AND a very good morning to you.
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WE can be grateful that PNG has so far managed to avoid the terrible political turmoil that regularly strikes so many overseas countries. The fabric of Asia and the Indian sub-continent have been torn by these conflicts for decades, with Pakistan being the current victim.
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MANY point to our crime rate as a drawback to national progress; indeed it is. But it cannot compare with the tragic deaths suffered overseas as opposing political parties and their passionate supporters clash. Benazir Bhutto, who has paid for her place as Pakistan’s Opposition leader with her life, is a case in point.
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NOTHING in her education at prestigious Harvard and Oxford universities could have prepared her for the fanaticism of politics in her own country. Yet she was prepared; there was an air of fatalism about her and her dark eyes reflected both her determination to fight for her view of democracy and the awareness of what that struggle might cost her.
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WE were fortunate to briefly meet her some 17 years ago in Kuala Lumpur at a Commonwealth Heads of Government regional meeting. As Pakistan’s leader, she shared a platform with the notables of the Commonwealth including our own Sir Rabbie Namaliu, then PNG’s PM.
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BUT the most striking contrast was between Ms Bhutto and Britain’s Margaret Thatcher. Both shared an almost autocratic air; these were women used to command and to leadership. The contrast lay in appearance and manner.
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THERE was no mistaking Mrs Thatcher’s steely approach to leadership and a few minutes exposure to her brusque, abrasive style reinforced the title she had acquired of “The Iron Lady”. French president Francois Mitterand was to describe her as having “the mouth of Marilyn Monroe – and the eyes of Caligula”.
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ON the other hand, Ms Bhutto was a tall and strikingly attractive woman, who graced the flowing white robes of her country with style and distinction; her deep modulated voice was no less convincing than that of Mrs Thatcher, but it gave the impression of convincing by persuasion. Her death brought back that image to us, and we mourn her passing.
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- Dee Nesenolis