Shaheed: The Dream and Death of Benazir Bhutto

Former Bush Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has a lot to answer for. Did you know that she sent former Pakistani premiere Benazir Bhutto back to Pakistan, where she faced almost certain death? Bhutto was a beautiful pawn in America’s worldwide great game of thrones.

Currently, down at the Culture Project at 45 Bleecker Street, the remarkable Anna Khaja is bringing Bhutto back to life — only to kill her off again, at the close of Shaheed: The Dream and Death of Benazir Bhutto, which she also wrote.

Considering that Bhutto’s father, Zulficar Ali Bhutto, an earlier Pakistani premier, was betrayed by a power-hungry associate and hanged, Harvard-and-Oxford-educated Benazir might have thought twice about seeking election as premier herself. But that’s why her father sent her to the best American & British universities; he wanted her prepared to carry on the battle to democratize and stabilize the “First Islamic Republic,” an untimely creation of the British partition of India. In fact, Benazir was twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan, both times dismissed by the then-Presidents of Pakistan. That her father, Zulficar Ali, bore both the name of the mythical sword and that of its owner, the Imam Ali, meant that the Bhuttos were Shiites, deathly enemies of the Sunnis in a politically created country, with no long traditions of its own.

In the immediate aftermath of her father’s execution, Benazir was arrested and put into solitary confinement. Following that ordeal, she remained under house arrest until 1984. Not exactly Nelson Mandela, but still . . .

The action of Shaheed takes place entirely on December 27, 2007: the fatal day that Bhutto was murdered in her motorcade. Was the weapon a baby wrapped in Explosives? With a folding screen, a few props and some costume changes, Anna Khaja plays eight roles, one of them Secretary of State Rice, who regards both Benazir and herself as women of color who have something to prove.

Khaja’s performances are effective, but, unless one had read the program thoroughly beforehand, it’s not immediately clear who Sara, Daphne Barak, Quasim, Shamsher and Afshan actually were.

The charge was made by some — who had axes to grind, or who were observing only from a safe distance — that the Bhutto family was corrupt. It is made clear, however, that without an intimate knowledge of how things really work in “emerging third-world nations,” no one, not even Benazir Bhutto, could have achieved what she hoped for her Country. This was a Great Loss (and not only for Pakistan) of a remarkable woman leader.