People of Pakistan at a critical crossroads
Khaled Almaeena

THE brutal assassination of Benazir Bhutto has dealt a serious blow to Pakistan’s very fabric of existence, which is now imperiled. Since its founding in 1947, the country has been plagued much of the time by political crises. An overview of its turbulent history gives an insight into the torturous road it has traveled.
The first political assassination took place in the same garden (Liaquat Bagh) where Benazir Bhutto was killed. Then it was Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan felled by an assassin’s bullet. Prime ministers and other leaders have come and gone, but neither those in power nor the opposition have been able to agree on a viable system that would allow Pakistan to function as a proper state — a state for which millions of people have sacrificed their lives and property.
Apologists for the country speak of external factors. Yes, all can agree that Pakistan was caught in the Cold War crossfire between the United States and the Soviet Union. It had to choose sides and fast, and it did by allying itself with Washington, receiving the first batch of F-86 Saber jets to strengthen its nascent air force and provide some muscle for the fledgling country.
Pakistan’s foreign policymakers heeded the advice of then US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles who believed in pacts that would enable countries friendly to the US to have access to US foreign aid. Dulles suffered from “pactitis.” He initiated the Baghdad Pact, which quickly dissolved after the revolution of 1958 in Iraq. It then became the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO). The three main players, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey, were viewed as the bulwark against Russian ambitions in the Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Then Pakistan became a member of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) — another loose outfit designed to deter Russian influence in that part of the world.
Firmly entrenched in the American camp and building up its armed forces, the country lagged on the political front, and it was up to Gen. Ayub Khan to come to the rescue and bring some semblance of “enforced order.” Despite being accused of dictatorship, the Ayub era was one of relative calm and economic progress, and it enhanced the country’s image abroad. However, he left in 1968 and was followed by another general — Yahya Khan. During that period, the nation’s history became a political joke that ended with the breakup of Pakistan in 1971. Since that time, the country has not seen any peace. A hanged prime minister, the Afghan War and the influence of the Kalashnikov culture, prime ministers in and out of office and then another general who came at a time when an event of historic global proportions was to take place — Sept. 11, 2001.
To Pervez Musharraf’s credit, he navigated Pakistan through very dangerous waters. He calmed the hardliners in the US who wanted Pakistan to be judged a “terrorist state.” He made overtures to India and obtained both financial and military support for the country.
However, the people thought otherwise. They wanted participation in the political process, and they had to get it through the only two individuals who could muster support — Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
Both returned to the country. The political process restarted, and, after the withdrawal of emergency rules, elections were slated for Jan. 8. After surviving an earlier assassination attempt, now Benazir is dead, leaving behind a genuinely grieving Sharif along with millions of Pakistanis across the nation.
One might ask, “What now?”
Sanity should prevail after the initial shock and grief. The leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) — one of the few political parties that cuts across provincial lines — should appeal for calm and order. They should rise above party politics and pettiness. Their own future is at stake.
Politics in Pakistan has become deadly and dull. The same faces come across posters in every election. It is time for new, younger political leaders to appear on the scene — to be tried and tested. It is also not conducive to the changed political scene in Pakistan to cast blame on anyone else for the killings. Conspiracy theories and rumors abound in Pakistan, and the saner elements of society should see to it that such theories do not flourish, for they will further divide an already fragmented nation.
Friends of Pakistan also should help. Pakistan is an important and strategic ally in the fight against terror. The US views it as a bastion of American policies in the Middle East. It thus becomes imperative to the US and the GCC states that Pakistan improves its security and stability. Any bloody, tumultuous upheaval will have far-reaching consequences; however, no resolution is possible unless the Pakistanis themselves choose to seek it.
To fend off any pessimistic view of the future of their country, the people of Pakistan should rise as one entity and fight the forces of darkness. Nawaz Sharif, the Islamic parties and the PPP should get their heads together and focus on a strategy — not to create a psyche of fear and level accusations against President Musharraf, but to forge a national unity government that will steer the country out of this bloody mess.
The US and other allies may want Musharraf to stick to the election date, but the emotionally charged atmosphere cannot bear the brunt of an election. Unfortunately, the lack of political maturity among many of the party leaders could engulf them in a confrontation with the only remaining semblance of order — the army. That could lead to what amounts to national suicide.
Pakistan is a great country with many caring, dedicated men and women — patriots who have an undying love for their country. They should be given a chance to have their voices heard. The demagogues, the manipulators, bigots and zealots should not hold sway. The only way then to stop the country from being ungovernable is to stick to the tenets of unity, faith and discipline espoused by Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founder and first governor-general. That is the nation’s only hope for survival.—Arab News


The road to reforms
Tariq Ali

EVEN those of us sharply critical of Benazir Bhutto’s behaviour and policies — both while she was in office and more recently — are stunned and angered by her death. Indignation and fear stalk the country once again.
An odd coexistence of military despotism and anarchy created the conditions leading to her assassination in Rawalpindi on December 27. In the past, military rule was designed to preserve order — and did so for a few years. No longer. Today it creates disorder and promotes lawlessness. How else can one explain the sacking of the chief justice and eight other judges of the country’s Supreme Court for attempting to hold the government’s Intelligence agencies and the police accountable to courts of law? Their replacements lack the backbone to do anything, let alone conduct a proper inquest into the misdeeds of the agencies to uncover the truth behind the carefully organised killing of a major political leader. How can Pakistan today be anything but a conflagration of despair? It is assumed that the killers were jihadi fanatics. This may well be true, but were they acting on their own?
Benazir, according to those close to her, had been tempted to boycott the fake elections, but she lacked the political courage to defy Washington. She had plenty of physical courage, and refused to be cowed by threats from local opponents. She had been addressing an election rally in Liaquat Bagh. This is a popular space named after the country’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, who was killed by an assassin in 1953. The killer, Said Akbar, was immediately shot dead on the orders of a police officer involved in the plot. Not far from here, there once stood a colonial structure where nationalists were imprisoned. This was Rawalpindi jail. It was here that Benazir’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged in April 1979. The military tyrant responsible for his judicial murder made sure the site of the tragedy was destroyed as well. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s death poisoned relations between his Pakistan People’s Party and the army. Party activists, particularly in the province of Sindh, were brutally tortured, humiliated and, sometimes, disappeared or killed.
Pakistan’s turbulent history, a result of continuous military rule and unpopular global alliances, confronts the ruling elite now with serious choices. They appear to have no positive aims. The overwhelming majority of the country disapproves of the government’s foreign policy. They are angered by its lack of a serious domestic policy except for further enriching a callous and greedy elite that includes a swollen, parasitic military. Now they watch helplessly as politicians are shot dead in front of them. Benazir had survived the bomb blast but was felled by bullets fired at her car. The assassins, mindful of their failure in Karachi a month ago, had taken out a double insurance this time. They wanted her dead. It is impossible for even a rigged election to take place now. It will have to be postponed, and the military high command is no doubt contemplating another dose of army rule if the situation gets worse, which could easily happen.
What has happened is a multilayered tragedy. It’s a tragedy for a country on a road to more disasters. Torrents and foaming cataracts lie ahead. And it is a personal tragedy. The house of Bhutto has lost another member. Father, two sons and now a daughter have all died unnatural deaths.
I first met Benazir at her father’s house in Karachi when she was a fun-loving teenager, and later at Oxford. She was not a natural politician and had always wanted to be a diplomat, but history and personal tragedy pushed in the other direction. Her father’s death transformed her. She had become a new person, determined to take on the military dictator of that time. She had moved to a tiny flat in London, where we would endlessly discuss the future of the country. She would agree that land reforms, mass education programmes, a health service and an independent foreign policy were positive constructive aims and crucial if the country was to be saved from the vultures in and out of uniform. Her constituency was the poor, and she was proud of the fact. She changed again after becoming prime minister. In the early days, we would argue and in response to my numerous complaints — all she would say was that the world had changed. She couldn’t be on the ‘wrong side’ of history. And so, like many others, she made her peace with Washington. It was this that finally led to the deal with Musharraf and her return home after more than a decade in exile. On a number of occasions she told me that she did not fear death. It was one of the dangers of playing politics in Pakistan.
It is difficult to imagine any good coming out of this tragedy, but there is one possibility. Pakistan desperately needs a political party that can speak for the social needs of a bulk of the people. The Pakistan People’s Party founded by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was built by the activists of the only popular mass movement the country has known: students, peasants and workers who fought for three months in 1968-69 to topple the country’s first military dictator. They saw it as their party, and that feeling persists in some parts of the country to this day, despite everything.

—Khaleej Times



Food for thought
Kelly O’Brien

LIKE most Americans, my experience with stateside Chinese food was limited the stuff we get delivered in cleverly folded cardboard tubs. Although I enjoyed my weekly mu-shu fix, I did harbor suspicions that it was not, perhaps, the most authentic culinary experience. Thus, I came to China ready for unfamiliar ingredients, determined to develop a taste for real Chinese cuisine. But my first glimpse of Chinese cooking culture actually came about a year prior to hopping my trans-Pacific flight.
Long before whetting America’s appetite for period China and Zhang Ziyi, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon director Ang Lee made an unassuming drama called Eat Drink Man Woman. The story centers on a widowed Taipei chef who struggles to hold his family together by doing the only thing he knows, cooking. With no dialogue to distract, the first five minutes follow the chef as he slices, steams, seasons, stir fries and otherwise seduces any viewer with functional taste buds.
When I rented a Chinese cooking movie, I certainly expected to see dishes I was unfamiliar with. What I did not expect was that the techniques would be just as exotic. I was captivated by the way the chef used his myriad cleavers, woks and steamers, so different from what I’d seen in Western kitchens. I knew in my heart and in my stomach that I had to learn more about Chinese cuisine. Conveniently, nine months later I found myself buying a one-way ticket to Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Within a week I’d sampled Mongolian hotpot (with paper-thin lamb, a delicate ginger and date broth, and vegetables I couldn’t put a name to), naicha (salty Mongolian milk tea, served steaming in soup bowls) and more kinds of tofu than I had even believed possible. I had not anticipated the Chinese penchant for eating out, but I knew immediately that restaurants, from squalid to swanky, were going to be the learning experience I was looking for. Lesson number one: China does not have a food pyramid. The first time we were served potato noodles with bowls of rice on the side, my culinary sensibilities went into starch overload. I was immediately reminded of another food film, Big Night, where an Italian chef nearly expels two customers after they ask for a side of spaghetti with their risotto. After 23 years of eating meals with at least a nod to a carb-protein balance, I found myself adjusting my ideas of what foods belonged together. Adjustments, which, I soon discovered, had not gone far enough. My Chinese friends were excited by my enthusiasm for trying new foods, and thus took pleasure in ordering on my behalf. Not that I was complaining, as I couldn’t read the menus, but lunch one day with my Chinese friend Jackie sparked a conversation about culinary preconceptions. As we sat in Xiao PangPang’s, my favorite local restaurant, she ordered chaobing (fried strips of dough with pork and vegetables) and basi naipi (essentially, donuts).
When the waiter brought our meal, I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Pork and donuts were not what I was expecting when I set out for new and exciting culinary horizons. Jackie looked at me quizzically, which I’ve grown accustomed to as her mad foreign friend, and asked what was funny. As I explained about donuts and dessert, in general, I realized I’d just arrived at lesson number two: The sweet after savory rule, immutable though it may be in the West, holds no sway at Chinese tables.
Lesson number three is certainly the most profound and was actually the result of a broader realignment in my thinking. You see, along with bulging suitcases, I brought with me to China the preconception that Chinese food was the same whether you were dining in different regions.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item)