RAVE - Bhutto

I know many people would rather watch Joey re-runs than sit through a 2-hour documentary on Pakistan's equivalent of Boudicca and Margaret Thatcher rolled into one: Benazir Bhutto. But this was totally absorbing coverage of mostly recent history.

The Bhutto family has, for good or bad, attempted to rule Pakistan like a royal family.

Benazir Bhutto's father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was removed from office following a military coup in 1977 led by the then army chief General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who imposed martial law, charged Mr. Bhutto with conspiring to murder the father of an opposition politician, and then had him sentenced to death and hanged in April, 1979.

Zia-ul-Haq was one of the slimiest pieces of work ever to hold office. Allegedly.

Bearing in mind the way he treated his country and people, and the Bhutto family in particular, one exchange in the film made me gasp. He was asked by a BBC reporter what he had to say about Benazir Bhutto having challenged him to an election. "Chivalry prevents me from challenging a woman" he answered. Priceless.

Zia-ul-Haq was killed by members of his own army, in 1988, and Benazir Bhutto was elected prime minister.

Her government was brought down, she was imprisoned, then exiled, then returned to power, then overthrown again, exiled again, and upon returning to Pakistan in December, 2007 she was assassinated.

While she was undoubtedly a strong personality and charismatic leader, and while the documentary painted her in the brightest possible light, she was a long way from perfect.

The ensuing late supper and Stoli at Max's Opera Cafe was peppered with assertions from Mrs Page that all of Pakistan's and India's problems were caused by the British, so I beat her with a rolled up copy of The Times and and we retired.

We'll be discussing The Irish Problem next week, and I'll probably settle that one with a copy of The Belfast Gazette.