Pakistan profile

"When you grow up in a place like Pakistan you are struck by the gaps between people who have tremendous opportunities and privileges and the millions who simply don't," Fatima Bhutto told Deutsche Welle.

The 29-year old journalist recalls the moment when she first became aware of the inequality in her country. She was in the sixth or seventh grade and was watching images of a flood and was struck by the fact that nothing was being done to help.

"We have floods almost every year, because we're in the monsoon belt. We have a government that hasn't done dam maintenance for over 30 years."

Fatima has been touring for months, promoting her book "Songs of blood and sword." It is an account of Pakistan's often violent and bloody history, its privileged governing elite, and the rise and fall of its political fortunes.

Prestigious family background

The writer's surname marks her out as a member of the Bhutto dynasty that rose to power and prominence from Pakistan's southern province of Sindh, but which has also experienced its share of tragedy.

Fatima's grandfather, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was hanged during the military dictatorship in 1979, and her aunt Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007. Fatima herself had a close brush with death as a teenager, and Pakistani journalist Naseem Zehra says her experiences have left their mark.

"We see her as someone who has pain," Zehra told Deutsche Welle. "Obviously she's been through a tragedy, the tragedy of her father."

Her father, Murtaza Bhutto, was assassinated in 1996 when Fatima was fourteen. She hid in a cupboard with her younger brother as the fatal shots were fired outside their home. Benazir Bhutto was prime minister at the time and Fatima's father had challenged his sister's leadership.

Fatima accuses her aunt of preventing a real investigation into the murder.

Dynastic failings

Although the journalist belongs to the most prominent political family in Pakistan, she has not entered politics in her own right and has no intention of doing so. Her conviction is in no small part determined by her dislike of the country's dynastic culture, which she says subverts the democratic process.

"I think it's the wrong thing to do because it sends a message especially to young people that the only way into politics in Pakistan is through families. And for a country for 180 million that's a really rotten thing to tell them," she said.

Educated at Columbia University in New York and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, Fatima now lives in Karachi, a city torn by spiraling violence, but one that she loves for its progressive thinking.

Violent times

Her home is the Bhutto house, a shrine to the family, built by her great-grandfather long before the dynasty's fracture and her father's assassination outside the front door. Fatima has received threats since she published the book, but she believes it is her duty to continue working as a journalist in Pakistan.

"I think everybody in Pakistan is afraid, because there is no recourse against the state's violence. And that's historical. It's historical, and it ebbs and flows. Some governments are more violent than others," she said, adding that the country is currently going through a phase of intense violence.

"You're talking about a government in power, and you're talking about a military that is currently aiding in the killing of its own people. But in a place that is as dangerous when it comes to violence and freedom as Pakistan is, to be silent doesn't make you safer, it makes you more vulnerable."

And yet, she does not like to hear her country be referred to as a failed state, not least because it was only founded 60 years ago, and that is not long enough to know one way or the other. She does, however, concede that the system of government has failed.

"If we look at Pakistan outside of the government, it is a tremendously hopeful place. It's a rich country, full of natural resources. It has a large, young population, and it has a young country's hope for what it can accomplish."

Author: Naomi Conrad / tkw
Editor: Sarah Steffen