International Leadership Day
Benazir Bhutto, Former Prime Minister of Pakistan
Goteborg, Sweden – 25 November 1997
Honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen.
I wish to thank you for your kind invitation to speak before you today in Goteborg, and for your extraordinarily warm welcome. Sweden is a country with great significance to me. I was only the Second Prime Minister of Pakistan ever to visit your country. The first was my father, the late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who came here in 1976. Thankfully, our two nations have enjoyed extremely close and friendly relations for almost a half century. We in Pakistan will never forget that Sweden was the first Scandinavian country to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with Pakistan in 1949. I should also note that a significant number of Pakistanis have chosen Sweden as their second home. Seeing the beauty of Goteborg and the countryside surrounding it, and feeling the unique warmth and openness of your people, I can fully appreciate this choice.
Ladies and gentlemen, as many of you know, I am a daughter of the East who was educated and spent significant parts of my life in the West. In a sense, I am a bridge of two cultures, two worlds, two pasts.
As a child I attended a private school in Karachi, run by Catholic nuns, sheltered from much of the turmoil of early Pakistan, a shy and insulated girl. When I was but sixteen years old, my father determined I should not be denied the Islamic right of knowledge, and thus he sent me abroad for higher education, and I was admitted into America’s premier university, Harvard College.
All my life, and even spiritually to this day, it was my father who guided me, who mentored me, who encouraged me, who gave me the strength and confidence to express my views. His soul and his values are alive within me, wherever I go.
It is interesting that the person who insured that I would break lose of the constrains of my culture and gender, was not a woman, but a man. A very great and a very wise man. The man who was and is the greatest role model in my life — Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.
My travel to America when I was 16 was a true awakening. I walked into a very new world. I was alone for the first time in my life. The pampered child was suddenly cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing — independent and self-sufficient. I was exposed to the most brilliant and respected professors, to the most compelling ideas, to a demanding curriculum, to the most accomplished students in all of North America.
I was for the first time in my life living together with strangers, in a dormitory of peers, where I had to take care of myself but also participate in an intellectual village. It was the first time in my life that I was in an environment where women were treated as full participants in society in every way. I was also thrust into a political environment that was unlike anything I had ever known. I came to Harvard in 1969, at the heart of the Vietnam War, with our campus, and all of America, in political and social turmoil. In time, I, like many of my classmates, took to the streets, took to the barricades, demanding an end to an unjust war. And while I was in America for those four years, I participated and observed in a miracle of democracy — I saw the power of the people changing policies, changing leaders, and changing history.
It was that early experience, possibly more than anything else, that shaped my political being, that unalterably shaped my faith in democracy. From Harvard I spent almost four years in Oxford, where I became the first foreign woman to be elected as President of the Oxford Union. It was my first election, my first victory.
I had been told that as a foreigner, I could not win and should not run. I had been told that as a woman, I could not win, and should not run. I knew I could win, and I did.
Thus, I learned a valuable lesson: never acquiesce to obstacles, especially those that are constructed of bigotry, intolerance and blind, inflexible tradition. I also learned another critical lesson in life — to follow my own political instincts. I returned to Pakistan in 1977, hoping to pursue a career in the Foreign Service. I also had hoped I might become an editor. But circumstances would soon unfold that would dictate the path of the rest of my life and change the direction of the future of my country.
Within one week of my return from Oxford, a military coup toppled the elected democratic government of my father. Our house was surrounded by tanks. We did not know if we would live or die, if we would survive to see the dawn of the next day’s sun. A brutal, criminal dictator had overturned a free and fair election, imposed martial law, and suspended all constitutional rights within my country. My father was arrested, .released, re-arrested and finally hanged.
My party was targeted. Our leaders were murdered, tortured, imprisoned. The lucky ones went into exile. A political vacuum was created with the imprisonment of my Father and his colleagues. In this vacuum, I saw many members turn towards me to lead rallies, tour the country and seek a restoration of democracy.
I did not seek leadership, it was thrust upon me. Tragedy, political circumstances, and the forces of history rallied a nation around me. I was fortunate in my campaign to lead my nation, as my name was recognized throughout the country — and the same people who supported my Father’s vision of a modern Islamic democracy rallied around me to continue the struggle.
I was fortunate in that a political party with roots in all four federating units of the country presented me with a national platform from which to launch not only the struggle for democracy but my own political career. I also was fortunate that my father had provided me with a strong education, and the means to be conomically independent. This allowed me the time and resources to strengthen our political base.
Exposure to modern, liberal ideas and a liberal education in some of the best schools in the world certainly helped me in preparing to play the leader’s role. But it was the real, practical education which I received from my father, who took great interest in my upbringing and initiating me in debates on major contemporary issues, which prepared me most.
When I reflect on the road I have traveled, I recall my early aspirations to become an editor, and as mentioned, my interest in the Foreign Service – my intentions were never to become involved in politics. However, now I realize I had no control over the events which would quickly change my fate, and my course was no longer mine. I was catapulted into politics by the force of circumstance. When my father was executed, and the Party rudderless, I was called upon by the Party and the people to take charge and pursue the mission of my father for freedom and constitutional rule. The Pakistan Peoples Party provided me, a woman, the opportunity to lead the nation because the PPP had an enlightened, liberal message, proclaiming the equality of men and women.
This was not an easy task at a time when the military dictatorship insisted that a woman’s place was behind the house and behind the veil. And not in the work place However the different approach between our opponents and supporters on the role of women in a Muslim Society helped one in enlarging and co-opting a liberal constituency in a Muslim country where tradition and tribal customs had played a pre dominant role.
Many believe that South Asian women leaders have inherited leadership through assassination of loved ones in the family. The other part is that each of us had to win our badges of honors by paying a political price.
I paid that political price, spending nearly six years in one form of imprisonment or another, mostly in solitary confinement, in an all pervasive climate of fear and dread. Senior members of the party could not reconcile themselves to being led by “a chit of a woman” to use their phrase. Bruising battles for leadership continued with the youth and second tier of the leadership supporting me over the senior leaders.
The downside of a politics born of struggle was the inadequate exposure I, or my young supporters had, to the members and working of the elite and influential groups in the countries social and economic and administrative structure. Due to the dread of the mixing with the opposition, members of the business community, bureaucracy military and judiciary kept clear of me.
I had little experience of government, having not worked myself up the ladder as a democratic system allows. And this would remain a vulnerability when the party achieved power. However, I gained much experience in organizational and managerial matters in running the PPP, the nation’s largest and most popular party, against all obstacles.
However, I found that it was not easy for the elite groups to accept the woman as a leader, particularly one which, perforce to circumstances, they did not know my youth, went against me too. I remember, when I was elected my supporters were jubilant but not my opponents.
A leading religious scholars from a leading Muslim country issued an edict declaring that it was un-Islamic for a woman to become chief executive of a country. Members of the religious parties and conservative minded segments of the public embarked on a mission create a religious frenzy against the newly elected government.
Pamphlets were distributed claiming it was the religious duty of the country to assassinate me as I was a woman who had usurped a man’s place in an Islamic society. Several assassination attempts were made including one within the first month of my election at the Lahore airport. A group of scholars within the organization of Muslim countries embarked on an agenda of having Pakistan thrown out of the OIC because it had violated Islamic tradition by voting for a woman. Luckily I learnt of this plan and pre-empted it.
The removal of the government was branded a religious mission from the ++++++++++++. Every Friday, from the mosques, sermons were given inciting the people to overthrow the government. However, having a popular base meant having the popular support. We proved in Pakistan that the barriers of tradition could be broken. We proved in Pakistan that a woman could be elected chief executive in a Muslim country. It was a victory for women every where especially Muslim women.
And although my opponents fulminated, calling me an Indian agent and Israeli agent, the people supported me. In November of 1988 my party was swept into office and I was sworn in as the first Muslim woman to head a government anywhere in the world. I was 35 years old. We immediately embarked on an ambitious program of political liberalization, an end to press censorship, legalization of trade unions, a commitment to the long neglected social sector with emphasis on education, health delivery and women’s rights, and macroeconomic reform.
Despite the peoples support, after just 20 months, the entrenched Establishment that had supported the dictatorship, that had refused to bow to the people’s will, toppled my government, acting under the cover and distraction of Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. However, the new government brought in by the security apparatus of the country fail to give Pakistan stability. It launched bitter battle of persecution against its political opponents. The result was that anarchy and chaos gripped the Nation. Pakistan was on the threshold of being declared a terrorist state and our economy was on the verge of collapse. My party did not lose its faith in one nor did I lose my faith in politics or the people of my country. Within the three years I was re-elected a Prime Minister of Pakistan.
In reflection, I realized that being a leader in a large developing country that had been stifled by the forces of dictatorship was difficult in itself. But being a woman made the task even more formidable. I faced greater challenges than I could have ever imagined. It is not easy being a woman in Pakistan, and in many ways in Sweden. Still more difficult is being a woman politician, a woman parliamentarian, in our two countries. Moreover, for women leaders, the obstacles are greater, the demands are greater, the barriers are greater, and the double standards are greater.
And ultimately, the expectations of those who look at us as role models are greater as well. For all women, it is critical that we succeed. Unfortunately, there are still many men who would just as soon have us fail, to reinforce their myopic stereotypes restricting the role of women.
I recall with great empathy the words of Lady Margaret Thatcher, who once said:
“If a woman is tough, she is pushy. If a man is tough, gosh, he’s a great leader.”
How often, in Pakistan, Sweden, all over the world, we have heard characterizations of women in politics as pushy, as aggressive, as cunning, as shrewd, as strident. These words, if applied to men in politics, would be badges of honour! Those of us who have chosen to serve in business, government and other professional careers have broken new ground.
We have broken glass ceilings, we have broken the stereotypes, and we have been and continue to be prepared to go the extra mile, to be judged by unrealistic standards, to be held more accountable. Therefore, women leaders have to outperform, outdistance and out manage men at every level.
We should not shrink from this responsibility, we should welcome it. Welcome it on behalf of women all over the world, in cities and rural villages, in the great universities and those still struggling under the miasma of illiteracy. For all who have suffered before, and for all who come after us, we are privileged to be in this special position, in this special time, with unique opportunities to change our countries, our continents, to change the world and inevitably change the future.
I have not found that there are any male leaders who will agree there are differences in styles between male and female leaders. But we female leaders, and I speak from my conversations with other women leaders, believe that female leaders are stronger and more determined. I personally believe that women leaders are more generous and more forgiving. Male leaders tend to be more inflexible, and more rigid. However, ironically, I have met many male leaders who feel that women leaders are actually more rigid.
Male leaders can learn from female counterparts how to keep people together. Women leaders have a tradition and an historical legacy of bringing up families and creating a sense of family community and unity.
Women have a greater natural and inherent strength in keeping a team united and this is what men leaders need to from women leaders. I asked a male leader what we female leaders could learn from them and he replied in a simple word “intrigues”. Men know how to intrigue and women are not so good at intrigues.
Just as men and women can learn from one another, so can leaders from different cultures, regions and religions. We in East, feel that there are greater complexities in the politics of the East than there are politics of the West. The leaders in the West can therefore learn from the leaders in the East how to deal with more unstructured and complex social, economic and political realities. In leading people from different cultures, a leader has to keep in view and have a sensitivity toward the values of different cultural groups and make sure that the different cultural groups feel that their cultural values and mores remain intact.
A leader must also strengthen the common points to bind the different cultures together. He or she must make pluralistic diversity into a mosaic that is strengthened, not weakened, by differences amongst our people. In the West, people often take free choice, free speech, and human rights for granted, as a matter of right. In the East, the leaders have not only had to battle the different political parties, but also resist the entrenched establishment.
Since many countries in the East have had long experiences of military dictatorships, their security apparatus is strong and often resists change. Civil/military relations is something that the East and West can learn from each other. I have been asked what political leaders from the West can learn from the East? The west needs to appreciate that the East, and I speak of the Muslim Nations in the East, or part of the same Judaic, Christian Civilization.
Ours is a religion that sanctifies Abraham, Moses and Jesus as Prophets. When the Jews were being persecuted all over Europe, it is within the Islamic societies that they sought sanctuary…and they were welcomed as brothers and sisters, to live free and prosperous. This is the history of Islam. This is the reality of Islam.
Secondly, I would ask leaders in the West, not to think of the people of the East as terrorists or fanatics. No doubt there are extremists in each society in each country. However, it is the misfortune of Information Age that while we think we have more information for each other in fact we have less. The reason we have less knowledge is that the Information Age broadcast the extreme rather than the mainstream.
The mainstream in the East is very much the mainstream in the West if not more so. The mainstream in the East is grounded in faith, in family, in our dreams for the future. I have attempted, throughout my career, to combine the best of many cultures, the richness of disparate experiences, to build for my people the ability to compete and thrive in the challenging new technological era. Introducing the world of modern communication into Pakistan was one of the goals of my party.
We heralded the information revolution by introducing fax machines, digital pagers, optic fiber, cellular telephones, satellite dishes, internet, the e-mail and even CNN into Pakistan. As a political activist I noted with deep interest the politics of de-regulation introduced by Western Leaders, primarily management in Europe. And I took these lessons from the West to the East. Pakistan became one of the first countries to embark on de-regulation. We introduced the concept of privatization in our manifesto of 1988 and piloted the bill for privatization through the Parliament. We broke the dominance of public sector units and gave an impetus to the private sector. Within a decade Pakistan has been transformed. Today we have a burgeoning private sector and entrepreneurs that consist of both men and women. I was proud of Pakistan when under my leadership of de-regulation, Pakistan integrated into the global economy and became one of the ten emerging capital markets of the world.
In modernizing our economy we learnt much from the West: introducing private sector financial institutions, computerizing the stock market and in Central Revenues Department, making the State Bank autonomous and reforming the Corporate Law Authority.
Talking of the qualities of a leader which he/she must posses I think a leader should have the qualities of always talking the truth and to live by a moral value system. Indeed these are the qualities I would like my children to inculcate. I once had a fight with one of my political colleagues when he said there were not ten but eleven commandments. I asked what was the eleventh commandment. “Well”, he said, “the ten commandments are thou shall not do all these things and the eleventh is thou shall do all these things unless caught”. I said that may be a very male view but that was not a woman’s world view and we had a big argument. A leader must also have this additional quality of remaining in touch with people. To feel for them and with them. That is an essential quality a leader. On Role Model For any Muslim the greatest role model from which to seek guidance is the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). Although it is difficult to identify a single role model from which I seek political guidance, my father late Zulfqar Ali Bhutto has always inspired me. He gave me self-confidence and dignity and I learnt from him how to stand firm in adversity. He was a great man and today I am because of my father and not because of anybody else. I have succeeded because my father lived up to the Islamic tenets and made no discrimination between his sons and daughters. At the tender age of 16 he sent me to the best universities of the world, believing his daughter must not be denied the Islamic right of knowledge. It was my father who inspired me and encouraged me, gave me the strength and confidence to express my views. And he always believed that his daughter would one day be Prime Minister, when such a thing was unheard of in the Muslim world. My greatest support as a leader has come from the people of Pakistan and the political party I lead. I have a great sense of achievement for what my government has been able to accomplish for the women and the downtrodden, for what we have been able to do for the poor and the less fortunate segments of the society like the minorities. Faith in the people and the justness of the cause which we have propounded has been a great support which has sustained us in difficult times.
On the Conference Theme The conference theme “Want to change, dare to lead” means a great deal to me. Whenever asked as to how I wish to be remembered, my answer has been that I wished to be remembered as a person who made a difference——and a difference for the better. Wanting to change the lives of our people has been my dream, my passion. I am happy to recall that at least in one area namely the life of women in Pakistan, I have been able to bring about a meaningful and positive change. The conference them “Want to change, dare to lead” is therefore close to my heart and my own thinking.
Ladies and gentlemen, our generation stands at the door way of history. Not only the door way of a new century, but the doorway of a new millennium. And as we prepare ourselves to meet this century, this new millennium, I believe we need to clearly understand the challenges that still await us and await the century.
It is up to us, all of us, to determine the moral parameters of that new era — the coming decade, the coming century, the coming millennium.
Ladies and gentlemen,
In just 766 days, we will witness only for the third time in recorded history the momentous turning of the millennium. Where and what will we be, at that extraordinary moment, when the huge ball drops and the year 2000 lights up the winter sky?
Will we be prisoners of the mind-set of the past, or will we be liberated to the endless possibilities of an historic future? Our generation, the first in recorded history, is fundamentally empowered with the control of its own destiny. The chains of the past — colonialism, ignorance, dictatorship and sexism — are broken.
The world has finally accepted, in the words of Robert Browning, that “ignorance is not innocence, but sin.”
We must persevere and not be intimidated by fear, not constrained by obstacles. I remember the last words of my father to me, writing to me from his death cell, quoting Robert F. Kennedy on Tennyson:
“Every generation has a central concern, whether to end war, erase racial injustice, or improve the conditions
of working people. They demand a government that speaks directly and honestly to its citizens.
The possibilities are too great, the stakes too high, to bequeath to the coming generation only the prophetic lament of Tennyson:
‘Ah, what shall I be at fifty…If I find the world so bitter at twenty-five.”
I remember my father’s words. I will not be afraid. I will continue to speak, to fight, to help build a newer world. What will that world be?
Ladies and gentlemen, I see a Third Millennium where the gap between rich and poor states evaporates, where illiteracy and hunger and malnutrition are conquered.
I see a Third Millennium where human rights are universal, and self-determination unabridged anywhere on the planet.
I see a Third Millennium where civil dialogue is restored, where consensus and comity once again guide the national and international debate.
I see a Third Millennium where people’s trust in government is restored, and government gets on with the business of addressing the pressing needs of the people.
I see a Third Millennium where every child is planned, wanted, nurture and supported.
I see a Third Millennium of tolerance and pluralism, where religions respect other religions.
I see a Third Millennium where the birth a girl child is welcomed with the same joy as the birth of a boy.
This is the Third Millennium I see for Pakistan, and for Sweden. For my children, and for yours.
If we fail, we will have only ourselves to blame.
For the crutches of history are gone. We walk on our own.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.