Monday, March 17, 2008

Benazir Bhutto on Bitterness

Benazir Bhutto’s Daughter of the East: An Autobiography is a deeply sad book that is mostly written from behind prison bars and is a catalogue of death threats, detentions, violence and injustice. It describes the relentless momentum towards her father’s death, the death of Benazir’s brothers and the loss of countless supporters. It is all the more painful when one reads the book following the assassination of the author.

Bhutto writes about times of intense anger but soon after the unexpected death of General Zia she reveals this truth:

“You can’t be fuelled by bitterness. It can eat you up but it cannot drive you. The task—and my motivation, remained the same: to return Pakistan to a democracy through fair and impartial elections.”

Source: Benazir Bhutto, Daughter of the East: An Autobiography (London: Simon & Schuster, 2007), 380.

This book is reviewed at Reviewing Books and Movies.

Dr. Geoff Pound

Image: Benazir Bhutto.