Dec 2 when first woman PM of a Muslim country sworn in

ISLAMABAD: December 2, marks a date twenty nine years ago when the world saw its first woman Muslim prime minister and that too from Pakistan.
What a long, long time it has been.
On December 2, 1988, 35-year-old Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as the first woman prime minister of a Muslim country. As she walked into the hall of the President House in Islamabad, clad in a green satin dress with her signatory white chiffon dupata, she looked nervously at her mother sitting in the front row.
Begum Nusrat Bhutto, gazed at her lovingly and remarked softly, “But she is so young.” Her daughter was the youngest head of a state worldwide.
Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi was standing next to me as we witnessed history being made and looking around there were many moist eyes, people trying to hold back their tears.
Benazir Bhutto was like that. Turbulent decades later in 2007, the people wept once again but this time no one tried to hide their tears.
Today nearly a decade later, it’s the end of 2017, and driving onto the Expressway to Islamabad after a virtual self-exile in Rawalpindi for nearly a month as a “religious” party complete with thugs, held sway at Faizabad and blocked entrances, I was greeted with the sight of huge flags of the Pakistan People’s Party on the Expressway.
After the pandemonium, chaos and anarchy and some of the worst hate speeches ever heard in the history of Pakistan of these past a few weeks, the PPP’s red, black and green fluttering on the high poles, looked refreshingly inviting.
It’s been quite a while since we saw this political flag on the Expressway and even the billboards with images of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Nusrat Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto and Bilawal Bhutto brought a smile to my lips.
The festive look that the PPP has put up on the roads leading to the capital is to celebrate the 50th Golden Jubilee Foundation Day of a party which in an earlier era gave hope to millions of Pakistanis. But this sadly is in the past tense.
Former special correspondent of The News, Nusrat Javeed sums up the freshness and appeal of the PPP as Bilawal Bhutto takes centre stage who is such a welcome and fresh sight compared to the weary Nawaz Sharif’s and Imran Khan’s on the political scene.
“He told me in an interview that it was time that the politics of rage was over,” Nusrat quotes him.
In fact, Bilawal echoed the views of thousands of sane Pakistanis when he remarked the other day, “Hum bohat thak gain hain”.
“It was demoralising for my entire generation in the last a few days to see the writ of the state erode, to see the abject surrender of the state, to see the rule of law made a mockery of, to see the freedom of press strangled, but now I want to give a message to all the forces that enough is enough and let the country move ahead,” he said while addressing a press conference at the Zardari House here on the eve of the 50th Foundation Day of the PPP.
Salute to the person or persons who is tutoring Bilawal in politics but compared to the continuing rhetoric being heard for nearly five years from around the country this young gentleman’s statements are music to one’s ears.
Though it would be unfair to compare him to his mother when she was at this age as the circumstances were very different for Benazir, but it has to be said that this new star on PPP’s horizon has a very sound head on his shoulders.
Not surprisingly, there are shades of Bhutto and Benazir when he speaks at jalsas and his improved Urdu together with the accent puts us Pushtuns to shame!
Together with Mian Raza Rabbani, Aitzaz Ahsan and Farhatullah Babar a few names in the long list of PPP’s uncompromising brave hearts, one wonders whether in 2018 the PPP still has a chance.
As the powers to be, get into action to club alliances and bring forth old tired faces some even from proscribed groups into elections 2018, the PPP as we speak today does not have a chance.
As the government sends the PPP a long list of no loudspeaker, no political speeches, no fireworks etc etc as the party readies for a jalsa at Parade Ground next week, on December 5, one is reminded of Ghulam Ishaq Khan, a former scheming army chief and hostile bureaucracy of the eighties and those that followed them who also had a pathological hatred for a party which today is being celebrated from Khyber to Karachi.
Senator Sherry Rehman said it all in a tweet, “How does this constitute a jalsa permission? Silent gathering? Seriously.”
To those that see the PPP as a threat one can only say, “Kiya hum aap kay saath nahi hain?”