Just Too Much In The Pink

Listening to former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto deliver a calm and measured lecture at seminars, another young woman comes to mi...

Listening to former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto deliver a calm and measured lecture at seminars, another young woman comes to mind. Almost two decades ago, on a summer morning, Benazir was at Oxford University. Years before this, she had been a student there, president of the Oxford Union, and was back at her alma mater to deliver a lecture on democracy in Pakistan.

Crowds of undergrads 8212; among them, your correspondent 8212; stood cheering and screaming on the pavement. Amid the dictators and the clerics, a 34-year-old was getting ready for the battle of her life.

Today, Benazir8217;s passion is gone and the idealism sounds phoney. 8216;8216;There can only be peace when India and Pakistan are both democracies,8217;8217; she mouths in measured tones. She declares, 8216;8216;Military dictators must be tested against the public will,8217;8217; but sounds formulaic. She says, 8216;8216;We are on the verge of a nuclear holocaust in South Asia,8217;8217; sounding like she8217;s getting ready for her next seminar.

In Oxford, she was untouched by scandal. She was about to return to Pakistan to lead the upsurge that would remove Zia. After her speech, undergrads and dons had risen to their feet in ovation: Benazir, the Brave!

Today her speech is greeted with polite applause. Her ritual weepiness about being an 8216;8216;exile8217;8217; who 8216;8216;can8217;t visit Larkana, can8217;t pray at my father and brothers8217; graves8217;8217; somehow seems practised. She is accused of being someone who manipulated the Pakistani system, accumulated Swiss bank accounts and encouraged the Taliban.

Today, the headscarf is too neat! In Oxford, her hair hung down to her shoulders. Her clothes were not so expensive, nor her nails so dainty.

She continues to lead a powerful party. 8216;8216;I grew up with power,8217;8217; she smiles, 8216;8216;but it wasn8217;t the chandeliers I loved. It was the small acts. Giving polio drops to a child, starting a school..8217;8217; The weary peacespeak is bogged down by studied cliches. In Oxford, she had bellowed, 8216;8216;I will die for a single Pakistani child8217;s future.8217;8217;

Story continues below this ad

Over dinner she giggles: 8216;You like my salwar kameez? I8217;m not brave enough to wear saris. It8217;s nice, isn8217;t it? I like pink.8217;8217; Pink? Did Benazir Bhutto say pink?