Lusi
December 7, 2007, 9:52am
46
Re: Letter exchange b/w Salman Ahmed and Bilal Musharraf
Creating awareness, raising his voice on their behalf, and he has done many charity concerts for issues in Pakistan.
Yes, if you have read his previous articles that were posted on the forum then you wouldn’t be asking this question. He has openly opposed BB in Washington post. I have quoted part of his article for you. And he opposes Mr. Sharif aswell. This article was written before Musharraf went to Saudia to bring Nawaz back, therefore you don’t see his name mentioned.
Both fail to recognize the core problem plaguing Pakistani society: Without a strong and independent judiciary, Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state, will forever be at the mercy of dictators and power-hungry politicians. Lack of oversight and institutional accountability leads to coups, counter-coups and perpetual instability.
As an artist and social activist, I have worked with the governments of both Musharraf and Bhutto on peace initiatives and socially uplifting themes. I have been disillusioned by their lack of commitment to getting real work done; they appear to spend most of their time consolidating their power bases.
On several occasions after Sept. 11, 2001, I was invited to Musharraf’s house in Islamabad, and he even joined me onstage at a concert to help support a united front against extremism. I, like many members of my generation, initially believed Musharraf’s commitment to introducing an era of “enlightened moderation” in Pakistan, a nation that was hijacked by religious fanatics during the American-backed military dictatorship of Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s.
We supported Musharraf because of his promises to fight extremism, bring accountability into politics, open up an independent media and reduce the immoral gap between Pakistan’s rich and poor. But no amount of governmental fear-mongering can make us look the other way while he imposes emergency rule, intimidates the media, dismantles the judiciary and muzzles dissent. Without respect for civil institutions, his flawed government is doomed to fail.
Yet Benazir Bhutto is no savior. The queen of hypocrisy, she has managed to hypnotize Western liberals with her claim to represent progressive elements in the Muslim world. Bhutto is a charlatan. How can she call herself a democrat while also appointing herself head of the Pakistan People’s Party for life? Her time as prime minister brought staggering levels of corruption and graft. Bhutto’s niece and sister-in-law accuse her of conspiring to murder her own brother, Murtaza, who challenged her power during her second term. She continues to see Pakistan as her personal feudal fiefdom to be plundered. A false prophet of democracy, she threatens to bring back the rule of the gangster rather than the rule of law.
During the late '90s, I recorded a song called “Accountability” and made a video that satirized Pakistani politicians whose corruption scandals were being reported internationally. The response of Bhutto’s government was to ban the video and threaten my life. In the years since Bhutto fled Pakistan to escape corruption investigations, her desire to regain power has blinded her to the struggle being waged by Pakistanis on behalf of true democracy. A member of her own party, Aitzaz Ahsan, the lawyer who won Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry’s reinstatement as chief justice of the Supreme Court after Musharraf dismissed him early this year, languishes in jail – along with thousands of others. Meanwhile, Bhutto attends diplomatic receptions and makes speeches about freedom and liberty. While lawyers and human rights activists faced the threat of injury and death for standing up to Musharraf’s regime, she was in sunny Dubai, waiting for Washington’s go-ahead to return
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111800948.html
P.S. I will reply to rest of your post later. At the moment, I have to get back to my books, its finals week.