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Benazir turns her hand to poetry on 50th birthday
London, June 22: In a desperate bid to draw world attention on her plight and her jailed husband`s condition, former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto has turned hand to poetry to mark her 50th birthday.
London, June 22: In a desperate bid to draw world attention on her plight and her jailed husband's condition, former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto has turned hand to poetry to mark her 50th birthday.
She read out her 338-line poem, an account of a life that has no shortage of material, at a party she hosted for her 50th birthday in Dubai, where she lives in exile with three children, a media report said here today.
The poem was read out to tearful friends and party leaders who had flown from Pakistan and London, the 'The Times' daily reported.
Much of the poem is about her endless waiting for news from Pakistan and Benazir reveals that she has received offers to free her husband Asif Ali Zardari if she agrees to quit politics, but has turned them down.
"They thought it generous to offer freedom for abandonment," she writes, "the abandonment of a people, of a land, of a struggle, of a dream. I thought it wrong."
She lays much of the blame for her downfall at the feet of Pakistan's Islamic extremists. The poem read, "My enemies wish I never was born, for them it was a torture and a shame, the first woman to head a Muslim state crumbling centuries of control triumphantly proclaiming the equality of men and women."
A large section of the poem is devoted to her husband.
"Oh where is my husband gone?" she asks.
"Judges are frightened, courage has fled," she adds.
Bureau Report
The poem was read out to tearful friends and party leaders who had flown from Pakistan and London, the 'The Times' daily reported.
Much of the poem is about her endless waiting for news from Pakistan and Benazir reveals that she has received offers to free her husband Asif Ali Zardari if she agrees to quit politics, but has turned them down.
"They thought it generous to offer freedom for abandonment," she writes, "the abandonment of a people, of a land, of a struggle, of a dream. I thought it wrong."
She lays much of the blame for her downfall at the feet of Pakistan's Islamic extremists. The poem read, "My enemies wish I never was born, for them it was a torture and a shame, the first woman to head a Muslim state crumbling centuries of control triumphantly proclaiming the equality of men and women."
A large section of the poem is devoted to her husband.
"Oh where is my husband gone?" she asks.
"Judges are frightened, courage has fled," she adds.
Bureau Report