Pakistani poet and writer Fatima Bhutto on her surname, dynastic politics and ‘Diet Pepsi dictatorships’
HONG KONG: “If a Bhutto must run Pakistan, why not Fatima?” That’s the rhetorical question Jemima Goldsmith-Khan raised in an article in The Daily Telegraph after Benazir Bhutto’s 19-year-old son Bilawal was elected to head the Pakistan People’s Party following his mother’s assassination.
The “Fatima” that Jemima was endorsing is, of course, Fatima Bhutto — Benazir’s 25-year-old niece, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutt’s grand-daughter and daughter of Murtaza Bhutto.
But for someone with arguably the most exalted surname in Pakistani politics, Fatima is very sure she doesn’t want political leadership thrust upon her. “I don’t believe in birthright politics,” asserts the articulate poet and journalist, during an interaction in Hong Kong.
“Sure, I was born into a dynasty, and I can’t move out of it. I can’t, for instance, pack my dynasty bags and move into a non-dynasty hotel… But in my writing, I’ve always made clear that I think dynastic politics is incredibly medieval, very unsophisticated and unproductive as a form of rule. It doesn’t enhance democracy, it doesn’t empower the people, and it’s really awful!”
Fatima acknowledges that a lot has been made of her surname. “It’s a name I was born with, but it’s not who I am,” she emphasises. And when she writes on politics and the “feudal” ways of Pakistani governments, “I don’t speak for my family, a political party — or anything other than myself. I write to express solidarity and comradeship with the voiceless people in Pakistan.”
There are many things that the Pakistani political establishment would like the people to forget, says Fatima. “For instance, that Pervez Musharraf has manipulated the situation in Pakistan to become the ‘Diet Pepsi of dictators’ — same taste, but with half the calories.”
She is equally scathing in her criticism of the PPP and Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League. “The new government is no better than Musharraf’s… They too were corrupt (during their earlier terms), they too abused human rights, and they had diplomatic ties with the Taliban government in Afghanistan,” she recalls.
In times like these, the role of writers and journalists is to “document and remember and remind people of the things that must never be forgotten,” says Fatima.
