the Disillusioned kid: Bhutto RIP
| Email | Home | Linkage | Profile |

Friday, December 28, 2007

Bhutto RIP

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is clearly a very big deal. I worry that we may look back on this attack as the moment Pakistan became a failed state. Many Pakistan People's Party supporters are asking questions about the Musharraff's failure to protect Bhutto, perhaps even holding him personally responsible. This can only compound widespread anger at the regime. Attempts to remove chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry from office in March drew hundreds of lawyers onto the streets, indicating that resentment had reached well into the middle-classes.

Bhutto's assassination is hardly an unusual occurence in modern-day Pakistan. Islamist fundamentalists are engaged in a bloody, and apparently growing insurgency, particularly in the regions bordering Afghanistan and Musharraff himself has been the target of attacks on a number of occasions. Such groups can only be empowered by Bhutto's death, although they will likely have to weather some kind of military response. One only has to look across the border to Afghanistan to see how difficult it is to beat such groups in territory they are intimately familiar with.

There's nothing inevitable about state failure, but the country is surely standing on the precipice and it's a hell of a long way down. The consequences for the people of Pakistan of an upsurge in conflict are obvious enough, but the ramifications for the wider world of a nuclear-armed state in disarray ought to be troubling.

Perhaps predictably, this atrocity has encouraged the more dimwitted islamophobes who hold that Bhutto's murder demonstrates the fundamental brutality and inhumanity of Islam. The reality, of course, is more complex. What this shows is rather that the real conflict is not between Islam and the West (Christianity?), but rather within Islam. This is more complicated than the simplistic conflict between secularists and fundamentalists envisaged by many liberals, encompassing a wide range of interpretations, traditions and movements, but will shape in very important ways the world we live in over the coming years and decades. Provided, of course, we manage to survive that long.

Labels: ,

Side Projects

Carnival of Anarchy
The Peace Pipe
UK Watch Blog

Acquaintances

Against the Current
Atopian.org
Culture hits and gendered bits
Daniel Randall
In The Water
Mike Wood
On The Barricades
Pizarro's Sword
Space Cat Rocket Ship
Surveillant Assemblage
TashCamUK FotoPage
The Naked Lunch
The Peace Pipe
The World of the Dynamite Lady

Strangers

Anarchoblogs
Antiwar.com Blog
Arte & Lingua
Barker in Valencia
Blairwatch
Bloggerheads
Blood & Treasure
Bombs and Shields
Boomablog
Born at the Crest of the Empire
Chase me ladies...
Chicken Yoghurt
Craig Murray
Dead Men Left
Direland
Disreputable Lazy Aliens
Empire Notes
Europhobia
Friends of Al Jazeera
Global Guerillas
Guerillas in the Midst
I Blame the Patriachy
Informed Comment
Insultadarity
Janine Booth
Lenin's Tomb
Life of Riley Blog
Media Watch Watch
Neil Shakespeare
NO2ID NewsBlog
One Hump or Two?
Otto's Random Thoughts
Perfect.co.uk
Pitch In For Uzbekistan
Registan.net
Run over by the truth
Solidarity With Iraqi Workers
Shut Up You Fat Whiner!
Sudan: Passion of the Present
Talk Politics
The Anthropik Network
The Daily (Maybe)
The Devil's Kitchen
The Disillusioned
The f-word
The Head Heeb
The Killing Train
The Revenge of Winston Smith
The Socialist Unity Blog
The Wicked Truth
Theory of Power
Things I Don't Have Time For
This (Fresh) Gringo
This Is My Truth
Thumping the Tub
Time The Dreaded Enemy
UK Watch Blog
UK Poli Blogs
underbrella
Under The Same Sun
Uzbekistan.neweurasia.net
What Fresh Hell Is This?
Where is Raed? (RIP)
Who Are You to Accuse Me?
Words and Rocks
Zeropointnine
Z-Net Blog

Neighbours

Asbo Community Space
Defy-ID
Eastside Climate Action
Faslane 365
Freecycle
Indymedia
No Borders
Nottingham Student Peace Movement
Refugee Forum
Stop the War
Sumac Centre
The Demo Project

Ivory Towers

Anarchist Studies Network
Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice
Postanarchism Clearinghouse

Miscellania

Anarchist FAQ
Antiwar.com
Chagos Discussion List
Chagos Support Forums
Electronic Intifada
Future of Iraq Portal
Index of Political Blogs
Indymedia UK
Infoshop
Iraq Occupation Focus
Pledgebank
Refuser Solidarity Network
SchNEWS
Socialist Unity Network
The New Standard
UK Chagos Support Association
UK Watch
Weekly Worker
Wikipedia
WriteToThem.com
Z-Net

The Progressive Blog Alliance

Register here to join the PBA.