Fatima Bhutto – Pakistan: The Jackals Rule (lecture)
Pakistan has received billions in U.S. aid. Where is that money? Much of it has gone missing.
The jackals rule in Pakistan. A series of venal military and civilian leaders have devastated and looted the country. Historically, the U.S. has used Pakistan as a strategic asset. Its backing of fundamentalist dictator Zia ul-Haq had disastrous consequences.
It was General Zia who greatly expanded Islamic law and religious schools. And he was a conduit for arming the mujahideen.
Pakistan's current head of state is Asif Ali Zardari, who was married to Benazir Bhutto. Zardari was touring London and Paris and staying at $11,000 a night hotels while much of his country was under water during catastrophic floods. Zardari is deeply unpopular and his regime teeters between the ineffectual and the criminal.
Fatima Bhutto is a Pakistani writer. She published her first book, “Whispers of the Desert,” a collection of poetry, when she was 15. An independent journalist, her articles appear in the “New Statesman,” the “Guardian,” and “CounterPunch.” She is the author of Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter's Memoir.
Comments
Relating Pakistan's corruption to Islam
I listened to the first 15 minutes of this show and I felt that Ms. Bhutto was insinuating that Islam and corruption played an inter-twined role and continues to play such a role in the decline of Pakistan. It started with the imposition of "Islamic" law by general Zia. Ms. Bhutto presented general accounts of the implementation of Islamic "Hudud" (laws relating to capital punishment/crime etc.) I am a practicing Muslim and I want to mention that the Ideology of Islam cannot be blamed for its mis-implementation. Pakistan is one of all Muslim countries where Islam has *deliberately* been mis-implemented in order for the current regime to perpetually secure it's political power. The existance of corruption within the highest leadership of the state is not new even in Secular countries.
It is precisely this mis-implementation and lack of implementation of Islam that has led to all sorts of problems ranging from corruption within leadership to subserviance of the leadership to external imperial states/agendas.
If Islam is so oppressive to women (as insinuated by Bhutto) why are the converts in the Western world predominantly women?
I apologize if I come across as confrontational, but this is my sincere question.