Orville W. Taylor

Never mind the last name and derisive statements that have been made about our local political heroine. That is not where the similarity lies. The comparison between the present tragedy in Pakistan and Jamaica is closer than that between a Japanese used car and a Benz.

It is a tragedy of the worst sort: a woman murdered and leaving three juvenile children and a bereaved husband. Were it an ordinary citizen, it would have still been calamitous. However, it is even more catastrophic that it is a former head of government, and a very popular one at that.

Pakistan is not an 'original' country. Its native black population was colonised by a set of Germanic people around 3,000 years ago, and a class system based on colour created. When it was made into a British colony as part of India in the 1700s, the old cleavages of skin colour and ideological domination were reinforced and reinterpreted, with the white minority on top. This model the British used with success in the Caribbean and Africa.

As is common in colonial strategies, ethnic unification was not necessarily encouraged, because a people divided are much easier to dominate and control. Pakistan is not all that different from Jamaica. As 'democracies' go, it is relatively young, and has been independent for only 60 years. After all, when we were semi-independent and far more democratic than it, in 1944, when we got Universal Adult Suffrage, it was still grappling with its internal and external governance.

Ultimate objective

While Jamaica struggled for its independence through a series of violent outbreaks in 1919 and 1938, it was never about toppling legitimate authority. For Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi, the charismatic leader in the struggle, the ultimate objective was to have a united independent state in the Indus Valley.

Gandhi, described as the 'Father of the Nation' of India, managed to achieve his goal before his assassination in 1948. However, independence brough divisions rather than national unity. So bitter the chasm was between the Hindus and Muslims, that it was impossible to keep the new nation together. Thus, on independence, two nations were formed from one set of people with a deep 5,000-year history; India with the Hindus and Pakistan for the Muslims.

For Jamaicans, Independence was a matter of forming political parties. Yet, here the similarities return. After, a united front in 1938, with the formation of the People's National Party, the labour movement divided and the Jamaica Labour Party was born in 1943. Since then, there has been no peace in paradise. By the 1970s, the country had such a schism that Labourites and Comrades were mortal enemies. Guns were provided for supporters and at the peak of political tribalism, some 800 Jamaicans were sacrificed on th of the Prophet Joshua and 'profitable' Eddie. In that era, there were two apprentices; an aspiring grass-roots charismatic, and a young driver of a green omnibus.

Just before Jamaica descended into its undeclared civil war of the 1970s, Pakistan had formed its Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in 1967. The leader was Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and it was a middle-to-upper-middle-class organisation, with many foreign-university trained members, just like the PNP. Coincidentally, the flag of the PPP is identical in colour to Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, and its initials are the same as his own PPP, founded in 1929. Bhutto led the country from 1971 to 1979.

Still, this democratic socialist party was not without opposition and members of the military overthrew him via a coup led by General Muhammad Zia ul Haq. He became head of state without the need to dismiss any commission, or the approval of Parliament, and subsequently executed Bhutto in 1979.

Youngest and first female Islamic leader

Young Benazir Bhutto became leader of the party as a 25-year-old and at 35 in 1988, became both the youngest and first female head of an Islamic state. If Jamaica was never completely ready for a female prime minister, imagine a Muslim country. Yet, she lasted two years, before being booted in 1990, only to return in 1993 to again be removed in 1996. Amid allegations of corruption, scandals, incompetence of her ministers and money disappearing to foreign banks, her popularity waned and she went into exile. Many thought that she spent too much time thinking that PPP was her own and became power-drunk. Furthermore, too many of the wrong people were in her inner circle.

The Pakistan that she ran from became a more dangerous place, headed by a military dictator, who has nuclear weapons. He dismissed the judiciary because it refused to bow to him, silenced the press, and arrested thousands of dissidents, including cricket legend Imran Khan, who the last time I asked for him, he was still 'not out'."

Pakistan shares borders with al-Qaida-infected Afghanistan and is difficult to police. Islamic extremists, who reject Western lifestyles, the U.S.A. and its allies, and females having political power, are known to be spreading within the country and are gaining support. Most important, they are far better armed than a decade ago and they do not value their own lives. Sounds like home, doesn't it?

Then she returned in October and within a few days, an attempt was made on her life, with more than 100 of her supporters killed. Undeterred, and disregarding all warnings, this 'ears-hard' woman pushed her luck and peered out of the moon roof of an armoured vehicle. It was a fatal error that literally blew up in her face.

Thankfully, we have not got there yet, but there is enough cause to be concerned. In 2008, let us unite because it could happen here.

Dr. Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work at the UWI, Mona.