The Birth Pangs of Inherited Democracy
The head of Pakistan’s largest political party is on summer vacation from college. He is now free to interact with his people. He spoke to his darker minions of blood and sacrifice and then returned to his air conditioned suite, played Xbox 360 while texting his British girlfriend and scarfing down some Kentucky Fried Chicken. The masses returned to homes that while lacking electricity were engulfed with the light beaming from their faces after witnessing the spectacle of the boy-leader-saint.
Here’s a video excerpt. The best moment begins at 1 minute 10 seconds, when Bilawal Bhutto Zardari screams his head off.
Oh, let’s not pretend you’re sitting in the very center of the slums of the people you claim to be protecting. Let’s not pretend you don’t write this blog from the comfort of an easy laptop in an air-conditioned room. And am I to assume you were sitting next to him peeking over his shoulder as he wrote his text messages? Oh for God’s sake. Is that your best argument? Have some consideration, if not for the tremendous effort his father and he are making, then for the fact that his mother died for love of this nation. Talk about shamelessly ungrateful.
I wasn’t pretending anything. Nor did I claim to speak on the behalf of anyone. You should also not confuse facetiousness for factuality.
I think you make the mistake of lumping Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari, and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari all together. People should be judged as individuals.
Benazir, like her father, had some tragic flaws. But there were also a great deal of intangible and genuinely positive aspects to her. Now that she is no longer in this world, in a personal sense, I prefer to focus on the latter. Politically, we can remind ourselves in a more general sense, so that Pakistan’s system overcomes its historic flaws.
I don’t know what Zardari sacrificed. He lost a wife he was separated from and to whom he brought more harm than good. In the latter years of their exile, Zardari interacted more with his dog Maximillian than with his wife, Benazir.
Bilawal is a child/young adult who lost his mother. He deserves sympathy, but not political obedience or power.
The essential point I sought to drive directly and indirectly is that it’s quite foolish for adults to be so engrossed by and submissive to a political fetus.
South Asian politics and culture is embedded with this sense of inherited leadership and superiority. So you have grown adults, who perhaps are quite authoritarian at home, at the feet of a young boy because of who his mama was. But why? The young boy gave the dumb masses the same 40 year promise of roti, kapra, makan. And he even offered employment. But the government is bankrupt and eliminating subsidies. How can it add thousands to its payroll? It doesn’t make sense.
Look on YouTube for a video of Jehangir Badr pushing the luggage cart of Bilawal at Kennedy Airport. Normally, that would be the responsibility of the young adult, not the grown man. But Bilawal is the boy-prince and Badr, despite his grown age and decades of PPP activism, is just a court hand.
Something to think about, no?
Wow this anonymous fellow is really doing the rounds, huh? Check out this comment on Rs.5 from a couple days ago:
“Oh for God’s sake. Disappointing, Ahsan. Is that your best argument? That he’s not the best Urdu-speaker and public speaker in town? Grow up, no offence. He’s a 19 year old doing his best to serve his country – which is more than can be said for you – and to fulfill his democratic duty as the elected party’s chairman. Have some consideration, if not for the tremendous effort his father and he are making, then for the fact that his mother died for love of this shamelessly ungrateful nation.”
http://fiverupees.blogspot.com/2009/08/will-someone-please-hand-bilawal-spliff.html?showComment=1250012117486#c1257753691648739818
Haha, Ahsan. Apparently the “Bilawal Lovers Society” is ready to vigilantly copy and paste the same line of defense.
As I told a friend, the commenter appears to be an educated jiyala in Islamabad. That really narrows it down to a handful.
Waisay, I’m quite curious about the future of the PPP. Pakistan is becoming increasingly urbanized, media-ized (I know it’s not a word, but bear with me), and politicized. Can a party that is basically a family ornament survive for too long by doing this? A year ago if you had asked me, I would have said, absolutely, yes — they’ll just keep doing what they’ve always be doing, and my grandkids would be complaining about Bilawal’s grandkids on their blog fivethousandrupees.blogspot.com. But now I’m less sure — I think they have to change with the times if they are going to survive over the next generation.
My thoughts on this aren’t that well organized or coherent. I’m curious what you think.
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Bilawal is only worthy of sympathy, poor thing. Only in Pakistan can you find a young man who barely speaks the national language, yet is the leader of the nation’s foremost political party.