A True Inspiration...

Like many across the world, I was deeply shocked and saddened at the news of Benazir Bhutto's assassination in Pakistan today. To hear of such an intelligent, strong, inspirational woman being ruthlessly murdered at the hands of such cowardly and very evil terrorist organisations has truly made me wonder whether or not the country is ready for democracy at all. It is obvious in my opinion that the countries upcoming presidential elections should be cancelled, and I genuinely hope that current President Pervez Musharraf will resume his position as General despite the wide spread critisicm he may face. Afterall pressure from America and Britain to step down his position as General of Pakistan's Army was largely done in support of Benazir Bhuttos campaign, and not I believe properly thought through.

I suppose the West have been nieve in thinking that Pakistan really could handle democracy, depsite the many assurances of Musharraf that it could not, just seeing the Presidents opposition to democratic elections as a political move to retain power over the country. But Pakistan is a country vastly unlike our own, it has existed independently for only 60 years and has little or no history of stable democracy comparible to our own. We have had centuries at perfecting democracy with much blood spent at its development and maintainence, and it is now so deeply weaved into our society and history that very few of us could imagine life without it, let alone conceive of its reforming or abolishing. Pakistan is a country not yet founded by independent historical foundation, there is nothing really to hold it together in terms of national ideology, every day Pakistans history is being written and consequently it is still open to new ideas and revoluntionary concepts, an environment in which extremists thrive. We being the West would like to think that one of these concepts could genuinly be democracy, and of course a successfully democratic Pakistan would be a truly wonderful thing, but we as a collective superpower have a duty to be realistic. Democracy as a whole has to be earned, it has to be wanted enough by a countries people to be implemented successfully and protected from those who would wish it ill. With regard to Afghanistan, this is a country which has had 260 years worth of independence, and the overall stability to sustain a successful democracy with the support of its people. It is largely a country divided by ethnicity, race, language, and tribe, but largely maintains peace through means of negotiation and compromise. Its communities are close and the once ruling extremist Taliban are slowly being defeated by Western and Afghan forces. It would seem that the people of Afghanistan are simple people that have had enough of war, they just want to support the side that can bring them peace the quickest, democratic or not. Strategically a democratically stable Afghanistan could improve the region in terms of security, and provide an all important model for the people of Pakistan and neighbouring Iran to aspire to.

It would seem from the point of view of most Westerners that the Pakistanis themselves are not doing enough to fight anti-democratic extremism. If there was, for example, an anti-democratic Christian terrorist organisation within Britain, who attacked political candidates with bombs and machine guns, they would be no doubt hounded out by vigilantes. Every man, woman, and child in Britain would be brought together by the powers that be, and encouraged to find and bring justice to such a group. We have already seen this is response to the rise of fascists in Britain, who in fact oppose our democracy altogether, and are subsequently hunted down by the press and members of the public to be exposed as the subversives that they are, even those who are not necessarily violent. The IRA however could not be seen in this light, as the IRA effectively operated outside of Britain, smuggling weapons and terrorists within our borders to specifically attack. They were also fighting for supposed freedom of the island of Ireland, not the destabilisation of British democracy. Pakistan has large numbers of seemingly uncontested terrorist organisations operating and attacking from within its borders, who essentially want Pakistan to submit to a regime similar to that of Taliban ruled Afghanistan, in which the country was ruled entirely by Islamic Sharia law.

With Benazir Bhutto gone, President Musharraf must reclaim his status as General in order to see Pakistan protected from the ever growing extremist threat. His declaring of Pakistan as being in a state of emergency only a few months ago was the type of action which proves he is willing and competent enough to prevent extremists taking control of the country. Should Musharraf ever step down or in turn be assassinated, Pakistan's nuclear capabilities could be entrusted to anyone, and we know from past experience that there are always worse people lurking in the background. Musharraf is no threat to the West, in fact i'm sure he admires our democratic structure as a society, and for any Western government to oppose decisions made by him from now on would be folly. If anything we should support a man who, although may not have been democratically elected, has the military strength and will to control the population of his country. It would seem that for now Pakistan must conform to its current state in order to survive.

Benazir Bhutto studied at Harvard and Oxford, and always maintained pro-western values throughout her presidency and 8 year exile. She was, in my eyes, a perfect candidate to share power with for Musharraf over the ruling of Pakistan, and a great personal inspiration. She often showed her support for pro-western values within the British Muslim community, readily appearing on programmes such as Question Time, Newsnight and BBC News 24, and had she have stayed in the United Kingdom could have taught our government a think or two about community cohesion. No doubt that her strength, pro-western values and intelligence, combined with Musharrafs power and military strength, might have given Pakistan a better chance in fighting extremism and paving the way for future democracy. I just hope that the tragedy of todays horrific events will hit home to many ordinary Pakistanis that they themselves must conquer the extremism within their country if they wish to see Pakistan be taken seriously as a world player.

God bless you Benazir Bhutto, may your soul rest in peace...