5th Benazir Bhutto Memorial Lecture

Listening to Bilawal Bhutto Zardari give the Fifth  Benazir Bhutto Memorial Lecture was poignant.  As he stood in the debating chamber where Benazir had made history by becoming the third woman and the first female Muslim to become President of the Union – before she went on to make even more history by becoming the first female Prime Minister of a Muslim nation –  Bilawal emphasised her courage and bravery, using the word ‘good’ to sum up her many extraordinary qualities.  Gesturing to her portrait which hangs on the wall in the debating chamber, he continued by describing the challenges and dangers his mother had faced throughout her life.  It was both moving and  tragic to comprehend that the reason he was giving the lecture was because of  his mother’s assassination in December 2007, which had led him to take up her political mantle, just as she had taken up her father’s political mantle when he too was removed prematurely from Pakistan’s political scene in 1979. He concluded by  suggesting that some people might think him ‘mad’ to follow in her footsteps. ‘But then I am Benazir Bhutto’s son,’ he said emphatically.  Throughout I’d watched him speak with mixed feelings.  Having witnessed his political journey from the nervous first year undergraduate at Christ Church, when, aged only 19,  he had addressed his first press conference following his mother’s assassination, to the confident orator he has become, I felt pride at the politician he now is, saddened at the circumstances which had led him to enter politics and concerned at the hard road ahead. I was again reminded of Benazir’s immortal words: ‘I didn’t choose this life, it chose me.’

Victoria Schofield, Lady Margaret Hall,  ex President, TT 1977; Chair, OLDUT

Author of  The Fragrance of Tears; my friendship with Benazir Bhutto

Photos by Roger Askew