Killing Bhutto

My family isn’t exactly political, especially at Christmas; but when they found out that Benazir Bhutto had been killed yesterday, everybody knew her name. In the end, that was what made her attractive both to western sponsors and to a large portion of Pakistani society - she was a recognisable brand associated with a particular vision of Pakistani democracy.

I worry that the choice facing the people of Pakistan is stark - they can have a ramshackle democracy laced with corruption or a military regime that can’t deliver a long-term political programme, or they can watch the country turn into Afghanistan. The worst case scenario is all three - a vaguely authoritarian government having little control over large swathes of the country, with those areas relying on traditional rule combined with deobandi influences as state bodies become less responsive to people’s needs.

I didn’t believe that Bhutto was a realistic hope for pulling Pakistan out of this mire over which Musharraf now reigns, but as a focal point for the restoration of democracy, her political value was huge. Now that focal point is no longer there, I’m not all doom and gloom, since there’s enough smart and powerful people in Pakistan to hold the country together - but whether they can do that while maintaining some semblance of the democratic process is questionable.

There’s been a lot of coverage of this, obviously, and no shortage of opinions from people who really don’t have much to say (possibly including me). The most interesting report I saw was John Moore in the New York Times, who was taking photos as the bomb went off. Watch and listen to his report.

P.S. Is it just me, or is a lot of the coverage treating this like a game of Cluedo?  “I think it was al-Qaeda, in the motorcade, with the pistol.”   Jason Burke sketches out the possibilities, but they certainly are sketchy - even if al-Qaeda claims they’re the ones what done it.