Socialist (
An online magazine supplement to monthly Socialist Urdu
28/12/2007
Benzair’s
Assassination – Future of Resistance to Imperialism and Military Rule By Haroon Khalid, Sartaj
Khan and Riaz Ahmed Assassination of Benzair
Bhutto has brought enormous grief and mourning throughout Assassination has proved
that military backed dictatorship has failed to perform with unconstitutional
powers gained through the martial law as much as it was failing earlier.
Despite using bombardment, kidnappings and collective punishments the rulers’
last ditch effort to rule upon the people against their will appears to have
failed. The incident has opened the wounds inflicted on the nation through
continuous dictatorship, imperialist domination, exploitation and oppression.
It has come amid US moves to seek direct intervention in As a national leader the
death of Benazir Bhutto has brought shock and jerk to the entire capitalist
world. The international oil market, commodities market and the regional
stock exchanges felt the impact, oil prices rose and stocks fell. This was an
addition to the war on terror that has destabilized the capitalist world
order -- oil prices have doubled in last twelve months bringing fortunes for
the companies and massive price rise for the poor. The response of
imperialist powers, the United Nations and other power brokers to the
assassination shows that nuclear power they used to secure their interests is
now seen as a potential threat to world order. Benazir Bhutto was loved by
the masses but was also adored by the The anger and grief at the
tragic death of Benazir is in continuation of the October 18 2007 attack on
her and shows that the society as a whole is paying the price in the
general rising of violence to sideline political participation in war on
terror and those responding to it. It also exposes the extent to which the
imperialist relations, regional powers and the world market are now connected
to what happens in this poor country. Continuation of neo-liberal capitalist
expansion and its undermining of bourgeoisie institutions within the society
means that politicians seek refuge and patronage of international and
regional powers who in turn seek share in liberalized internal markets doing
their brokering, backing and in process increasing distortion of the society
and market, the consequences of such an economic and political integration
are horrific. While past corruption is
reconciled, various leaders of capitalist class go through a process of
realization of the present, that is accompanied by a desire to crush new
enemies or to cohabitate with them. While their decisions are an extension of
the desires of the local capitalists they are more undermined by world
capitalists powers. On the one hand the wars and
conquests of imperialism and its world institutions undermine civil society
and on the other hand it has to rely on old institutions like parties and
militaries to achieve consent of populations against whom the wars and
conquests are waged. Thus bourgeoisie politics appears solely massively
popular but subjugated to imperialist and regional power influence that go
against the interests of local population they seek to represent. Corruption,
massive exploitation by capitalists, huge gap between rich and poor results
in extreme outrage from the worst sufferers in capitalism – in our case
the rural poor finding terrorist response as the only way to regain land from
the occupier. While their charisma is unmatched these bourgeoisie
politicians, including Benazir Bhutto, reflect varied capitalist formations,
interests and responses. Coming as a response to combined and uneven
development of capitalism in underdeveloped countries it also brings combined
and uneven responses, institutions and political formations. They produce
brave and challenging leaders like Benazir and Zulfiqar and highly meek like
many others. But it also brings with them their indirect, discreet,
self-centered organizations, churns out overdeveloped individuals and
underdeveloped institutions including bourgeoisie political parties. Thus we have movements
against neo-liberalism and war trying to regain what the twenty years of
neo-liberalism has snatched away. Before that the capitalist state was forced
to make concessions faced with working class movements. Now food, transport,
education, health are managed by the state for the haves only. The death of
Benazir sparked widesparked anger of the dis-empowered have-nots that attack
state institutions serving the high and mighty only. Benazir Bhutto was also part
of the response against injustices mitigated by the neo-liberal rule though
through power sharing and capitulation to imperialist domination consequences
of her actions were entirely different from the resistance movement. Thus in
the recent past saw many setbacks for the movement. The movements by working
class and oppressed against privatization, land rights, rights to organize
unions and right to defend sackings by factory, banks, telecoms, airlines,
schools and university workers; those of land rights, rehabilitation rights
by peasants; against mega projects by Sindh and Balochistan populations; and
those attacked in war on terror by US and Pakistani forces in Afghanistan,
Waziristan and now in Swat got a mixed response from bourgeoisie political
organizations. Largely they ignored the movement, rarely they showed muted
solidarity and sometimes even condemn the resistance. So is their response
the movement for restoration of judiciary being bravely waged by the
students, lawyers and the left of the professional layers in the civil
society. The movement against
military rule is also being partly supported, largely ignored and sometimes
stabbed in the back by the bourgeoisie political parties. This movement is
hugely crucial not only for the professional layers leading them but also for
the working class within and outside this movement. That is why state
apparatus and connivance is used to suppress it on many occasions. The
movement started in March 2007 when the Supreme Court Chief Justice was
sacked by the dictator. It faced huge repression on 12 May in Despite the role of the old
order and institutions the last one year has seen huge successes as well. The
rise of lawyers movement in March itself was a big success and when the Chief
Justice Iftikhar Chowdry came to attend long marches it only brought to fore
the hugeness of this national movement. The mass mobilization brought sense
of participation and the reinstatement of CJ showed that the ruling class war
forced to concede only to prevent popular movement to further widen divisions
within the ruling class itself. July 20 2007 CJ was reinstated but it
actually brought a massive realization amongst the masses that movements are
worth to build for. The generalization of the idea that change is possible
radicalized the professional layers which had earlier been passively involved
in supporting the capitalist liberalization itself. Thus ruling class again
tried to crush resistance on Dec 03 by imposing Emergency and five thousand
were arrested on the first day, the protests by lawyers were then taken up by
journalists, civil society and above all by the sectional rise of students movement Benazir realized the
turbulence and the impact of movements within this society. So do the
imperialist occupiers and those using militant means to resist them. Mass
movements bring bourgeoisie leaders and dictators under enormous pressure,
they also undermine the terrorist methods which appear as the sole means
resistance to those attacked by imperialists. The movement against military
rule has been impacted by the movements of other social and political
classes. Thus the return of assassinations, disappearances, suicide bombings,
the occupation of Lal Masjid and subsequent brutal military operations have
always appeared to snatch away the centre-stage of politics and above
all push other forces against military rule to the sidelines. Whether Benazir was killed
by Islamicists or those within the ruling regime this is not the first time
the movement against military rule has to deal with the question of terrorism
and obviously the pressure to develop such a response to suicide, anti-women,
anti-freedom attacks by the Islamicists. Dictatorship has used many such
issues in the past with the premier one by the MQM that posed such a
challenge to many in movement in Assassination of Benazir has
the implication of silencing street politics. Certainly on a much wider
scale, like May 12 and October 18 killings, it has the potential to push
public protests, demonstrations and strikes into the background. Pushing
politics indoors and out of public realm favors Islamiscist but we saw in
recent past that threat of terrorism is used with impunity by the
imperialists and dictatorships to crush opposition to policies that favor
neoliberalism, war and terrorism in its response. Suicide attack,
state-sponsored assassinations have to be opposed by those against
imperialist domination. But condemnation should not condemn those attacked by
imperialism. Benazir lived and died a
life full of privileges and deprivations. What she has left behind is an
increasingly dangerous world where she played her part in various ways. For
those left behind her assassination brings a combination of increasing
turmoil and polarization of this society in various ways. The possibility of
fragmentation of We now face a big challenge
and that is to mobilize masses, force General Musharraf to quit and to show
that we can deal with forces and causes of extremism without imperialist
intervention. |
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