ISLAMABAD: “Benazir Bhutto proved beyond a doubt, with her life and relentless courage, that women can certainly do everything,” wrote Bilawal Bhutto in a column penned for The Guardian, published on Monday.
“I know every child thinks of his mother as superwoman, I certainly did,” wrote Bilalwal, reminiscing his mother’s struggles as a woman in the patriarchal world of politics.
When New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced her pregnancy, it was received both positively and negatively with #knitforJacinda trending while some raised concerns over her ‘durability’ as a leader. But for Bilawal and his sisters, it brought back memories of their mother and her time in office. “But it was only natural for me to look back and compare this situation with the one my mother faced 28 years ago when she became the first world leader to give birth while in office.”
“At the time, as her children, we did not appreciate how extraordinary her life was,” Bilawal wrote. “Looking back it is clear that despite her accomplishments, every day she had to prove that as a woman she had every right to be who she was, larger than life and leading from the front, every step of the way.”
“In 1988 my mother led a nationwide election campaign, wrote a bestselling book, had her first child and became the youngest and first female prime minister of the Muslim world,” read the opinion piece in The Guardian.
“As her children, we didn’t comprehend the scale of her challenges because we never saw her complain, not even in private, about how she was held to a different standard just because she was a woman.”
Bilawal explained the obstacles Benazir faced as a woman leader when the country was deeply rooted in patriarchy following the conservative regime of General Ziaul Haq. “He imposed dictatorship, hanged my grandfather – the first democratically elected prime minister – on trumped-up charges, and brutalised Pakistani society under the most authoritarian regime our country has ever seen. He radicalised Pakistan to such an extent that we are still haunted by his actions today. So aggressive and pervasive was the misogyny that as a result of his extremist legislative rollbacks Pakistan became the first country on earth to revoke rights already granted to women.”
The PPP leader remembered the backlash his mother’s second pregnancy, also while in office, received. “Perhaps most controversially when she was pregnant with my sister, Bakhtawar, her prime ministership was challenged for that fact,” he recalled.
“There were calls for her dismissal, the setting up of a caretaker government because a pregnant woman had no right to be prime minister. It’s not like the constitution allowed for maternity leave.”
“My mother, being who she was, took this all in her stride with a smile on her face, had her baby in secret and was back at work the next day. For misogynists, no matter what women do, it was and is never good enough,” Bilawal wrote.
Recollecting her fight against former president General Pervez Musharraf, Bilawal wrote that she consistently fought for democracy, and advocated for the release of political prisoners including that of her husband, former president Asif Ali Zardari, who at that point had spent a collective 11-and-a-half years in prison without a conviction.
“All the while raising her children as a single mother, lecturing and giving speeches to make a living, making time to have a meal with us every day, taking us to the mosque every Friday, helping us with our homework, and much to our annoyance, never missing PTA meetings!” Bilawal recalled.
“Ultimately the forces of dictatorship and extremism robbed me of my mother but she lives on as a symbol of hope, a role model for women across the world. She proved beyond a doubt, with her life and relentless courage, that women can certainly do everything. While the political pygmies who opposed her will be forgotten, she lives on in history as a global icon,” he concluded.
Published in Daily Times, February 20th 2018.
