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Love Her, Hate HerAnne Applebaum takes readers' questions and comments about Benazir Bhutto.


Posted Thursday, Jan. 3, 2008, at 3:06 PM ET

Slate and Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum was online on Washingtonpost.com on Thursday, Jan. 3, to discuss the Western world's admiration for Benazir Bhutto and the opposite feelings she inspired in Pakistan. An unedited transcript of the chat follows.

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Anne Applebaum: I don't think she's exactly being painted as a saint, but it is true that her articles and speeches about bringing democracy to Pakistan have impressed a lot of people over the years. And since, from our American point of view, her views on democracy are more important than her family's corruption, we don't pay any attention to the latter whatsoever. Which is wrong, obviously, as I said in my original column.

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Freising, Germany: I've been reading for a while that free and fair elections in Pakistan would help curb the influence of extremists and Taliban connected militants. After the brutal bombing during Benazir Bhutto's homecoming parade and her subsequent assassination, I wonder if the genie hasn't been let out of the bottle in Pakistan, and that more than fair elections will be required to contain, circumvent or decrease the violent intentions of the militants. Have you heard any plausible strategies for Pakistan, or is it still too early to tell what influence the assassination will have?

Anne Applebaum: I would be careful about implying that democratic elections have 'let the genie out of the bottle' and destabilized a previously stable regime. Usually it is undemocratic systems that create frustration, militancy and fanaticism, the true sources of instability. Of course more than fair elections will be needed now to contain them, but reverting to an authoritarian status quo won't necessarily help either.

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New York: Indira Gandhi was Nehru's daughter, not Mahatma Gandhi's! But anyway, I liked your rather nuanced piece. I'm in Pakistan right now, and it seems Bhutto did no wrong, ever. I dread Zardari's coming in. There's a good piece in the New Yorker about Benazir Bhutto's contradictions. I do think that the idea one gets of B.B. from within the country is very different from the one one gets from without. And I am sorry, but going to Harvard and Oxford doesn't make her a better person, stateswoman or leader. She ran the country like a fiefdom, the corruption charges against Zardari are not baseless, and many were betrayed by her when she first came to power. She didn't do enough. She didn't use her power to do good. She was not the great hero of democracy she was made out to be, especially by Western analysts.

washingtonpost.com: Bhutto and the Candidates (New Yorker, Jan. 7 edition)

Anne Applebaum: OK, to everybody who has now written that Indira was Nehru's daughter: I did in fact know that, in some part of my brain—I have even read his letters to her from prison, albeit long ago. When one is typing fast, live, one makes mistakes, apologies. This is why the MSM is right to go on about the importance of editors.
And yes, you are right, going to Harvard and Oxford didn't make her a better person—but it did make her easier for Western elites to understand her and feel comfortable with her. This is not an excuse, it's an explanation for why her foreign reputation was so much better than the one at home.

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Dallas: Did Benazir has say that she would allow NATO to control Pakistani nukes and the Pakistan/Afghanistan border? Musharraf supporters are spreading rumors that she was killed becaused of such promises to the West.

Anne Applebaum: If she did, she didn't tell me about it. Sounds unlikely, since even if she made such a promise, I'm not sure why anyone would believe that she would keep it.

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Midlothian, Va.: How much of the negativity towards Bhutto was related to her being a woman?

Anne Applebaum: I don't think her feminity was the source of most dislike for Bhutto—from what I understand, her family's wealth and hints of corruption were far more controversial. Though I'm sure it didn't help her win many votes among the Pakistani Taliban supporters

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Washington: American feminist organizations have been conspicuously silent on Bhutto's assassination—and her legacy as a woman on the world stage. What do you make of that?

Anne Applebaum: For complicated reasons, bound up with their fear of white/Western imperialism, American feminists are generally very silent on the fate of women especially in "developing" and Muslim countries—even Saudi Arabia. I've written about this once or twice in recent columns, but the best essay on the subject was by Cristina Sommers, in the Weekly Standard, a few months ago.

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Atlanta: I served in the Embassy New Delhi when Bhutto was Prime Minister, and our general impression was that she was a poor leader, had a tendency to turn on India for political convenience (no matter the danger to peace) and was married to a kleptocrat. Given this, aren't we well-served by a delay in the elections to cool tension? By the way, Indira was Nehru's daughter; the Mahatma's kids generally stayed out of the limelight.

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Anne Applebaum is a weekly foreign affairs columnist for Slate and the Washington Post. Previously she was political editor for the Evening Standard and deputy editor for the Spectator magazine, both in London, and was Warsaw correspondent for the Economist. She is the author of Gulag: A History—for which she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize—and Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe.
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