People are the mirrors in which we see ourselves

I know that this is a travel blog about Egypt, not a political blog about South Asia, but I just spent 30 minutes watching Fox News' (yeah, I know, I know - it's what was on in the kitchen when I came downstairs for breakfast) coverage of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, and I have some things to say.

BBC News: Benazir Bhutto Killed in Attack

BBC News Special Section on Pakistan

New York Times: Bhutto Assassinated in Attack on Rally

A lot of Fox's questions for their analysts (including Dennis Ross) had to do with what this meant in the greater scheme of the war on terror - to their credit, this wasn't their sole focus, and the correspondents did do an adequate job of keeping this coverage about Pakistan rather than making wild leaps in logic. I was confused at first by their discussion of whether the bombing and subsequent assassination had been carried out by groups or individuals linked to al-Qaeda or other international extremist organizations until I read the NYT piece posted above - I knew that Bhutto had been the target of an assassination attempt in October, but I didn't know that al-Qaeda or the Taliban were in any way suspected or involved. I found this article from the Telegraph (UK) about the October assassination attempt, but was unable to find any coverage of this on either BBC or NYT (I'm sure it's there, it's probably just buried under a lot of other news updates from the last few hours).

The Telegraph article states that a number of the U.S.-designated international terrorist organizations (specifically al-Qaeda and the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban supporters) are known enemies of Bhutto, and that "the Pakistani Taliban has directly called for suicide bombers to attack Ms. Bhutto." The article goes on to suggest that she had gone back and forth with accusations of corruption and plots against her life with organizations and government officials supporting the aims of the Taliban et al., but I think this still leaves a lot of questions as to why Bhutto is specifically being targeted by any extremist group. President Musharraf has had his fair share of run-ins with those in Pakistan who are sympathetic to al-Qaeda and the Taliban...as well as those who are sympathetic to the basic notions of human rights, but I digress. (If anyone - Madison readers, I'm looking at you - could comment and shed some additional light on this matter, I would welcome it.)

Of course, there have also been the almost-immediate accusations that Bhutto's assassination was engineered by another group of her enemies - Musharraf and his supporters. With Parliamentary elections scheduled for early January, Musharraf's party has a lot to lose if PPP (Pakistan People's Party, Bhutto's party) supporters descend in full force to the polls. But while having her out of the way - theoretically - could help Musharraf to retain power, it could also backfire if the new leadership of her party manages to rally support around her death and convince its supporters to go to the polls in spite of the tragedy (the Fox coverage had some rumors of election boycotts by Bhutto supporters in light of the assassination). This is, of course, assuming that the January 8 election isn't postponed or rescheduled, an issue which the Pakistani government isn't commenting on yet, nor one which I feel qualified to speculate about.

Pakistan's state of emergency, which began in early November, was lifted less than two weeks ago; under this proclamation, the Pakistani constitution was suspended and numerous supreme court judges were arrested under a range of charges. Elections were first delayed indefinitely, then rescheduled for February and finally to the current January date. The state of emergency was implemented, according to the government, due to in increase in attacks by terrorist groups within the country and activities inhibiting the ability of the government to fight terrorism within its borders. If Bhutto's assassination was, in fact, at the hands of members of any number of extremist organizations - or if the blame can be fixed on such organizations - we've got a major problem on our hands.

Because let's not forget about what happened in another country, where a prominent government official was assassinated by a member of an extremist group and the events that have transpired since then. A twenty-six year state of emergency. A constitution that serves first and foremost to protect the interests of those who are in power, and can be stopped or changed as they see fit. An authoritarian government under which basic human rights are ignored and political rights are a sham. Where freedom of the press is non-existent, editors, writers and bloggers go to jail for criticizing the government, and they call off school to cover up a nation-wide news strike to protest these injustices. (Aha, the truth about my three-day weekend finally comes out.)

Are there differences between these two scenarios? Absolutely. Sadat's assassination was that of a sitting president, while Bhutto's is that of a political candidate and leader, now out of formal power for 10 years and an enemy of those in power to boot. While the speculations are flying, there have been no formal accusations or claims of responsibility for Bhutto's assassination by the Pakistani government or extremist groups operating within Pakistan or in the region. And as I said, nothing has yet been decided about the January elections, but to be blunt, if Musharraf is really worried about his party losing power to the PPP, this would be a way too convenient excuse to push back, if not cancel altogether, the elections, to reinstate the state of emergency, to start cracking down on anything resembling dissidence, and to establish formal channels for keeping your enemies - under whatever banner they march - out of power. Read the articles and make your own call, but to me, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch here to go from Musharraf to Mubarak.

Ma salamma, al-Qahira!

Celebrating my wonderful semester in Egypt with my Kanzy gals tonight. Lots of blogging and photos to come over my way-too-short winter break. Thanks for following my poorly updated account of Egypt this semester!

Oh, Egypt.

Yes, I'm still here and still fine.

But a little bit less happy having been without reliable internet for four days. :( Go figure that when I set aside time to blog, neither my computer nor the internet will be working properly.