Bhutto Quotes

Democracy is the best revenge.

We(Pakistan) will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own (Atom bomb).... We have no other choice!

Bhutto’s case was not a trial of murder, rather it was the overt murder of a trial -

My Country I don't have any caps left made back home Nor any shoes that trod your roads I've worn out your last shirt quite long ago It was of Sile cloth Now you only remain in the whiteness of my hair Intact in my heart Now you only remain in the whiteness of my hair In the lines of my forehead My country -Nazim Hikmet

It’s hard to deny that an alarming number of those who stood for peace, not war, were either killed by deranged lone gunmen or else died in suspicious circumstances. We refer of course to the likes of JFK, Martin Luther King, Benazir Bhutto, Bobby Kennedy and John Lennon, to name but a few.

The people have realized that Martial Law is not law. A regime not established by law is devoid of the attribute to dispense law. A regime which puts in a bunker the highest law in the land does not have the moral authority to say that nobody is above the law.

You see, they think they're saving you, and you think you're saving them. That's where the trouble starts. Someone says, 'I saved you, now here's what I want.' And its the same with big countries and little ones, religious leaders and their followers, even husbands and wives. When things really work, though, it's because people realize that this is a lie, that, really, we all save one another. It's the way of the world. Things work out for the best when everyone makes it, together, when we manage to save each other. (from The Way of the World)

You can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea. You can kill a man, but not an idea.

Greece is internationally famous for three reasons. First it has more islands than people. Second, it used to be a part of Turkey. Third, its national hero, Alexander the Great, was a Yugoslavian.

Clearly it's not easy for women in modern society, no matter where they live. We still have to go the extra mile to prove that we are equal to men. we have to work longer hours and make more sacrifices. And we must emotionally protect ourselves from unfair, often vicious attacks made on us via the male members of our family.

Benazir Bhutto doesn't cease to exist the moment she gets married. I am not giving myself away. I belong to myself and I always shall.

Don't cry," Samarra whispered, "Nothing ever happens to the brave.

A regime that can suspend or abrogate the constitution and run the country on its whims and caprice should be ashamed of bringing on its lips the word "law". It is like prescribing a punishment for adultery after raping the country. It is like saying that Holy Quran is suspended nobody can escape from the Hadees.

Calling an animal and having it come, planting something and having it grow, become essential. It is proof that I exist.

That's the thing with betrayal- it's always the people you love.

...the fight for the truth is important. There will come a day when you will see the result of your struggles. ~Benazir Bhutto

Freedom and liberty, the essays we wrote on them, papers for our tutors, for grades, but did we know the value of those words which we bandied about, of how precious they are, as precious as the air we breathe, the water we drink.

You will have to pay for your choices much more than you realize.

But show me just this one thing, my darling, i seek a heart stained like a poppy flower.

He said her name, repeatedly, so that she never lost the sound of his voice around it. So that every time someone called her name, she would be able to hear only Aman Erum.

The economy recovered to a great extent from the disasters of Bhutto’s rule, but the boom of the 1980s under Zia proved as shallow as that under Musharraf – based above all on US aid and remittances from the Pakistani workers who flooded to the Gulf states in response to the oil boom.

As children we had been taught that no price was too high to pay for our country. But the personal price to our family had been high.

Above all you must study hard. Very few in Pakistan have the opportunity you now have and you must take advantage of it. Never forget that the money it is costing to send you comes from the land, from the people who sweat and toil on those lands. You will owe a debt to them, a debt you can repay with God's blessing by using your education to better their lives.

The sanction of force stands behind the medley of personal orders and regulations of Martial Law. The sanction of the people's consent stands behind the hierarchy of laws. In one situation, the population is regimented into acquiescence. In the other, the population voluntarily establishes a contract with Parliament. For this reason, one is called a regime and the other, a government. Martial law rests on the sanction of force and not on the sanction of law.

I try to reach my father through the bars. He is so thin, almost wasted away from malaria, dysentery, starvation. But he pulls himself erect, and touches my hand. "Tonight I will be free," he says, a glow suffusing his face. "I will be joining my mother, my father. I am going back to the land of my ancestors in Larkana to become part of its soil, its scent, its air. There will be songs about me. I will become part of its legend." He smiles. "But it is very hot in Larkana." "I'll build a shade," I manage to say.

I had been born into a sort of democracy in which for ten years Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif kept replacing each other, none of their governments ever completing a term and always accusing each other of corruption.

I passed from childhood into the world of the adult. But what a disappointing world it turned out to be. The colors of the sky, the grass, the flowers were gone, muted and grayish. Everything was blurred by the pattern over my eyes.

Bhutto’s role in the post- 1970 election crisis has to be assessed in the light of the positions taken by Mujib and Yahya Khan, not to mention the structural obstacles in the way of a smooth transfer of power from military to civilian rule in Pakistan.

Recourse to thick narrative detail reveals that the principal hurdle in the way of a united Pakistan was not disagreement on constitutional matters but the transfer of power from military to civilian hands. More concerned with perpetuating himself in office, Yahya Khan was strikingly nonchalant about the six points. He left that to the West Pakistani politicians, in particular Bhutto, who, contrary to the impression in some quarters, was more of a fall guy for the military junta than a partner in crime.

Second, the press, which has never been braver since, fought against martial law through covert resistance, or as the government called it ‘deviant behaviour’.

I thought i could wake up this sleeping country with my cries, but still they sleep as if in a dream.

...the gods bless the lonesome through music and dance.

The contradictions within Pakistan became still more apparent at my next event, a luncheon hosted in my honor by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and attended by several dozen accomplished women in Pakistan. It was like being rocketed forward several centuries in time. Among these women were academics and activists, as well as a pilot, a singer, a banker and a police deputy superintendent. They had their own ambitions and careers, and, of course, we were all guests of Pakistan’s elected female leader. Benazir

My mother is a Shiite Muslim, as are most Iranians, while the rest of the family was Sunni. But that was never a problem. Shiites and Sunnis had lived side by side and intermarried for over a thousand years and our differences were far fewer than our similarities. What was fundamental was that all Muslims, regardless of their sects, surrender to the will of God, and believe that there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his last Prophet. That is the Quranic definition of a Muslim and, in our family, what mattered most.

India to accept a ceasefire,” he said. But there was nothing about reconciliation with India in the interview. Sulzberger noted that Bhutto “spoke gloomily of India” and implied that “India was behaving like a virtual satellite of Moscow.” He made predictions similar to those Ayub made about the Soviet Union gaining ground in the subcontinent and about India being on the verge of breaking up. “By sponsoring Bangladesh you will see that India will lose West Bengal and Assam,” he declared. “It is preposterous to think that in an association with

Bhutto acknowledged the difficulties faced by women who were breaking with tradition and taking leading roles in public life. She deftly managed to refer both to the challenges I had encountered during my White House tenure and to her own situation. “Women who take on tough issues and stake out new territory are often on the receiving end of ignorance,” she concluded. In a private meeting with the Prime Minister, we talked about her upcoming visit to Washington in April, and I spent time with her husband and their children. Because I had heard that their marriage was arranged, I found their interaction particularly interesting.

[...]Apám eltökélt szándéka volt, hogy hazájába - és gyerekei életébe - elhozza a huszadik századot. Egyszer meghallottam, hogy anyám megkérdezte tőle: - A gyerekek a családon belül fognak házasságot kötni? Lélegzet-visszafojtva vártam a választ. - Nem akarom azt, hogy a fiúk elvegyék valamelyik unokatestvérüket, és bezárják az asszonyt a házunkba, és azt sem akarom, hogy a lányaimat élve eltemessék valamelyik rokon házának négy fala közé - hallottam, nagy megkönnyebbülésemre, apám válaszát. - Előbb hadd végezzék el az iskolát. Aztán majd eldönthetik, hogy mihez kezdenek az életükkel. Hasonló módon reagált arra is, amikor anyám először adta rám a burkát. Vonattal mentünk Karacsiból Larkánába, amikor anyám elővette a fekete, gézszerű anyagból készült leplet, és rám adta. - Már nem vagy kislány - mondta, árnyalatnyi sajnálkozással a hangjában. A konzervatív földbirtokoscsaládoknak ezzel az ősrégi rítusával átléptem a gyermekkor világából a felnőtt világba. De milyen kiábrándító volt ez a világ! Az ég, a fű, a virágok színe eltűnt, minden szürke és néma lett. A szememet eltakaró kelme mindent elmosódottá tett. A vonatról leszállva még a járásban is akadályozott a fejem búbjától a lábujjamig az egész testemet beborító anyag. A legkisebb fuvallattól is elzárva patakokban folyt rólam az izzadság. - Pinkie ma vette fel először a burkáját - mondta anyám apámnak, amikor Al-Murtazába értünk. Apám hosszú ideig hallgatott, majd így szólt: - Nem kell viselnie. A próféta maga mondta, hogy a legjobb fátyol az, ami a szem mögött van.* Ne a ruházata, hanem az esze és a jelleme alapján ítéljék meg. - Én lettem hát az első Bhutto lány, aki megszabadult az örök félhomályban töltött élettől.[...]

in Karachi, the first such plant in the country, only to be ignored. Niazi wrote: ‘This patriot Pakistani also informed [Bhutto] that apart from writing innumerable research papers, he had written an internationally known book. In spite of all of this, the incompetent officials of the People’s Steel Mill were unable to make use

I am trying to stop being mystified. Important to concentrate on good hard facts. But which facts? One week before mu eighteenth birthday, on August 8th, did Pakistani troops in civilian clothing cross the cease-fire line in Kashmir and infiltrate the Indian sector, or did they not? In Delhi, Prime Minister Shastri announced “massive infiltration…to subvert the state:; but here is Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, with his riposte: “We categorically deny any involvement in the rising against tyranny by the indigenous people of Kashmir”.

He looked out the window. It seemed to me that he was thinking of Bhutto’s widower, Zardari, his onetime ally and now rival, a man universally considered cunning at business who many felt had outsmarted Sharif in their recent political tango. “No. Who wants cunning?” “Anything else?” he asked. “What about his appearance?” “I don’t really care. Not fat. Athletic.” We shook hands, and I left. In all my strange interviews with Sharif, that definitely was the strangest. Pakistan’s spies soon seemed to kick up their interest in me, maybe because I had written a few controversial stories, maybe because of Sharif. Sitting in my living room, I complained to several friends about a man named Qazi, a former army colonel who worked as part of intelligence over foreigners.

Bhutto was the only celebrity I had ever stood behind a rope line to see. Chelsea and I were strolling around London during a holiday trip in the summer of 1989.

On the Birthday of Murtaza Bhutto My nephew drives on a route that crosses alongside 70 Clifton every day since I am in Karachi. It reminds me that when I was a working journalist. I visited the last 70 Clifton in 1977, the resident of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Later, Benazir Bhutto and then Murtaza Bhutto and Fatima Bhutto, during the driving towards Karachi Press Club, I asked my nephew to stop near 70 Clifton, so that we can click a few pics of it. Today is Murtaza Bhutto's Birthday, who became the victim of armed-evil and murdered. I stood outside 70 Clifton, remembering inside the conversations, discussions, and delightful atmosphere, in the Bhutto era. I felt sadness and pain, imagining that time when pleasure, joy, and mob walked around it, but today it was dead-quiet and displayed sadness on its walls, the Birthday existed; however, the figure held that day was not there, and his daughter far away from Pakistan, in exile-life, though, the justice has failed but not the God.

Bhutto brought up the coup in Afghanistan, which has resulted in deposing the country’s monarchy and replacing it with a republic under a nationalist cousin of the king. Kissinger said he had discussed the matter with the Soviet Ambassador. “I told him if the recent coup in Afghanistan remained an internal Afghan affair, that would be one matter” he said, “but if it resurrected the Pashtunistan dispute, the U.S. would be engaged. This is the basic policy of the president.

Panetta dined with Pasha and Asif Zardari, Benazir Bhutto’s widow, who shared authority uneasily with the army. Zardari made jokes about I.S.I.’s pervasive surveillance of him—jokes that sounded paranoid but were grounded in fact. “Ahmed knows everything I think and everything I say,” Zardari remarked of the I.S.I. chief sitting near him. “I walk into my office every morning and say, ‘Hello, Ahmed!

Bhutto seemed to be preparing for a ‘1000-year war’ with India, even if his people had to eat grass to finance the quest for the Islamic Bomb

The military-industrial complex was one of Pakistan’s binding forces, alongside Islam, national pride, suspicion of India and America, and cricket. One common narrative about Pakistan held that its powerful army competed for power with civilian political families like the Bhuttos and the Sharifs.

The Family’s only publicized gathering is the National Prayer Breakfast, which it established in 1953 and which, with congressional sponsorship, it continues to organize every February at the Washington, D.C., Hilton. Some 3,000 dignitaries, representing scores of nations and corporate interests, pay $425 each to attend. For most, the breakfast is just that, muffins and prayer, but some stay on for days of seminars organized around Christ’s messages for particular industries. In years past, the Family organized such events for executives in oil, defense, insurance, and banking. The 2007 event drew, among others, a contingent of aid-hungry defense ministers from Eastern Europe, Pakistan’s famously corrupt Benazir Bhutto, and a Sudanese general linked to genocide in Darfur.

Speaking Eyes and Inviting Smile A Beauty within a Beauty Fatima Bhutto

In the history of Pakistan, there are only three great leaders; Quid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Liaqat Ali Khan, and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto; thereupon, other Pakistani leaders have no vision and no concept of building constructive ways and manners to improve the situation of the country and the prosperity of the people. There is no institution having a vision, except our Armed Forces and its related institutions that are being humiliated, harmed, and damaged by its Pakistani media, which is in the hands of enemies of Pakistan. I am sure on this point, our beloved soldiers are being discouraged in all corners so that enemies can achieve their purpose, but it will never happen. Our soldiers are our brothers and sisters, our blood. We stand with them and never let our Armed Forces yield to the enemies. The media should be brought to justice since they create hatred and enmity among the armed forces and throughout the country.

Even today, as the world moves around these spaces oblivious to them, their stories continue to unfold, dancing and singing for anyone willing to listen. In these performances, Valmiki discourses with Jesus Christ, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto meets Qutb al-Din Aibak, nationalists participate in historic Mughal wars, Mughal princesses witness the heralding of a neo-liberal model of development, Bulleh Shah dances with Bhagat Singh.

The army struck hard at the roots of populist politics by assassinating Bhutto. The prime minister was arrested, tried for murder and hung in 1979. The Machiavellian prince had turned into the tragic character of Christopher Marlow’s Dr Faustus, who had sold his soul to the devil for power and become a victim of his own intellect.

The army struck hard at the roots of populist politics by assassinating Bhutto. The prime minister was arrested, tried for murder and hung in 1979. The Machiavellian prince had turned into the tragic character of Christopher Marlow’s Dr Faustus, who had sold his soul to the devil

Donning the populist garb, Bhutto swore to bring about the biggest turnaround the ill- fated country had ever seen. He would restore democracy, frame a constitution, and establish the rule of law so that the people would never again be “under the capricious will of any individual.

Bhutto decided to fulfll his long- held dream of using Pakistan’s existing nuclear energy infrastructure to embark on a rapid nuclear weapon’s program. As minister for fuel, power, and national resources in Ayub Khan’s cabinet, he played an active part in the formation of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). A strong proponent of acquiring nuclear capability, Bhutto faced stern opposition from Ayub who was worried about the repercussions this could have on Pakistan’s pro- Western foreign policy.

But the most profound effect of that era was on the Pakistan military’s thinking. Intoxicated by victory, the ISI sought to replicate its success in Afghanistan by employing the same tactics elsewhere. Through the 1990s, it established its own jihadi groups and deployed them to attack Indian soldiers in Kashmir, and it funnelled cash to foreign Islamist guerrillas as far afield as the Philippines. At home, the emboldened spy agency meddled aggressively in politics, mostly in an effort to oust Benazir Bhutto. ISI officers rigged elections, bought politicians and strong-armed troublesome judges. Critics began to speak of a ‘state within a state’.

On the Birthday of Murtaza Bhutto My nephew drives on a route that crosses alongside 70 Clifton every day since I am in Karachi. It reminds me that I was then a working journalist. I visited the last 70 Clifton in 1977, the resident of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, later, Benazir Bhutto, and then Murtaza Bhutto and Fatima Bhutto during the driving towards Karachi Press Club; I asked my nephew to stop near 70 Clifton so that we can click a few pics of it. Today is Murtaza Bhutto's Birthday, and he became the victim of armed evil and murder. I stood outside 70 Clifton, remembering inside the conversations, discussions, and delightful atmosphere in the Bhutto era. I felt sadness and pain, imagining that time when pleasure, joy, and mob walked around it, but today it was dead-quiet and displayed sadness on its walls; the Birthday existed; however, the figure held that day was not there, and his daughter far away from Pakistan in exile-life, though the justice has failed, not the God.

It's stories that will remain long after we and our puny troubles are gone, circulating in the ether, passed on to loved ones, told and retold until they crumble, becoming dust, until one day someone notices a grain somewhere and stops to look.

Again historical antecedents played a part. There was dissent from the beginning. Jinnah’s claim to be the ‘sole spokesman’ for Muslims had vied with Maulana Mawdudi’s authoritarian reading of a ‘holy community of Islam’. In turn, General Ayub Khan (1958-68), in collaboration with various pirs (Muslim holy men), competed with the revivalist Jamaat-i-Islami to gain a monopoly over the discourse of ‘modernist’ Islam. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Awami League’s espousal of ‘Bengali Islam’ stood (again mainly versus the Jamaat-i-Islami) in opposition to the authority of ‘Pakistani Islam’. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (1972-77), championed ‘folk Islam’, again in collaboration with an assortment of mainly Sindhi pirs, to challenge the dominance of ‘scripturalist Islam’, advocated both by the Jamaat-i-Islami as well as by sections of the country’s modernizing elite. Later, General Zia ul Haq (1977-88), who initially worked with but then against the Jamaat, favoured a ‘legalist’ interpretation of Islam with a strong punitive bias that aimed to stem both its popular as well as its modernist expressions. In time it strengthened the hold of an ulama-inspired, ‘shariatized Islam’ which, by the 1990s, openly challenged the legitimacy of the nation-state and further aggravated Pakistan’s consensus problem.

Now and for as long as it can reasonably be predicted there will be only three genuine Global Powers: the United States of America, the Soviet Union, and the People's Republic of China.

On 7 December 1974, the Qadiyani community was declared non-Muslim in Pakistan by Z.A. Bhutto Pakistan Peoples Party. Qadiyani community has been busy starting conspiracies against Pakistan, Peoples Party, and especially the Bhutto family in all international and homeland circles, institutions, and media since then till now.

Ultimately, leadership is about the strength of one’s convictions, the ability to endure the punches, and the energy to promote an idea.

[...]Apám eltökélt szándéka volt, hogy hazájába - és gyerekei életébe - elhozza a huszadik századot. Egyszer meghallottam, hogy anyám megkérdezte tőle: - A gyerekek a családon belül fognak házasságot kötni? Lélegzet-visszafojtva vártam a választ. - Nem akarom azt, hogy a fiúk elvegyék valamelyik unokatestvérüket, és bezárják az asszonyt a házunkba, és azt sem akarom, hogy a lányaimat élve eltemessék valamelyik rokon házának négy fala közé - hallottam, nagy megkönnyebbülésemre, apám válaszát. - Előbb hadd végezzék el az iskolát. Aztán majd eldönthetik, hogy mihez kezdenek az életükkel. Hasonló módon reagált arra is, amikor anyám először adta rám a burkát. Vonattal mentünk Karacsiból Larkánába, amikor anyám elővette a fekete, gézszerű anyagból készült leplet, és rám adta. - Már nem vagy kislány - mondta, árnyalatnyi sajnálkozással a hangjában. A konzervatív földbirtokoscsaládoknak ezzel az ősrégi rítusával átléptem a gyermekkor világából a felnőtt világba. De milyen kiábrándító volt ez a világ! Az ég, a fű, a virágok színe eltűnt, minden szürke és néma lett. A szememet eltakaró kelme mindent elmosódottá tett. A vonatról leszállva még a járásban is akadályozott a fejem búbjától a lábujjamig az egész testemet beborító anyag. A legkisebb fuvallattól is elzárva patakokban folyt rólam az izzadság. - Pinkie ma vette fel először a burkáját - mondta anyám apámnak, amikor Al-Murtazába értünk. Apám hosszú ideig hallgatott, majd így szólt: - Nem kell viselnie. A próféta maga mondta, hogy a legjobb fátyol az, ami a szem mögött van.* Ne a ruházata, hanem az esze és a jelleme alapján ítéljék meg. - Én lettem hát az első Bhutto lány, aki megszabadult az örök félhomályban töltött élettől.[...]

Only three, visionary and golden figures were born on the soil of present Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, and Muhammad Iqbal, the national poet, philosopher and the thinker of Pakistan and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the founder of the constitution and the hero of atomic energy.

I still maintain my faith that time, justice and the forces of history are on the side of democracy.

Our lives begin to end the day we remain silent on things that matter.

In my opinion,’ Ms Bhutto said, ‘terrorists have no religion or nationality because those who are killing innocent people can themselves not belong to any creed or nation.

I admit my role in rigging the 1990 general elections and seek a formal apology from the Pakistani nation. And I am ready for any punishment—even a trial.

A case pertaining to the role of the ISI in rigging the 1990 general elections has been pending with the Supreme Court of Pakistan for almost fifteen years now.

Musharraf had the full support of what is known in Pakistan as the ‘Establishment’, the de facto power structure that has, as its permanent core, the military high command and intelligence agencies, in particular, the powerful military-run Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), as well as Military Intelligence (MI) and the Intelligence Bureau (IB).

If anyone asks, what is distinct from Malala Yousafzai and Fatima Bhutto? I would say it: Malala falls under the pseudo-subject while Fatima Bhutto qualifies for a genuine one. First, one is unreal and created by political motives, and the second one is the real and talented by birth. Politics wins, and talent loses.

Even the most modern and westernized leaders, ranging from Harvard-educated Benazir Bhutto to self-professed Ataturk fan Pervez Musharraf, have failed to stop Pakistan from descending farther into an Islamist quagmire.

Why would someone close to Benazir Bhutto be financing Imran? But then again, the dharna was financed by staunch PPP supporters, like the property tycoon Malik Riaz. There was a lot of shady stuff going on and I was struggling to piece it all together.

All prophets were leaders; should we expect all leaders to be prophets?

Repeatedly silenced stories are the ones which lead revolutions.

Every Bhutto was enemy of every other Bhutto.

It is said that every day after covering a considerable distance, Napier would ask his Sindhi guide, ‘Who owns this land?’ and every time the answer would be ‘The Bhuttos’. At one stage he told the man, ‘I’m tired and want to sleep. When we come to the place where the Bhutto lands finish, wake me up.’ The guide didn’t have to do so, and as Napier got up from a long spell of sleep he was amazed to learn that they were still in ‘Bhutto territory’.

The story of the Bhutto dynasty since Pakistan was created has been, to a significant extent, the story of the conflict between it and the army and of the Bhuttos’ failed attempts to reach a compromise with the generals.