Latafat Ali Siddiqui; Journalist; Born: at Incholi Distt. Meerut; Feature Editor; Arab News, P. O. Box 4556; Jeddah-21412 (KSA )

Feature Column by Latafat Ali Siddiqui

Z A Bhutto: The falcon of Pakistan

TORONTO – I have been living in Canada for more than 10 years, yet I often compare Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his charismatic personality,

his leadership qualities and achievements with other world leaders of the 20th century.
Being a Pakistani Canadian, my opinion could be biased when I put brave Bhutto of mercurial brilliance ahead of many leaders of high calibre though it’s always a difficult to make a comparison of one with another.
For instance, I am great admirer of both Pierre Trudeau and Z. A. Bhutto but what so many people told me was that ZAB had greatly impressed the Canadian leader when he visited Ottawa in 1976 as prime minister of Pakistan. One Pakistani journalist, who accopanied Bhutto during the tour, told me that Trudeau was great admirer of ZAB.
Bhutto, the falcon of Pakistan, had also impressed the most dynamic US President John F Kennedy when he visited the United States and met JFK first time in the 60s. The President told Bhutto: “If you were an American, you would be in my cabinet.” ZAB promptly replied: “Watch your words Mr President, if I were an American, you would be in my cabinet.”
During my own visit to an important country I got the opportunity to compare Bhutto with another great leader. It was in 1976 that I went to China with mind set that Moa Tse Tung, a great leader and teacher, cannot be compared with Pakistani Prime Minister Bhutto or any other Asian leader. But what I noticed was amazing. 
Travelling with a Pakistani delegation as a correspondent of a Pakistani news agency PPI, I found every Chinese very polite, very courteous greeting all of us with a broad smile. Not only that all members of our delegation were given extra ordinary respect at all places that we visited. As we reached Shanghai, I asked my liaison officer Mr Mo Chang about the special treatment that we were getting everywhere. 
“Answer is very simple”, he said adding: “You are our special guests from a special country.” After a pause, he explained that Chairman Moa Tse Tung was on a death bed when Bhutto visited China. The ailing Moa, who had stopped meeting people, including his country’s prime minister, read in the newspaper about Bhutto’s visit to China. Mao desired to see him. “Let me tell you that our leader Moa Tse Tung had great respect for Bhutto and we as Chinese respect you because you are from Bhutto’s Pakistan.” 
A few weeks before my trip to China, I had the opportunity to have a detailed interview with NWFP Governor at Karachi’s Qasr-e-Naaz. The governor was repeatedly focussing on Bhutto’s quality of taking Pakistan’s traditional drawing room politics to the streets. In this context, I asked him to compare Bhutto with other front line leaders of Pakistan People’s Party. “Let it be off the record,” he said and then quickly added: “To tell you the truth ... Bhutto is a giant and all other leaders are pygmies”.
This reminded me of another incident in Canada in November 2007. I was travelling in TTC and the news of bomb attack on Benazir Bhutto’s welcoming procession in Karachi was still fresh in everyone’s mind. A passenger sitting next to me was constantly watching me as I was writing a column for an Urdu magazine. Finally he asked: “What language is this? Is it Arabic?” 
“No”, I said. “It’s Urdu”. The fellow traveller responded: “Oh, it’s Urdu of Zufikar Ali Bhutto’s Pakistan”. Before I could ask: How do you know ZAB, he said: “You guys killed your own brilliant leader. Mind it, Bhuttos are not born every day.” 
Before getting off at the next station, he said: “Take my words, you will kill his daughter (Benazir) too.” Oh my God, how true he was. BB was assassinated on December 27, 2007 in Rawalpindi where her father was sent to the gallows after the most controversial murder trial. Many top lawyers and retired judges in North America described Bhutto’s execution as a “judicial murder” as the man Bhutto allegedly wanted to eliminate is still alive.
Bhutto was physically eliminated on April 4,1979 but his legacy lived on. His own daughter Benazir became Prime Minister of Pakistan twice and her assassination brought Chairman Bhutto’s PPP to power third time since 1988 when Gen. Zia-ul-Haq died in a mysterious plane crash in Bahawalpur. After her father’s death, Benazir made a brave struggle to rebuild Bhutto’s dreams for providing a better society and better opportunities for the poor and oppressed people of Pakistan. Bhutto had provided guidelines to his brilliant daughter to bring about changes in Pakistan. “If things do not change, there will be nothing left to change. Either power must pass to the people or everything will perish,” Bhutto wrote to Benazir from death cell of Rawalpindi jail in 1978.
Bhutto, who established an effective nuclear network to prevent a fourth war between India and Pakistan, always loved people of his country and made mention of it in his lengthy letter to BB.
“Life is a love affair. There is a romance with every beauty of nature. I have no hesitation in saving that my most passionate love affair, my most thrilling romance has been with the people. 
“There is an indissoluble marriage between politics and the people. That is why "Man is a political animal" and the state a political theatre. I have been on this stage of the masters for over twenty tumultuous years”.
Bhutto’s lengthy letter to BB from the jail has been published in the form of a book titled – My Dearest Daughter. It can be read on website - www.bhutto.org
Butto’s letter began with the birthday greeting to his dearest daughter. He wrote: “Nehru also adored his daughter. He also sent her birthday greetings from jail. He had written letters to Indira on the history of the World. Later, these letters were consolidated in the form of a masterful book called "Glimpses of World History". I believe the very first letter was a birthday greeting to his daughter Indu, as he fondly called her. His daughter was a thirteen year-old little girl who had made her contribution to the politics of that time by organizing what she has called "monkey brigades. At that time she had not gone through the fire of politics good and proper.
“But you are caught in the middle of a fire and it is the fire of a ruthless junta. It is bad and ugly. There is therefore a world of difference. The two are incomparable. The similarity, if any, lies in the fact that you, like Indira Gandhi, are making history. I respect her qualities very much but I have not been one of her greatest admirers and I have said this before. I have no hesitation in saying that my daughter is more than a match for the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru. I am not making an emotional or subjective evaluation. It is my honest opinion”.
While concluding his letter, the Berkeley-educated Bhutto wrote: “In the winter of 1957 when you were four years old, we were sitting on the terrace of "Al-Murtaza (in Larkana)". It was a fine morning. I had a double-barrel gun in my hand. One barrel was 22 and the other 480. Without thought, I shot a wild parrot. 
“When the parrot fell to the ground near the terrace you cried your eyes out. You had it buried in your presence. You cried and cried. You refused to have your meals. A dead parrot in the winter of 1957 in Larkana made a little girl weep in sorrow. Twenty-one years later, that little girl has grown into a young lady with nerves of steel to valorously confront the terror of the longest night of tyranny. Truly, you have proved beyond doubt that the blood of warriors runs in your veins. I am fifty years old and you are exactly half my age. By the time you reach my age, you must accomplish twice as much as I have achieved for the people”. 
Yes, Benazir proved her father true. She had become prime minister, not once but twice, before reaching Bhutto’s age.