy for Pakistan, for women, and for peace on earth.
Dec 31, 2007 - 1:56 pm J. K. Gayle:As the world prepares to greet another New Year, let us not forget their plight or the plight of Muslim and ex-Muslim dissidents whose ordinary, daily lives might constitute fates even worse than death.
Thanks for this!
Bhutto may not have been a feminist nor perhaps was she cowardly assassinated just because she was a woman, but she did want to shine a light on Pakistan. She said:
“the extremists’ greatest fear is the spread of information, social equality and democracy. These three principles choke off the oxygen of terrorism. It was in the clusters of information, social equality and democracy that I gave my attention as prime minister of Pakistan. This could explain the two unsuccessful assassination attempts made against me by al Qaeda in 1993 to prevent my re-election. As prime minister of Pakistan, my government oversaw the heralding of the Information Age into Pakistan — we introduced fax machines, digital pagers, optic fiber communications, cellular telephones, satellite dishes, computers, Internet, e-mail and even CNN and Fox into Pakistan.”
http://www.magazine.tcu.edu/articles/2002-02-F02.asp?issueid=200202
Other legacies of her government are noted here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Pakistan#Benazir_Bhutto_Government.
Dec 31, 2007 - 2:03 pm Nancy Kobrin, Ph.D.:It is interesting the degree to which people can’t fathom the hatred and where it stems from to the point of assassinating a woman or even a man. the dynamic is too frightening. I thought Bernard’s piece was very good and I found Kimball’s problematic because if my memory serves me correctly Kimball didn’t shlep to Pakistan to investigate Danny’s death and only knows Islam from a distance. I could be wrong. I wonder if Kimball considered that Bernard wrote the piece as a Jew who understands the Arab Muslim world and that Jews as Dhimma are essentially viewed as female, so that it made him more predisposed to understanding the significance of this woman’s murder.
Bhutto was not perfect - we know that. Also she probably harbored a death wish to join her father and one look at her son, makes me feel uncomfortable that he will be targeted as well. This unspoken aspect of joining the dead. Also complicating this is that Bhutto’s father used to refer to her as his first born male! How can any woman ever get out of such a corner into which she has been painted?
It is nearly impossible for people to understand that you can be female and have internalized male hatred of the female as self-hatred and could go on to identify with the brutality of the power dynamics in Pakistan.
It’s very complicated on the one hand and yet quite simple on the other. Perhaps Bhutto was trying to put right some of the earlier identifications that were more ‘abusive’ in terms of power. I would give her the benefit of the doubt. After all she grew up in a trauma drenched environment which makes relationships peculiar to say the least.
I would assert that it is too terrifying for people to consider that this female was wiped off the face of the earth because she attempted to move beyond the confines of her repressive culture and religion.
It is at the very least an “honor killing” inspired assassination. Every woman lives under a death threat on account of the cultural practices. Therefore, no murder of a female can be separated from this cultural lens through which the female is viewed. Certainly people can ‘dis-associate’ Bhutto’s murder from an honor killing but ironically it is a kind of cultural “dissociation.” I say this as a psychoanalyst, Arabist and counter terrorist expert.
Dec 31, 2007 - 4:46 pm David Thomson:“Also she probably harbored a death wish”
I totally agree and that probably explains Bhutto’s reckless and foolish return to Pakistan. She would have been murdered regardless of her gender. Still, this almost certainly provided the Islamic nihilists with an added major incentive.
Bhutto would have also been targeted for assassination had she remained outside of the country—and pressured Musharraf to increase his efforts against these religious crazies. On a list of ten priorities, the late Ms. Bhutto should have stressed her opposition to Islamic militancy in the first nine. Any valid criticisms of the current Pakistan leader should have been listed on the very bottom.
Dec 31, 2007 - 10:13 pm greenconsciousness:I think Phyllis Chesler has told the story of Bhutto in its’ true meaning to the world in the various posts on the killing.
Not only was Bhutto a woman but she said she was going to join with the west against terror. It was clear she was US backed in her return. She pushed every Islamic Fascist button including their most cherished button of symbolism. It was an honor killing and inevitable as the conclusion of a Greek tragedy. The independent woman must be punished - made to submit. Slaves are forced to breed the homicide warriors so the force is overwhelming, one will always get through.
I don’t agree she had a death wish any more than Mandela, Gandhi or King. I think she had courage. Her death was not a waste or foolish. The sacrifice will have consequences, if only to turn the masses away from those who did the deed. But I think it will inspire other Muslim women. Especially if Bhutto is honored and made a hero as the homicide bombers are made into heroes.
Bhutto should be the example, the answer, the option, the other choice available to martyrs. This will only happen if her sacrifice is honored and not dismissed as foolish. However, the males who were supposedly supporting her can betray her and what she was trying to achieve. Already they chose their religion over the science of an autopsy.
Bhutto may not have been a feminist but she acted like one. She said she wanted to help widows. She wanted a secular society not a theocracy. She was courageous and spoke truth to power. She was a symbol to other woman. She was clear and articulated the concept of modernity and democracy to people who hungered for her message. She was brave in the face of overwhelming power opposed to her plans.
Yes, we know about the corruption but not in context, only the story as told by those who took over, those who had something to gain. We have yet to understand Bhutto’s evolution. We have yet to accept the full humanity of our leaders.
Feminists are always told we don’t understand the deeper issues by the armchair experts who are paid to inform the elites. The scholars write books titled Worlds on Fire, while ignoring the women on fire.
Write on Dr. Chelser - As you expose women’s reality of course you will be told you endanger your credibility. This is called silencing. People guard their expertise, attack and isolate the messenger, while they ignore the message. Foreign policy experts ignore past behavior, the reality of what is actually done, the actual practice and patterns, while citing textbook explanations.
How can feminist who are creating a revolution in the accepted social order ever be credible to those who guard the status quo? No feminist of any worth to systemic change has ever achieved more than a temporary credibility because they are always out ahead of the accepted understanding of their peers. The academics and “experts” are almost by definition and function, guardians of accepted thought.
Women’s oppression has never been a factor in their analysis - that is why the Chelser’s of the world are valuable to women struggling for opportunity. They are a voice for those whose true story is never told.
Jan 1, 2008 - 10:32 am Fern Sidman:You say that a second colleague “insisted that Bhutto had been a wheeler-dealer and pro-Arafat and pro-Palestinian terror. If so—how awful, but what else is new? Islamists certainly did not kill her for this.”
I agree that Islamists most certainly did not kill for that reason. If indeed Bhutto was pro-Arafat and pro-Palestinian terror, then why would the government of Israel have even considered her requests for Mossad security? According to the news item that you cited from the Israel Report web site, it indicated that the Israelis ultimately did not agree to provide her with security for political and diplomatic reasons.
“The Hebrew daily newspaper Ma’ariv further revealed that Bhutto had asked Israel’s Mossad spy agency, along with the CIA and Britain’s Scotland Yard, to help protect her in the run-up to Pakistan’s January 8 election. Bhutto complained that current Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was trying to make her an easy target for assassination by now allowing her to use adequate protective measures.
According to the report, Israel’s Foreign Ministry was in favor of aiding Bhutto, though the government ultimately decided against it for fear of angering the Musharraf regime and upsetting relations with neighboring India, a close ally of Israel engaged in an ongoing bitter confrontation with Pakistan.”
There was no mention of Bhutto’s alleged support of pro-Palestinian terror organizations and since her murder, the leaders of the Israeli government have unabashedly extolled her virtues and have joined in the international chorus in mourning her death.
It would seem that Bhutto’s assassination had everything to do with her willingness to be a bridge between the Muslim world and Israel. At this juncture in time, it is purely conjecture, however had she been elected on Jan 8th and made concrete overtures towards official Pakistani recognition of Israel, this decision would have irrevocably altered the future of Arab-Israeli relations and the prospects of a potential peace.
Jan 2, 2008 - 2:01 pm