All of you who have been blogging must have gone through this: How long after your debut, do you get a comment? Or an affirmation that your blog has been read by someone other than you.
I opened this page at least 5 times today. And each time I laughed at my own stupidity. How would anyone know that I've started a blog. I haven't told anyone yet. My fear is that if no one reads my blog even after saying so, I would feel worse.
Am I writing for myself or or others. Both I would guess. And I'm not promising that I'll write every day. I know other priorities would get the better of my best intentions. But I'll trudge on, whenever I get the time and inclination.
The latest New Yorker carries a story Bhutto and the Candidates by David Remnick in which a question is asked, "What is the greatest threat to the United States of America: 2.6 kilograms of highly enriched uranium in Tehran or an out-of-control Pakistan?”
For us in India, the query becomes even more pertinent.
I also fail to understand the eulogies that the Indian media is showering on Benazir posthumously. Allow me to quote the New Yorker story, "Bhutto’s autobiography, “Daughter of the East,” published in 1989, is an exercise in mythologizing, portraying her autocratic father as a democrat and a saintly shaheed, or martyr, and Benazir herself as a devoted inheritor who “tried to keep my father near me by sleeping with his shirt under my pillow.” But she was, of course, infinitely more complex than her memoir. She was a self-proclaimed democrat who was also the chairman-for-life of the Pakistan People’s Party. When she was in power, she lent support to the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, as part of Pakistan’s strategic struggle with India, and, particularly in her second term, she did little to halt the rise of a nuclear Pakistan. After she fell from power the second time, in 1996, she and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who acted as her minister of investment, were accused of taking colossal kickbacks on government contracts. Bhutto always claimed that the charges were politically motivated."
An unstable Pakistan scares the world. It ought to scare India even more so. Her 19 year old son is wet-behind-the-ears and doesn't alleviate my nervousness at all. Its arguable if democrcy will work in Pakistan, but its still the safest bet. They said the same about India as well, 60 years ago. With all the impediments, angst and heartburn, we are still the world's largest democracy, thank you.
But will this cat ever be belled in Pakistan?
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