TRUTH IN FICTION
A Commentary by Dr. Cheryl Benard
Some years ago, I had the opportunity to interview Benazir Bhutto. Benazir was more than just a newsworthy personality to me; I had followed her life and career with fascination for many years. Her father was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the heir to a powerful land-owning family and founder of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Zulfikar was British-educated, handsome, and stately, a glittering figure who rose swiftly to power as the head of his party and then president and prime minister of Pakistan. His fall from grace, however, had been even more dramatic; he was overthrown by a military coup and jailed on charges of ordering a political assassination. Even as the international community vociferously protested what it said were trumped-up charges, he was hanged without a proper trial.
J. C. Carleson’s book builds on the observation that political personalities of all stripes—dictators, megalomaniacs, patriotic heroes—have families and friends who, in turn, have hopes, dreams, fears, and ambitions that lead them to take actions, or to refrain from taking actions, with the potential to change the course of history. That may seem like a simple premise, but the path from premise to understanding is lengthy and, I submit to you, as yet unexplored in the study of politics. It’s like saying “germs cause disease.” Right, but that puts you at the beginning, not the end, of your medical quest.
Benazir was her father’s first and favorite child, and his anointed successor. She was just twenty-five when he was imprisoned and sentenced to death by a kangaroo court; she threw herself into the effort to save him, filing petitions with the courts, mobilizing international support and protests and requests for clemency by foreign heads of state. After his execution, the entire family, including Benazir’s brothers and her mother, was jailed by the military government; Benazir spent years locked up under harsh conditions, including solitary confinement in a cage-like prison in a remote desert province. Her brothers joined extremist groups. One became a terrorist; both ultimately died young—one of poisoning, the other in a shoot-out with police. Benazir, meticulously educated abroad like her father, a graduate of both Harvard and Oxford, took up her father’s mantle. At twenty-nine she was proclaimed the new head of the PPP. Six years later, she was elected prime minister of Pakistan, one of the world’s most turbulent, conservative, and patriarchal nations. Her election campaign produced electrifying images of a slender young woman, poised, confident, articulate, addressing crowds numbering in the hundreds of thousands who cheered hysterically as she promised them that she would fight for them and for social justice and education and freedom. My feminist heart had been thrilled.
But it had all gone downhill from there, steeply. Instead of leading her nation to stability and prosperity, she had become embroiled in scandal. Both her terms of office had been cut short. She had married a man whose nickname was Mr. Ten Percent, because that was the cut he allegedly required before his wife would sign off on any major national business deals. He had been jailed for financial wrongdoing, corruption, and possible involvement in political murders. She had been forced to flee the country to avoid being put on trial herself, and all her energies now went into getting her husband out of prison and proving his innocence. It seemed like a tragic waste.
So when I met her in Washington, D.C., many years later, I threw all of this on the table. I figured I had nothing to lose; the worst she could do was get angry and order me to leave. Instead, she was silent for a few minutes. And then she agreed with me. Yes, she said, that was exactly how she felt about it, too. She hadn’t just failed the women of the world and the people of her country; she had disappointed herself. And she had thought long and hard about the reasons for her failure. “You know,” she said, “my father set me on the course of a political career. I was educated for it in some of the world’s top schools. I learned everything there was to know about international relations, economics, political science. And when I returned to Pakistan, it took me just a few days to realize that nothing I had been taught had the slightest application to the way politics actually worked in my country.” There, the only thing that counted was her father’s cronies pulling the strings, ensuring that this young woman remain a sentimental figurehead for the party and nothing more. The only way to get anything done was through the tangled network of relationships and bribes and threats and favors that was the actual motor of Pakistan’s political system.
She had been completely caught off guard by this, and by the time she had started to figure things out, she was already out of office. Her second term didn’t really count, she said; they had gotten rid of her after just a few months, before she could initiate any kind of action. But this time, she told me, the next time, the third time, she would be prepared. She was a mature woman now. She had spent decades forging her own networks and alliances, across the Middle East and in Europe and the United States. I was disarmed by her candor, taken aback by this glimpse behind the scenes. In the years that followed, we spent time together regularly, in small social settings where she could let her guard down and reveal her hopes and suspicions and her vision.
In 2007—we had become friends by then, and I was rooting for her—she returned to Pakistan once more to run for the office of prime minister in an election everyone agreed she was certain to win. And this time, she felt ready. She had survived jail, house arrest, and exile. She had the masses behind her. The young people loved her. She had powerful supporters in the West and in the Arab world. She had smart advisers. She wasn’t going to play the Pakistani establishment’s game this time around, and she wasn’t a young girl anymore, easy for them to control.
So they killed her.
And that’s not just my personal suspicion—it’s the finding of the official United Nations commission that was sent to look into her assassination. It was a few weeks before the election, which by all accounts she was a shoo-in to win. She gave a campaign speech, and at its conclusion, as she waved to the cheering crowd, an assassin fired two shots from his pistol and then detonated his suicide belt. The escape route previously prepared by her security team was unaccountably blocked by Pakistani police vehicles. The second car, the companion vehicle that is always supposed to remain directly in front of or behind the VIP vehicle for just such emergencies, sped away and left her. Her driver heroically tried to get her to a hospital, bumping along the public road in a vehicle with four blown-out tires. Halfway there, it broke down completely; Benazir was transferred to the private car of a friend who had sped after. At the hospital, she was pronounced dead. Since it was clearly an assassination and many questions were sure to be asked, the doctors urged an autopsy. Pakistani authorities forbade it, and instead whisked the body away to a military facility. Within hours, Pakistani police had hosed down the entire crime scene, making any collection of evidence impossible. But was it ineptitude or a cover-up? And her father, the great Zulfikar Ali Bhutto—was he a political visionary or a murderer, as his accusers alleged? What about Benazir herself? Was she an idealist or just trying to fatten up the family’s Swiss bank account with another round of ten percents? And her husband, who became prime minister in her stead—was he a grieving, loyal widower or an ambitious operator who may have been complicit in her murder? All of the above represent views strongly held by different factions. Which version is true? None of them. All of them.
Benazir had told me that her fancy Ivy League education didn’t help one whit in the real world of Islamabad intrigue. In the halls of academe, she had immersed herself in compelling, complex, logical schools of thought—but on the ground, what she encountered was messy, murky, cruel, dirty, and random. She is certainly not the first or the only one to take note of this. The Afghan political activist Meena, a charismatic woman who led a resistance movement during the 1980s and built a network of girls’ schools and orphanages along with her own political party, had a similar observation. “Politics,” she said, “is an animal, a wild, wild animal.” That came true for her; she was assassinated at the age of thirty. Like Benazir, I too studied political science and international relations, and my life has kept me close to the pulse of current events, though thankfully as an observer and not a participant. For me, the biggest surprise has been the role played in world affairs by personalities, relationships … and sheer random coincidence. In the textbooks, it all sounds so weighty and so rational, as though it were all about socioeconomic conditions, the spread of new ideologies, revolutionary eras, and waves of migration. But the realities of political life are chock-full of the human factor in all of its trivial, lowly messiness. Greed. Rivalries. Arrogance. People who keep critical information from each other, information that could save thousands of lives, just because they don’t like each other or don’t want someone else to get the credit. Betrayal committed just because someone felt slighted. Presidents who watch helplessly while their relatives rob the country blind, sabotaging the nation-building effort by diverting billions into their own pockets; presidents who can order an army into war but don’t feel able to stand up to their older brothers. Previously forceful leaders who suddenly panic and flee in the face of a manageable uprising, and later it is revealed that they were in the advanced stages of cancer and had lost their will and confidence.
I am not denying that history can change course because of informed decision making, but don’t underestimate the ability of a few greedy, jealous, ambitious individuals to give history’s course a twist as well. And it’s not just the bad motivations of selfish people or the misguided notions of fanatics that we have to worry about. Even where motives are pure—arguably a rarity when it comes to human beings—the results can be disastrous. Because the problem with good intentions is that, in the absence of perfect information, you cannot be sure of the consequences of your intervention. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, the saying goes, but I think that’s much too glib. Let’s amend it: The road to hell is paved with tiny, reasonable, apparently sensible compromises. It is paved with minuscule, forgivable human impulses and emotions that can cause utter havoc nonetheless. Read Montesquieu, read Etzioni, read Machiavelli, read Tocqueville. But you will learn more from the dramas of Shakespeare.
I love J. C. Carleson’s book, but it’s frightening—or maybe haunting is a better term. We see the world through the eyes of a young girl—bright, innocent, good-hearted, inquisitive, and sharply observant of the adults around her, as young people often are. Utter biographic circumstance has deposited her in a family that belongs to the Third World political elite, with all the luxurious benefits, deadly risks, and, perhaps worst of all, seductive temptations that implies. She loved her father, and maybe there was a part of him that deserved her love. After all, nothing is black-and-white. It’s not even gray. It’s a fractured, fragile kaleidoscope of colors ready to shift at the slightest nudge of the wheel. Good people can do bad things. Good people can do good things that turn out badly. Or they can do great things that shine like beacons for centuries to come. Bad people can do bad things that turn out well, or they can do terrible things that cause enormous misery. Or other people can do things intended to please the good or bad leader that he or she would not have endorsed. And whether you think that someone is a good or bad leader and that their actions were necessary or contemptible depends on who you are and whether or not your group benefited. And the judgment can change, sometimes from one day to the next, sometimes after a few centuries. Genghis Khan, for example, may be notorious for looting and killing, but today he is also credited with ushering in an era of unprecedented cultural exchange, peace, and prosperity.
I wish I could end on a “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” note. I wish I could point to some core of certainty, some infallible set of ethical guideposts, but really all we have is questions. What, for example, will become of our young narrator? Will she hold on to her sympathy for the underdog and her inclination to fairness? And will she be able to convert that into any sort of effective action? Or will she fall into a life of comfort and privilege, paid for with ever more unsavory compromises? Asma al-Assad, the wife of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, was once hailed by Vogue magazine as the “rose of Damascus” and praised for her work on behalf of women’s rights and education. A few short years later, she was internationally reviled for standing by a husband who was allowing his population to be slaughtered in the streets. Her emails were hacked, and she was labeled a Middle Eastern equivalent of the frivolous Marie Antoinette when it became known that while battles raged in her country’s cities, she was busy ordering shoes online.
What path shall we recommend to our heroine? Should she join the resistance? They resort, too often, to terrorism, convinced that the end justifies the means. Should she become a reformer? They often end up as political prisoners, rotting in dank, dark cells, but yes, others endure and become Nelson Mandela. Should she try to stay on the margins, because politics is just too confusing? A young woman named Sonia tried that route. Sonia was born in a small Italian village and received a strict Catholic education. To support herself while attending school, she worked as a waitress, and one day in came a strikingly handsome young man. They fell in love and got married. The man happened to be a student from India. He also happened to be the son of Indira Gandhi. But that, they both thought, mattered little. The young man, Rajiv Gandhi, was studying to become a pilot. He hated politics. His brother, Sanjay, was the one destined to lead the dynasty. Indira liked her foreign daughter-in-law, who was low-key and undemanding and whose principal involvement in family affairs was when she helped select the sari her mother-in-law should wear from a plenitude of gorgeous fabrics. Those moments brought them close. Then Indira was assassinated. And then Sanjay died in a plane crash. That left Rajiv, who was pressed to accept his fate and fulfill his duty to family, nation, and political party. He submitted, and became prime minister. And then he was assassinated. That left Sonia, who was now prevailed upon to step into her husband’s shoes. Go to Wikipedia if you don’t believe me; that’s what happened. That’s the crazy, completely unforeseeable chain of events that took an Italian village girl and made her leader of the biggest political party of Asia’s largest democracy. Forbes has ranked her as the ninth most powerful person in the world.
So our young protagonist may try to enter the fray, or she may try to stay on the margins, but politics is a wild animal, and also a roller coaster without seat belts or rails, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Dr. Cheryl Benard is a researcher for the RAND Corporation and president of ARCH International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the support of post-conflict cultural activism. Previously she was the research director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, a European think tank, and prior to that she taught political science at the University of Vienna.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER READING ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE ARAB SPRING
FOR YOUNG READERS
Children of War: Voices of Iraqi Refugees by Deborah Ellis
Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood by Ibtisam Barakat
Thura’s Diary: My Life in Wartime Iraq by Thura al-Windawi
Sold by Patricia McCormick
Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind by Suzanne Fisher Staples
If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan
The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt
Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye
The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings from the Middle East by Naomi Shihab Nye
FOR ADULT READERS
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
Foreigner by Nahid Rachlin
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez with Kristin Ohlson
Arab Spring Dreams edited by Sohrab Ahmari and Nasser Weddady
The Arab Uprisings by James L. Gelvin
Veiled Courage: Inside the Afghan Women’s Resistance by Dr. Cheryl Benard
ONLINE RESOURCES
While these books are all great resources, it’s important to note that international affairs are in a constant state of flux. Situations can shift and evolve dramatically from year to year or day to day. The best way to stay informed is by reading the news. Here are a few websites that not only report current events but also offer historical overviews to put the headlines in context.
BBC News bbc.co.uk/news/world/middle_east
The New York Times nytimes.com/pages/world/middleeast/index.html
The Guardian guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/mar/22/middle-east-protest-interactive-timeline
The Economist economist.com/world/middle-east-africa
CIA World Factbook cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook
J. C. Carleson
is a former undercover CIA officer who has navigated war zones, jumped out of airplanes, and worked on the front lines of international conflicts. Now a fulltime writer, she lives in Virginia with her husband and two young sons. Her previous books include the novel Cloaks and Veils and Work Like a Spy: Business Tips from a Former CIA Officer. Visit her on the Web at JCCarleson.com.