The Son Also Rises
Filed under: Pakistan
Slate has a great roundup of blogger viewpoints on the announcement that Benazir Bhutto's 19-year-old son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari (that's him above on the right, in happier times) will take a figurehead position at the top of his heroic mother's Pakistan Peoples Party. Zardari boldly declared to the nation:
"Democracy is the best revenge."
It's the remark of a statesman, though he has every legitimate reason in the world to seek revenge of a different kind. Who among us can say that we would forgo such vengeance if we stood in his shoes?
Some bloggers complain that the PPP is keeping things in the family. It's great that they should alert Pakistan to the problems of nepotism, but America wasn't ruined by John Quincy Adams, now was it? Hillary Clinton is being given serious consideration to follow her husband, isn't she? America's "democrats" seem to be fine with that. Many criticize George Bush on many grounds, but I've never heard anybody attribute any alleged policy failing of his to the fact that he is the son of a former president. As one blogger writes: "There is no democracy outside of the party, no reason for it to exist within." Is it really Bhutto's fault that her country continues down the path of authoritarianism? What more can we ask of her in seeking to prevent that than to lay down her life? How many of us can say we've even risked such a possibility on behalf of our countries?
Moreover, how can the PPP not make a firm statement to those who murdered its leader that they will not succeed in banishing Bhutto's spirit or pro-American ideals from their party? What so many of Benazir's critics always fail to answer is a simple question: If not her, then who? If not her son, who? Attack her if you like, she is a giant historical figure far beyond your slings and arrows, but where is your support for what you believe is a "better" option for Pakistan. Always, silence is the answer.
Some narrow-minded fools persist on accusing Bhutto of "corruption." She wasn't perfect, that's for sure. Neither were slave owners George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Nor was court-packing, term-grabbing, gulag-building Frankenstein Roosevelt (yet for some reason we still have his ghoulish image on our dime). And not one of them laid down their life for their country. Another blogger writes: "My advise to him - not that he asked - is that he should listen always to his heart and mind, well before he listens to anyone around him. Let him follow that which was best in Benazir Bhutto and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and avoid their follies."
She stood with America, with our values, at a time and in a place where they are most imperiled, within a stone's throw of one of our most mortal enemies -- who may well have been responsible for her murder. If we can't manage to support someone like that, while of course recognizing their faults and working for improvement, then we deserve atrocities like 9/11.
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