Benazir Bhutto Quotes and sayings

Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007) a Muslim country was the first democratically elected female leader during a tumultuous life that ended with her assassination. Bhutto took over as chairperson of the PPP in 1982, the daughter of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) founder and Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.  Bhutto spent several years in exile in London after her two stints as prime minister in the 1990s ended early amid charges of corruption. With plans to participate in the 2008 general election, she returned to Pakistan but at a PPP rally in late 2007 was killed during an attack. Keep reading if you want to know about Benazir Bhutto quotes and biography.

• “In distinguishing between Islamic teachings and social taboos, we must remember that Islam forbids injustice; Injustice against people, against nations, against women. It shuns race, color, and gender as a basis of distinction amongst fellowmen. It enshrines piety as the sole criteria for judging humankind.”  — Benazir Bhutto

• “Democracy needs support and the best support for democracy comes from other democracies. Democratic nations should come together in an association designed to help each other and promote what is a universal value – democracy.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “I am planning to return and contest the October elections in Pakistan.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “A people inspired by democracy, human rights and economic opportunity will turn their back decisively against extremism.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “You can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea. You can kill a man, but not an idea.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “Whatever my aims and agendas were, I never asked for power.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “Democracy is the best revenge.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “Democracy is necessary to peace and to undermining the forces of terrorism.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “America’s greatest contribution to the world is its concept of democracy, its concept of freedom, freedom of action, freedom of speech, and freedom of thought.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “I dream …of a world where we can commit our social resources to the development of human life and not to its destruction”— Benazir Bhutto

• “Extremism can flourish only in an environment where basic governmental social responsibility for the welfare of the people is neglected. Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “The government I led gave ordinary people peace, security, dignity, and opportunity to progress.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “Purusing peace means rising above one’s own wants, needs, and emotions.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “To make peace, one must be an uncompromising leader. To make peace, one must also embody compromise.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “My father always would say, “My daughter will go into politics? My daughter will become prime minister”, but it’s not what I wanted to do. I would say, “No, Papa, I will never go into politics.” As I’ve said before, this is not the life I chose; it chose me … But I accepted the responsibility and I’ve never wavered in my commitment.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “I was a very shy girl who led an insulated life; it was only when I came to Oxford, and to Harvard before that, that suddenly I saw the power of people. I didn’t know such a power existed, I saw people criticising their own president; you couldn’t do that in Pakistan – you’d be thrown in prison.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “The political parties have unanimously rejected the one-man constitutional changes.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “The best hijab is in the eyes of the beholder.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “As a woman leader, I thought I brought a different kind of leadership. I was interested in women’s issues, in bringing down the population growth rate… as a woman, I entered politics with an additional dimension – that of a mother.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “And also I was brought up to believe that human beings are good, which is why it shocks me to the core when I see human beings behaving badly.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “Right now, they feel they have lost their voice, and their miseries have increased since my departure.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “What is important is that a political party articulates the mood of a generation.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “Oppression does not know the meaning of provincial boundaries. Aren’t our energies better spent fighting the common enemy instead of each other?”— Benazir Bhutto

• “Pakistans future viability, stability and security lie in empowering its people and building political institutions. My goal is to prove that the fundamental battle for the hearts and minds of a generation can be accomplished only under democracy.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “I find that whenever I am in power, or my father was in power, somehow good things happen. The economy picks up, we have good rains, water comes, people have crops. I think the reason this happens is that we want to give love and we receive love.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “While living in America when I attended Harvard in the early 1970s, I saw for myself the awesome, almost miraculous, power of a people to change policy through democratic means.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “It is one thing being able to contest an election and to give the people hope that I can be the next prime minister. It is a totally different situation where the people of Pakistan are told that the results are already taken and the leader of your choice is banned.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “No, I am not pregnant. I am fat. And, as the Prime Minister, its my right to be fat if I want to.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “You can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea. You can kill a man, but not an idea.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “If you do not learn from history, it tends to repeat itself.” — Benazir Bhutto

• “Freedom is not an end, Freedom is the beginning.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “Being nice should never be perceived as being weak. It’s not a sign of weakness, It’s a sign of courtesy, manners, grace, a woman’s ability to make everyone… feel at home, and it should never be construed as weakness.” — Benazir Bhutto

• “What is not recorded is not remembered.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “The next few months are critical to Pakistan’s future direction as a democratic state committed to promoting peace, fighting terrorism and working for social justice.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “The people who resent me do so because I’m a woman, I’m young, and I’m a Bhutto. Well, the simple answer is, it doesn’t matter that I’m a woman, it doesn’t matter that I’m young, and it’s a matter of pride that I’m a Bhutto.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “Every dictator uses religion as a prop to keep himself in power.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “It would be so nice to have the luxury just to laze. So nice not to have to always get up and get dressed for some occasion. Always having to move from here to there, where everything is scheduled and even having lunch with my kids on their Easter break has to be slotted in. Maybe one day…”— Benazir Bhutto

• “I know death comes. I’ve seen too much death, young death.” — Benazir Bhutto

• “General Musharraf needs my participation to give credibility to the electoral process, as well as to respect the fundamental right of all those who wish to vote for me.” — Benazir Bhutto

• “The Holy Book calls upon Muslims to resist tyranny. Dictatorships in Pakistan, however long, have, therefore, always collapsed in the face of this spirit.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “When the United States aligns with dictatorships and totalitarian regimes, it compromises the basic democratic principles of its foundation – namely, life, liberty, and justice for all.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “The military destabilised my government on politically motivated charges.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “The United Nations charter gives every nation the right to self defence, therefore when the American embassies were bombed it was a matter of time before the Americans responded by going for what they suspected were the causes of the attack.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “I am constitutionally competent to contest the elections.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “Military dictatorship is born from the power of the gun, and so it undermines the concept of the rule of law and gives birth to a culture of might, a culture of weapons, violence and intolerance.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “I’ve never had a bank account in Switzerland since 1984. Why would the Swiss do this to me? Maybe the Swiss are trying to divert attention from the Holocaust gold scandal.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “Military hardliners called me a ‘security threat’ for promoting peace in South Asia and for supporting a broad-based government in Afghanistan.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “I believe that democracies do not go to war; that’s the lesson of history, and I think that a democratic Pakistan is the world community’s best guarantee of stability in Asia.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “Democracy is the best revenge. After Benazir Bhutto’s death, her son’s brief public remarks were captured on video, and they were reported in international newspapers. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari announced, “My mother always said, ‘ Democracy is the best revenge.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “Like all children I had taken my father for granted. Now that I had lost him, I felt an emptiness that could never be filled. But I did not let myself cry, believing as a Muslim that tears pull a spirit earthward and won’t let it be free.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “We learned at an early age that it was men’s interpretation of our religion that restricted women’s opportunities, not our religion itself. Islam in fact had been quite progressive toward women from its inception …”— Benazir Bhutto
• “Being nice should never be perceived as being weak. It’s not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of courtesy, manners, grace, a woman’s ability to make everyone…feel at home, and it should never be construed as weakness…..”— Benazir Bhutto
• “The military wants a system that protects its policies and privileges.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “Ultimately, leadership is about the strength of one’s convictions, the ability to endure the punches, and the energy to promote an idea. And I have found that those who do achieve peace never acquiesce to obstacles, especially those constructed of bigotry, intolerance, and inflexible tradition.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “Clearly it’s not easy for women in modern society, no matter where they live. We still have to go the extra mile to prove that we are equal to men. we have to work longer hours and make more sacrifices. And we must emotionally protect ourselves from unfair, often vicious attacks made on us via the male members of our family.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “Democracy needs support, and the best support for democracy comes from other democracies.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “Given the right to a free ballot, the people would support my return.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “All our problems, all our disputes, all our disagreements can be resolved quickly to mutual satisfaction if we address the question.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “I seek to lead a democratic Pakistan which is free from the yoke of military dictatorship and that will cease to be a haven, the very petri dish of international terrorism.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “You can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea. You can kill a man, but not an idea.” — Benazir Bhutto
• “Clearly it’s not easy for women in modern society, no matter where they live. We still have to go the extra mile to prove that we are equal to men. we have to work longer hours and make more sacrifices. And we must emotionally protect ourselves from unfair, often vicious attacks made on us via the male members of our family.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “You can imprison a man, but not an idea. You can exile a man, but not an idea. You can kill a man, but not an idea.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “Freedom and liberty, the essays we wrote on them, papers for our tutors, for grades, but did we know the value of those words which we bandied about, of how precious they are, as precious as the air we breathe, the water we drink.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “Benazir Bhutto doesn’t cease to exist the moment she gets married. I am not giving myself away. I belong to myself and I always shall.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “As children we had been taught that no price was too high to pay for our country. But the personal price to our family had been high.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “Pakistan’s future viability, stability and security lie in empowering its people and building political institutions. My goal is to prove that the fundamental battle for the hearts and minds of a generation can be accomplished only under democracy.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “Extremism can flourish only in an environment where basic governmental social responsibility for the welfare of the people is neglected. Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “A people inspired by democracy, human rights and economic opportunity will turn their back decisively against extremism.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “Whatever my aims and agendas were, I never asked for power.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “I have led an unusual life. I have buried a father killed at age 50 and two brothers killed in the prime of their lives. I raised my children as a single mother when my husband was arrested and held for eight years without a conviction – a hostage to my political career.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “The political parties have unanimously rejected the one-man constitutional changes.”— Benazir Bhutto

• “The government I led gave ordinary people peace, security, dignity, and opportunity to progress.”— Benazir Bhutto
• “I found that a whole series of people opposed me simply on the grounds that I was a woman. The clerics took to the mosque saying that Pakistan had thrown itself outside the Muslim world and the Muslim umar by voting for a woman, that a woman had usurped a man’s place in the Islamic society.”— Benazir Bhutto

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BENAZIR BHUTTO BIOGRAPHY

Benazir Bhutto was born into one of South Asia’s most powerful political families, the Pakistani version of India’s Nehru-Gandhi family. Her father was president of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973 and Prime Minister from 1973 to 1977. Before independence and the Partition of India, her grandfather was prime minister of a princely state. Pakistan, on the other hand, is a dangerous place to play politics. Benazir, her father, and both of her brothers would all die violent deaths in the end. Benazir bhutto quotes are her thought and experience of life in words.

Early Years

Benazir Bhutto was born in Karachi, Pakistan, on June 21, 1953. She was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Begum Nusrat Ispahani’s first child. Nusrat was from Iran, and she was a Shi’a Muslim. Her husband, on the other hand, was a Sunni Muslim. They brought up Benazir and their other children as Sunnis, but they didn’t force their beliefs on them. Later, the couple had two sons and a daughter: Murtaza, who was born in 1954, Sanam, who was born in 1957, and Shahnawaz (born in 1958). Benazir was the oldest child, so her parents expected her to do well in school no matter what she was.

Benazir went to school in Karachi until she graduated from high school. She then went to Radcliffe College, which is now part of Harvard University, in the United States, where she studied comparative government. Bhutto later said that what happened to her in Boston made her believe in democracy even more. After she graduated from Radcliffe in 1973, Benazir Bhutto went to Oxford University in Great Britain to study for a few more years. She studied international law and diplomacy, economics, philosophy, and politics, among other things.

Starting out in politics

In a coup, the Pakistani military overthrew her father’s government after Benazir had been in school in England for four years. General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who led the coup, put martial law in place in Pakistan and had Zulfikar Ali Bhutto arrested on false charges of plotting against the government. Benazir went back home, and she and her brother Murtaza worked for 18 months to get people to support their father, who was in jail.

In the meantime, the Supreme Court of Pakistan found Zulfikar Ali Bhutto guilty of plotting to kill someone and sentenced him to be hung. Benazir and Murtaza were sometimes put under house arrest because of the work they did to help their father. As April 4, 1979, came closer, Zulfikar’s scheduled execution date, Benazir, her mother, and her younger siblings were all arrested and put in a police camp.

Marriage and raising a family

Between her close family members being killed and her own crazy busy political schedule, Benazir didn’t have time to date or meet men. In fact, by the time she was in her 30s, Benazir Bhutto had started to think that she would never get married; politics would be her life’s work and only love. Her family thought differently. A young man named Asif Ali Zardari came from a wealthy family and was also from Sindh. His auntie spoke up for him.

Benazir didn’t even want to meet him at first, but her family and his worked together to set up the marriage, even though Benazir was against arranged marriages as a feminist. The marriage was happy, and they had three kids: a son, Bilawal, who was born in 1988, and two daughters, Bakhtawar and Aseefa, who were both born in 1990. (born 1993). They wanted to have more children, but Asif Zardari was in jail for seven years, so they couldn’t have any more.

Coming back and being chosen as Prime Minister

On August 17, 1988, the Bhuttos got a blessing from above, so to speak. The US Ambassador to Pakistan, Arnold Lewis Raphel, and General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq were on board a C-130 that crashed near Bahawalpur in the Punjab region of Pakistan. Theories about what happened included sabotage, an attack by an Indian missile, or a pilot who wanted to kill himself. Simple mechanical failure, on the other hand, seems to be the most likely cause. Zia’s sudden death made it possible for Benazir and her mother to lead the PPP to victory in the parliamentary elections on November 16, 1988.

During her first term as Prime Minister, Bhutto had to deal with a number of international policy problems. These included the withdrawal of the Soviet Union and the United States from Afghanistan and the chaos that followed. Bhutto reached out to India and got along well with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. However, this plan didn’t work out because Gandhi was voted out of office and then killed by Tamil Tigers in 1991.

Charges of Corruption

On the home front, Prime Minister Bhutto worked to improve human rights and women’s status in Pakistan. She gave the press its freedom back and made it possible for labour unions and student groups to meet again. Prime Minister Bhutto also worked hard to weaken the ultra-conservative president of Pakistan, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, and his allies in the military leadership. But Khan could stop parliamentary actions with his veto, which made it hard for Benazir to change the way things were done. Khan got rid of Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister in November 1990 and called for new elections. She was charged with corruption and favouritism under Pakistan’s Eighth Amendment.

Bhutto always said that the charges were made for political reasons only. Benazir Bhutto lost her position as prime minister and became the leader of the opposition for five years. Nawaz Sharif became the new prime minister. Sharif also tried to get rid of the Eighth Amendment, so President Ghulam Ishaq Khan used it to get rid of his government in 1993, just like he did with Bhutto’s government three years earlier. Because of this, Bhutto and Sharif worked together to get Khan out of office in 1993.

Prime Minister for a second time

In October 1993, Benazir Bhutto’s PPP won a majority of seats in parliament and formed a coalition government with other parties. Bhutto again became the leader of the country. Farooq Leghari, whom she chose to be president in place of Khan, took over the job. In 1995, a plot to get rid of Bhutto through a military coup was found out, and the people in charge were put on trial and given jail terms of two to fourteen years. Some people think that the fake coup was just a way for Benazir to get rid of some of her opponents in the military. On the other hand, because of what happened to her father, she knew how dangerous a military coup could be.

On September 20, 1996, police in Karachi shot and killed Mir Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto, Benazir’s brother who was still alive. This was another tragedy for the Bhutto family. Murtaza and Benazir’s husband did not get along well, which led to rumours that he was killed by a plot. This time, it was President Leghari, who she had backed, who did it. Again, she was charged with corruption, and this time, so was her husband, Asif Ali Zardari. Leghari is said to have thought that the couple was involved in the killing of Murtaza Bhutto.

Exile once again

Benazir Bhutto ran for a seat in parliament in February 1997, but she lost. While that was going on, her husband was caught trying to get to Dubai and was charged with corruption. Zardari won a seat in the government while he was in jail. Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari were both found guilty of corruption in April 1999 and fined $8.6 million US each. Both of them were given five years in prison. But Bhutto was already in Dubai, which wouldn’t send her back to Pakistan, so Zardari was the only one who did his time. After he was freed in 2004, he went to live in exile with his wife in Dubai.

Return to Pakistan

On October 5, 2007, General and President Pervez Musharraf gave all of Benazir Bhutto’s corruption convictions a clean slate. Two weeks later, Bhutto went back to Pakistan to run for office again in 2008. On the day she arrived in Karachi, a suicide bomber attacked her convoy, which was surrounded by supporters. He killed 136 people and hurt 450 others, but Bhutto was not hurt. So, on November 3, Musharraf declared a state of emergency.

Bhutto didn’t agree with the statement, and she said that Musharraf was a dictator. Five days later, Benazir Bhutto was put under house arrest so she couldn’t get her supporters together to protest the state of emergency. The next day, Bhutto was no longer under house arrest, but the state of emergency stayed in place until December 16, 2007. Musharraf, on the other hand, gave up his job as a general in the army and said he would rule as a civilian.

Death and legacy

Benazir Bhutto died when she was 54 years old, and she left behind a complicated legacy. Even though Bhutto said otherwise in her autobiography, it doesn’t look like the corruption charges against her husband and herself were all made up for political reasons. We might never know if she knew ahead of time that her brother would be killed. But in the end, no one can question how brave Benazir Bhutto was. She and her family went through a lot of hard times, and even though she made mistakes as a leader, she really did try to make life better for the average people of Pakistan.