Dear Riaz I write to thank you for remembering my birthday. The good wishes contained in the message mean a lot to me. Although there is sadness at observing such a significant milestone in the journey of life in exile, I am happy to know that your support is with me through this time. Thank you again for the prayers and good wishes and for remembering me on this day.
Benazir Bhutto
The story of Benazir from Marvi of Malir and Shah Latif by Benazir Bhutto for June 21, 2003
When the world was still to be born
When Adam was still to receive his form
Then my relationship began
When I heard the Lord’s voice
A voice sweet and clear
I said “yes” with all my heart
And formed a bond with the land
I love when all of us were one
My bond then began
An exile now by destiny
I am nearer home than the bear of my heart I wonder:
when will I be free To return to Larkana From dust to dust Loved ones return
To what they were
When will I walk home from Arab lands To my own sweet Motherland.
Waiting for news in dreams and day
Waiting for messengers in dreams and day
When will the message come
Taking me from here to there
I want the answer to my heart
I want to pass God’s test Strands of white my hair now shows
My face is gaunt with sadness
I to my people want to go
I came in the winter of repression
I pray to return in better times
Like the joy of a seasonal rain
The peoples support
I will reclaim.
Almighty God, Let Mother’s sickness not worsen in exile
Trapped in a mind wanting to forget
A heart weeping for young sons killed
O let Mother first her homeland see O where is my husband gone?
His life’s prime and his grace?
Prison Walls confine him
Court rooms frustrate him
Judges are frightened
Courage has fled
Salaries are more important
Than honour for which men gave lives
Each day
I smile for the world,
For my children and my self
They ask: when can we return?
I speak of justice fled
From hearts of men
Into the breasts of beasts
I think of the poor people
They deserve a better fate
Than the military conqueror’s boots
The sweet lands lie parched
For water people pray
The crops perish
The cattle die
The stoves grow cold
As labour is sent home
Yet the lust for land grows
Plazas and Plots for the elite lot
Government homes too
Not one but two All on starving backs of people robbed
Fair Pakistan’s face is blotted
Mug shots and finger prints are demanded
Worshippers live in fear and dread
Tenants are ejected
Soldiers in snows abandoned
The poets in the mountains and the deserts Speak of another time
When the country and the individual had respect Before the Benazir Government left
Students study with faces drawn
Wondering when they will be free
Of the fear of unemployment and poverty
Their jobs retired military favorites take
One pension is too little for some
One state, two jobs, two salaries and two pensions
For retired Khaki specials
Democracy is for those in Mufti Dictatorship the dream of Generals in Khaki
The British left last century
Their space the Khaki filled
The Father died too quickly
In an ambulance in Karachi
One day the tyrants will depart
Public opinion will set us free
There will be dancing in the streets, Music and song
As people rejoice in their destiny Larkana, Loved-one,
I remember
The sweet scent of roses
Of fresh rain on desert sand
Of trees washed by nature’s hand
Away I live in a mansion grand
But I long to campaign
On rocky roads
In bumpy jeep rides
With flags and banners
With selfless zeal to change
The sad present
Into a smiling future
I want to breathe the breath Of home, a breath both fair and fine
My spirit is in one place
My body in another
My mind torn asunder
The Elections were so Unfair Made of Broken Promises Billions spent in marketing
A dictatorship as a democracy That too unsuccessfully.
The European Union called Foul
So did the Office of the Commonwealth Boxes were filled
Ballots torn Peoples verdict shorn
By cowards masquerading as patriots
The presidential palace is ugly
In a land with widespread poverty
Parliament has yet to dress itself With Constitutional power
The phoenix rises from the ashes
Peoples Power will be born again
I will build for the children of the poor
Centres of learning Provide the aged and the young Dignity, hope and security
We will raise buildings
Where there are deserts
And stop the weeping of the women of the land Cry not
These days of despots will soon go
Just as other despots did Memory forever recalls Quaid e Awam
The sword of truth
Who gave his life
So we could live
With legal rights and economic security
With knowledge and Opportunity With representation and success
With peace and with progress
His name will forever shine
Who can forget him
That historical memory embraces Forever in its folds.
He who wore threads of fine gold
Tore them for prison cells
He who slept in silken sheets and fed with silver spoons
Threw them aside for the darkness of the death cell
The rulers offer comfort In return they demand conscience
Don’t offer comfort
To history’s children
To the brave and the bold
The Kurds fought for decades
The Kashmiris do too
The Palestinians refused to surrender In every continent In every era
The brave and the bold Carved history with their bare hands
One has might
The other right One has the sword
The other the pen Guns rust and fall apart Ideas live forever
Tyrant: do not offer comfort
Comfort leaves me cold
Much dearer do
I hold Marvi’s ancestral shawl
Symbol of our Treasure
From Marvi
I learnt
From past mystic saints
From my dear brother Shah
I learnt
That handsome youth who fought another tyrant?
That Were I to breathe my last, living Away from the home
I loved
My body won’t imprison me.
Shah returned home while his soul went free
No stranger to the soil
Embracing his body in death
Making it part of the legends of our land
When his last breath came
We carried him to the hidden coolness of the desert sand
Pride and sadness mixed in our hearts
Swaying emotions
Knowing that his life was given
For a clear cause of liberation
From a Dictator’s occupation
We buried him lovingly
In the land that was his
In a sea of people
That loved him
For his life
And for his death
Killed: and yet the struggle lived
The cranes fly to their native hills
My heart longs to fly with them
Invisible chains
Hold me prisoner
The wounds of the past
Fester again
As I see people denied rights
Denied opportunities
Youth looking for hope
Democracy separated from the polity
Dictatorship cuts cruelly to the bone
Undermining the economy
Undermining the society
Introducing suicide
Economic suicide for those too poor to live
Political suicide for asymmetric warfare
Joy left when the stove turned cold
Joy fled when the church and hospital blew
Some sent messages
To forget about politics
To leave the people
To find happiness
They thought it foolish
That the weight of persecution
Could be borne
With a Mother ill
And children small
With the pain of exile Of a husband separated by prison walls.
They thought it generous
To offer freedom for abandonment
The abandonment of a people, of a land Of a struggle, of a dream Of principles and of conscience
I thought it wrong
I know
I will return
On a wave of peoples support Led by the bravest Party of them all
A Party of martyrs
A Party of struggle
A Party that serves
A Party of the people
My enemies wish
I never was born
For them it was a torture and a shame
That I became
The first woman leader of a Muslim State Crumbling centuries of control Triumphantly proclaiming The equality of men and women The pristine message of Islam Hidden under prejudice and discrimination Destiny’s hand moves on Writing its own tale Of triumph and tragedies, Of wars and peace, Of bombs pulverising houses Above the stench of death Life begins again The tide of sorrow turns The sea of happiness awaits The patient pray and persevere Loved ones parted meet Prisoners are freed Fresh ones take their places Or flee Destiny’s moving finger writes on Seasons change Realities change The rest is a test Better a life of test Than a worthless life of rest The land reclaims its own When the dead die They live again Becoming part of a land Centuries old Holding secrets Of great civilisations Of heroes and heroines of bygone times Shaping history and heritage Shaping culture Shaping the future Time begins Time ends We decide What to do with time Remember the poor and the wretched Remember the desperate and the hopeful Remember God’s sacred trust The children of the land Do not let your conscience die For Power and Pride The scent of the homeland Wafts through the ocean air Through continents Its insistent call A reverberating sound Through sunset and dawn Calling Through walls Calling Through mountains Seeking to reclaim Its own To my dear ones I say Worry not Shed no tears Bear no regrets These days will pass After night comes day After sorrow comes joy The daughters of the desert know That Destiny Cannot Chain The dream of a people free Where human rights And economic rights Break the prisons of poverty Break the dungeons of disease The repression of retrenchment The despair of downsizing The evil of unemployment Prisons hold Those that defy dictators Those that pay the price for freedom Knowing the chains holding liberty will break That the desert men Will write of desert courage Of integrity, loyalty and unity Baptised in suffering That a desert maid Will return home Hear the wind It carries the message: Of dictators that came and went Of tyrants now particles in the sands of times How many armies came and went How much blood was shed Conquests proclaimed Kingdoms fell; Tyrants too The desert sands speak The desert winds whisper Truth will triumph The desert maid will return Travellers travel bringing news Of political developments, I hear of miseries Of families without income Of fear of hunger I hear And my own suffering retreats Days pass Life passes I am shackled To the dream of democracy Unhappy are the days Far from Malir and Multan Far from Mardan and Makran My countrymen are far No one can reproach them For they stand strong As the October elections showed One day I will recall these days And forget the pain One day I will recall these days When political storms roared When thundering threats filled the air One day I will recall these days Knowing my commitment to my land Was purified and sustained. I think of those exiled from their homelands In Los Angeles, London, Dubai Of the days they pass Some in despair, Some in frustration Some with determination The seasons change My face with them Theirs too Will my fellow villagers recognise A face Reflecting the seasons of fate Night falls The world sleeps Darkness fills the air I raise both my hands And ask my children To raise their little hands Marvi, of Maru and Malir, In the mists of time She raised her hands While the world slept To God Full of hope Praying to see her homeland Marvi, We raise our hands As you raised yours To God In hope For the homeland I was born in Buried my Father Buried my brother Married Had my children Served a Nation Helped a people Without telephone or electricity Computers or emails Polio drops or iodine Enter the modern age But the bullets were fired Piercing my tall and handsome Brother His precious blood on the pavement fell Where once we walked The angels came And took him away To my Father and my Brother As the Martyrs watched In July we met His warm embrace I recall In the chandeliered Prime Minister’s Hall His special goodbye as he left His voice on the phone When we talked As family members do The phone came It spoke of bullets fired Of Murtaza wounded I took a plane With Holy Book in Hand To the Hospital where he lay God, do not take The brother that I love It was too late He was gone Again I buried a brother The killers buried the Government Husband was imprisoned Tiny children exiled With ailing grandmother Midnight raids and imprisonment Torture and terror Perjury and Perversion Billions spent on false cases On propaganda Psy war and special operations On a Mother Courts calliberated With different orders Caught flights daily From one to the other Lahore to Rawalpindi Then to Karachi The persecutors fell In divine retribution The military marched In Hear the wind It carries the sound Of horses that galloped Of caravans that came Of tanks that rumbled Of planes that flew Before the torch of time Was passed As history’s pendulum swung The desert wind calls Marvi calls A timeless call A call The desert wind carries. Children: Hear the desert wind Hear it whisper Have faith We will win.
Posted by Pixy Journalist 