In Toronto, there is a large presence of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) supporters who are devastated by their leader’s death. Yesterday, when the party members congregated at the Islamic Centre in Mississuaga for a memorial service following Friday prayers, the despondency was tangible. While the service was quiet and sombre, passionate feelings could not be restrained, “all is lost,” a mourner lamented. Malik Qadeer Awan, a senior PPP member in Toronto whose family back home is involved in active party politics talked of the dismal scenario now facing the party and in turn the country’s politics. “She was the only one holding the country together and the only national leader who transcended provincial boundaries in Pakistan to lead the country on. Now there is a vacuum within the national political arena. It is impossible to fill the gap and that void in national leadership will take the entire country down.”
While it was expected that Benazir’s supporters would end up rudderless without her, to call her the only hope for Pakistan is not an opinion easily digested by her opponents. “Why was there no successor prepared for such an eventuality?” Questions Asif, a senior software engineer from Pakistan who still supports Musharraf above all political leaders. “The main reason was that she was only after the power and hence this so called ‘void’ in the party leadership. What good did her government do in the two terms that it ruled the country besides looting national wealth? Pakistan has gone through many turmoils and I, for one, do not feel that one person’s death is going to break the country. The new General might take over but the country will still survive, Inshaallah,” he sums it up with a prayer to the Almighty.
Adding salt to injury for Pakistanis here is the ever-ready propaganda unleashed by the US media of everything being rotten in the state of Pakistan, which angers all nationalists and patriots. And if conspiracy theorists are to be believed it was Ms Bhutto’s open acceptance of towing the US line – regarding the nuclear bomb as well as its maker – that led extremist factions to ‘do away with her.’
Sami, who works for an energy company in downtown Toronto, left Pakistan seven years ago, but he still feels passionately about the country’s fate and follows its politics avidly. He says, “There is no doubt whatsoever that the US powers have a huge hand in manipulating Pakistan’s politics and politicians. Of course, it is mainly because our politicians are corrupt that this manipulation works, but nevertheless, it is extremely disturbing that my country in the end is a mere puppet in their hands. Hence, I feel that it is indirectly the US which is responsible for Benazir’s death because they convinced her of their support and urged her to return, holding the beacon of democracy. But look what happened? It now makes me feel that even this chaos was part of the grand plan.”
There are others like Sami who feel that her return was on US insistence. And while they lament her return to embrace death they also wonder if eliminating a political process in Pakistan is part of some covert agenda resembling that of Iraq.
However, apart from speculations on a covert agenda and variance in political opinions, there is no denying that Benazir Bhutto’s death has been a tremendous shock, reverberations of which are strongly being felt in the entire Pakistani community in Toronto. And seeing their country literary in flames, the distraught Pakistani expatriates can do little but make daily calls home to ensure that their family is safe and then stare in dismay at the grisly scenes of destruction relayed from home.
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