seperis | Benazir Bhutto

Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. -- CNN

In The Canadian Press:

Nawaz Sharif, another former prime minister and leader of a rival opposition party, rushed to the hospital and addressed the crowd.

"Benazir Bhutto was also my sister, and I will be with you to take the revenge for her death," Sharif said. "Don't feel alone. I am with you. We will take the revenge on the rulers."

Senator Babar Awan, Bhutto's lawyer, said, "The surgeons confirmed that she has been martyred."

I'm aware that hyperbole is common and almost necessary for any decent speech, but for some reason, I keep stopping at martyred and feeling deeply, deeply nervous. "Shining light", "tragedy", "assassination", "expired", "murdered", strong words, but not quite as loaded with history and power, with edges of religious fevor spliced with promises of revenge, not on the perpetrators (general), but the rulers, specific.

People kill for ideas all the time, but they'll damn well thrown themselves on top of bombs for the concept of a martyr.

Also odd change in that wording on those depending on source. Hmm.

ETA: Forgot. Clear explanation of context by

miss_porcupine and

serabut here and

ileliberte here.

In the context of Musharref's declaration of marshall law in all but name, and Bhutto's decision to return *after* the country plunged into political turmoil, I can somewhat understand the amount of hyperbole. Whether Bhutto is depicted as a savior or a politician without credibility (the ongoing accusations of cronyism and misappropriation of government funds) depends in large part on the stance of the speaker.

Sadly, I've been expecting something like this ever since she returned to the country. It's been a bad year (http://del.icio.us/thepouncer/pakistan) for them.

*nods*

What actually weirded me out was an article when I googled--the same terminology was used in an article regarding the death of three soldiers in Kashmir.

http://www.app.com.pk/en/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24256&Itemid=2

It's very--something. I'm just not sure what yet.

That is indeed disturbing language.

oh sorry! I missed answering!

The 'rulers' bit was--unnerving a little.

Yeah, exactly. Not that one wouldn't expect people to use this to their advantage, but that is still a bit too brazen, and so quickly too.

Considering she was wiped out by Islamic extremists for not going along with them, 'martyred' isn't such a strange word and it fits the context of her death. She was murdered for failing to renounce her beliefs (democracy, secularism, modernity), which, by any definition, is martyrdom.

Sharif, Bhutto, and even Musharraf are about as secular as you're going to get in a country where half of the (very powerful) army and ISI are working in open sympathy with al-Qaeda. Pakistan is a hotbed of honor killings, an exporter of radicalism, and a safe harbor for terrorists.

Not so much strange as--hmm. Randomly googling after I thought about it, it shows it being used in the place of killed, murdered, assassinated, died in the line of duty. Granted, Islamic countries mix their religion in more thoroughly than the US does on any level.

I hope you don't mind my coming in to this thread, but you're basically noticing that the word 'martyr' is pretty much bandied about in a very, very political sense. Welcome to the world of Islamic political rhetoric?

Not at all! Feel free. This is how I find out things! Honest to God, more useful than google right now.

That's basically why I went googling; I couldn't quite figure out how it was meant to be read. There were three or four I glanced at before the ones on Bhutto kind of crowded everything else out, and those seemed to be specifically aimed at outside countries--the one I linked to above was the Kasimir region.

It's--hmm. My class in Islam and politics was a million (or eightish) years ago and I'm not sure we ever covered Pakistan in any kind of depth anyway, so all of it feels very badly contexted for me--er, by that I mean, I lack context so am blinking and googling a lot.

Mind you, all this politicization of this word in particular started way back when, back during the Shia-Sunni split, so you could say, we (on the whole) have had a lot of practice. Heh. My own personal pov is very skewed to bleak humour, so every time I read such a sentence, it basically parses in my head as 'neener neener! So s/he died, but at least s/he died on the right side! Which is not yours!'. ^_^;

*laughs*

Hmm. I'm still backreading through the articles. I may have more questions! Well, provided I can figure out what the questions are.

And I'll try to answer 'em, the best I can. (But since I'm on the other side of the world, it's best I turn in for the moment. :D)

Martyred is a very commonly used word in India and Pakistan, and as far as I know, Bangladesh (not as familiar with the state in other south asian countries) and is bandied about rather freely in political contexts depending on the side you're speaking to. Anything that could be seen as a freedom struggle and/or violent struggle of ideals can make someone a martyr whether the death is deliberate or incidental. Kashmiri extremist militants are either terrorists or freedom fighting heroes who are subsequently martyred when killed by Indian forces, depending on the side that's doing the reporting. It isn't so much a matter of religion as it is a matter of social outlook and the role sacrifice plays in south Asian culture. It isn't quite the same as being saintly though, the usage is slightly different although it's close enough. Shaheed is the word that translates roughly to martyr and it has a slight religious connotation but mostly refers to the death of someone heroic who sacrificed his/her life for some cause.

I was going to say that I think we're seeing a combination of cultural and language translation going on and some of it may seem incredibly foreign to us because both the idea and the words aren't used in language here in the US the way it is in other parts of the world. Add to that a lot of the 'quotes' are probably all translated on some level and I think there are going to be patterns that seem odd yet repetitive.

*nods* That's part of it. I couldn't quite figure out how it was supposed to be interpreted; aka common use for death by enemy or unique and scary link to religion in actuality, not rhetoric.

And yeah, the quotes are--odd in different places on some of it.

Well I don't speak the language but I am very familiar with languages of the area (Though really I'm sure there's great drift from Hebrew and aramaic) so some of the oddity I'm dismissing into language barrier, I couldn't even describe how I'm deciding things either I just know that some of the weirdness is because of the leap over language and culture.

Argh I am TOTALLY aware how far Israel is from Pakistan I shouldn't equate them as the same areas at all, I think it's my familiarity with SUCH a foreign language and some of the cultural differences.

Uh. Thanks for clarifying that. Israel isn't only far from Pakistan geographically, but culturally as well, and I for one would be rather upset if people reading this thread misunderstood that point.

I think it's important to keep in mind that comparatively speaking, Israel is a lot more "western" in culture than what most people would probably expect, given where it's situated.

I return you now to your regularly scheduled topic. :)

That makes sense. *thoughtful*

Question, if you think you might know; Sharif is stating he and his party will boycott the elections; I know boycott and elections and what they mean, but does that mean that elections won't be held at all if he boycotts, or do they need a certain percentage of participation in the country to have them?

Seriously, either my google-fu sucks or google is being *very unclear*.

That's... a complex question and at this moment I'm not qualified to answer but I might be able to find you info later.

What I can say is that democracy is often thought of as a lot more tenuous there, though Pakistan (I am getting the country right, right, I listened to the news before caffeine??) has a bit of a firmer history in it, but it's not like England that had a long and slow and steady transition over nearly a 100 years or so. I'm not sure it would matter what the law states at a certain point if enough powerful figures got together and "NOPE!". And even if elections did happen, I'm not sure exactly what sort of ruling body they'd come up with or what power they'd actually wield.

I understand the government structure and how it works, but I'm not sure exactly what a boycott will achieve if one party refuses to show up.

*nods* Still reading and searching to see what shows up; honestly, I think at this point, finding a Middle East specializing blog might help more.

Pakistan was created in 1947 after the partition of India, it has been a democracy since then, but political upheavals have always been happening and the party that wields the power usually gets the right of way. Musharraf is not powerful enough though, he's trying to appease the US and other western countries while simultaneously trying to appease the fundamentalists as well and floundering on both counts. There is no united democratic opposition either. Nawaz Sharif was in exile all this while and Bhutto had been away after her last term and the accusations of corruption. I don't think there is any stable democratic political body that can actually call on the consitution, whatever that might state, to say what may or may not happen. The supreme court has been...whimsical in its decisions to exert its power and I foresee only a giant muddle. Boycott will probably mainly mean lots and lots of public demonstrations and a long period of even worse instability.

Oh, and one of the things that happened in India when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated was that his party had a sweeping victory and a big part of it was the emotional part of it, and the party milked it to the max. Maybe that might be relevant :/

I think what this means is that the elections will go on, but Sharif is hoping that the party that wins (I'm guessing Musharraf's party, the Pakistan Muslim League?) will be seen as illegitimate, and will have an uphill fight against public opinion. If he's afraid that the PML will win anyway, boycotting may thus be a better option than showing up.

I don't have any idea what party or coalition was favored to win prior to this (or, actually, who holds the most seats in Parliament now). But apparently Bhutto had just said yesterday that she would not allow the military to rig the elections, and one assumes that if they were planning to, they would rig them in favor of Musharraf's party.

Quotes, even when originally made in english are not always the same as they were intended to mean. Of course, there is a high level of bombast in most political issues, but apart from that, even when speaking the same language, i.e. english here, meanings in context of society are slightly different depending on what the word has grown to mean there. I guess reading it in Urdu would probably be the easiest way to get the meaning :)

*nods* Makes sense.

Er, and by used in place of, I meant in articles unrelated to Bhutto. Googling for cultural context != a lot of good information, sadly.

Sorry for butting in but about your earlier question about the elections. There were three parties running for President; Mushrarraf's, Benazir Bhutto's and Nawaz Sharif's. So now basically Bhutto's is out of running because their leader has been killed, Sharif is boycotting the election and only Mushrarraf remains. And he's already in power. I have no idea what will happen next.

It is *never* butting in. *G* I wouldn't post publicly without the expectation of being either corrected on something I got wrong or something expanded on.

Hmm. I was glancing through the structure; do you know if it works like India does with building a coalition/vote of no-confidence? From what I read, it seems the three parties are at least somewhat already in themselves coalitions. I was wondering if the boycott would cause the elections not to go through, or as someone stated here, downthread, if it would cause Mushrarraf's election to lose legitimacy.

...I'm guessing we're all waiting on the answer to that one.

Stop by anytime!

The political structure of India (as far as I know) is very different from that of Pakistan. And it's also true that how things are meant to work is very different from how they actually work in Pakistan. Most likely a vote of no confidence wouldn't even be possible in the current political climate of Pakistan. Perhaps the election, if they had happened before Benazir Bhutto died would have been diplomatic, most likely though they would have been rigged. Right now every step Musharraf takes will make him look bad. He will definitely lose legitimacy if he goes through the election despite the boycott. And if he cancels them than basically what will happen is that he'll continue to be the leader illegitimately.

And thats my half arsed attempt at trying to decipher this whole mess. I lived there and I still don't know!

Well, to offer a cultural Muslim pov, fwiw (according to my own flawed understanding: am raised a Muslim, but crucially, not from a South Asian Muslim culture), to use the word 'martyr' at this sense is pretty much turning the table on the attackers. They're basically saying that her death is the most exalted death of all (all this can be seen in tangible ways: for example, if she is officially termed to have died a 'syuhada'/'martyr', for her funeral rites, her body doesn't need to go through ritual purification, as it is already considered 'pure'), and that implies, in the end, she won.

I have a feeling I'm not conveying this very well. I also happen to come from a Muslim culture where these things are so very largely in the abstract as well. YMMV

*points above* I think

miss_porcupine phrased it much better.

Contextually, "martyred" works. She died in pursuit of a cause of value or belief system she valued, to the point she was willing to risk her life, and in the end did.

However, situationally, powder keg, meet match. This will be a catalyst for ... something.

B

Yeah. I'm wondering that too. Though I was wondering the same thing with Myanmar as well since the monks protested.

Hmm. I know it's not unique that there's unrest in many places at the same time, since some of the unrest has never stopped. But it's still--it feels almost overwhelming in the last few months.

I'm not surprised at all that she was killed. But I do think the martyr thing is about a deeper issue; the terminology isn't being randomly used, and in context, these folks feel it's appropriate. She was murdered because she opposed Muslim extremists; there's a lovely catch-all phrase, 'martyr to the cause,' which allows a mix of the religious and secular overtones. 'of freedom' is a frequently appended phrase, and I do think 'martyr to the cause of freedom' applies here.

*nod* I'm not disagreeing. I just wasn't sure what kind of context that has in that country; said in America, where we're (nominally) secular, it would have an automatic secular translation. With Pakistan's union of politics and religion, I couldn't quite work out if it was a purely political use of religious-martyr, actual link to religion, or a secular term for them in this context.

Out of interest, how do you feel about the use of the word 'martyr' in reference to Martin Luther King? Or in reference to Yitzhak Rabin?

Not trying to be perverse here - I do understand the sense of 'ooooooh shit', and am thanking my lucky stars that my friend (who's been living in Pakistan for the past 3 years) has now returned to the UK - she had plenty of stress and excitement while she was there, but goodness knows what all this is going to lead to. Hell, the expert guy that the Beeb were interviewing after the news broke seemed to think that the odds were pretty good that the Taliban-influenced extremist crazyheads were going to start having a real impact on the middleclass liberal types, and that it could all be a real seachange. Which - not a cheering prospect.

So, yeah - I'd say that I find this "we will take revenge on the rulers" talk more disturbing than the use of the word 'martyr', because I think that's the appropriate word to use of someone who is murdered for their beliefs.

In America, where we're (relatively) secular, I translate to the secular sense without a problem. It's more problematic (mentally) to me to make a translation in a country whose politics *are* the religion as well, so I couldn't make a cultural translation very clearly--was it political rhetoric only, a cross religious-political, secular, etc.

And thrown up right after "revenge of rulers" was a blink moment for me of huh.

What interested me immediately was that the 'surgeon confirmed she was a martyr'. 0.o How does one assess the remains so as to discover martyrdom? Additionally, I join you in hmmmm.

You know, between CNN and BBC, I could literally do nothing else today but read on this and still not hit everything.

I think it might take studying the Islamic world for a few years to truly understand what's happening there. I remember watching the Crusades miniseries by one of the Pythons and it was excellent in that it showed the crusades from the islamic studies aspect, from the islamic oral histories and written texts and it was Fascinating and complex. The wording actually means a lot. I just wish I could remember it all. Thanks for posting on this.

I took a semester *years ago* on Islam and Islamic politics, which is really utterly useless at the moment except I recognize the word shariya when it pops up (which is sadly not often, darn it).

*nod nod* Yeah. I pretty much rely on experts at this point.

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