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| Sunday, 22 January 2006 |
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Junior Observer |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Benazir Bhutto : A woman of courageWe have already featured many women rulers in this page. Benazir Bhutto from our neighbouring country Pakistan was one of the notable women leaders in the world. Benazir Bhutto was the first woman to lead a Muslim country in modern times, when she was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988.
However, after nearly 20 months, President of Pakistan Ghulam Ishaq Khan dissolved Parliament using the 8th Amendment, allowing for re-elections within 90 days. Bhutto was re-elected in 1993, but was dismissed three years later amid various corruption scandals. She was convicted by a Swiss court and has filed a petition on the decision which remains unresolved. Benazir, the eldest child of former Pakistani premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (son of Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto) and Begum Nusrat Bhutto was born on June 21, 1953 in Karachi. Bhutto attended Lady Jennings Nursery School and then the Convent of Jesus and Mary in Karachi. After two years of schooling at the Rawalpindi Presentation Convent, she was sent to the Jesus and Mary Convent at Murree. She passed her O-level examination at the age of 15. In April 1969, she received admission to Harvard University's Radcliffe College. In June 1973, Benazir graduated from Harvard University with a degree in political science. After graduating from Harvard, she joined Oxford University in the fall of 1973. Just before graduation, Benazir was elected to the standing committee of the prestigious Oxford Union. In 1976, she graduated with a Masters Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. In the autumn of 1976, Benazir returned once again to Oxford to do a one-year postgraduate course. In January 1977, she was elected President of the Oxford Union. After graduating, she returned to Pakistan, but in the course of her father's imprisonment and execution, she was placed under house arrest. Having been allowed to go back to the UK in 1984, she was leader in exile of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), her father's party, but was unable to make her political presence felt in Pakistan until the death of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Then, in the first open election in more than a decade, on November 16, 1988, Benazir's PPP won the single largest bloc of seats in the National Assembly. Bhutto was sworn-in as Prime Minister of a coalition government on December 2, becoming the youngest (35 years old) and first woman to head the government of a Muslim-majority state in modern times. After being dismissed by the then President of Pakistan under charges of corruption, her party lost the elections held in October 1990. She served as the leader of the opposition while Nawaz Sharif became Premier for the next three years. Again in October 1993, elections were held which were won by the PPP coalition, thus returning Bhutto into office till 1996, when, once again her government was dismissed on corruption charges. Bhutto is currently based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where she cares for her children and her mother, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. From there she travels around the world, giving lectures and keeping in touch with those faithful to the PPP. Benazir and her three children (Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Asifa) were reunited with her husband and their father in December 2004, after a period of more than five years, when he stayed imprisoned. Bhutto is the author of Foreign Policy in Perspective (1978) and her autobiography, Daughter of Destiny (1989). She received the Bruno Kreisky Award for Human Rights in 1988 and the Honorary Phi Beta Kappa Award from Radcliffe in 1989. Benazir Bhutto has been recognised around the world as a woman of courage and conviction. The Little Tramp All of you may be familiar with the mustachioed Little Tramp with the bowler hat and cane - Charlie Chaplin. But behind this little character lurked an extremely creative film-maker who scripted, directed and starred in some of the best films of the century.
Charlie Chaplin was born Charles Spencer Chaplin in London, England on April 16, 1889. His parents Charles Chaplin Sr. and Hannah Hill were Music Hall entertainers, but separated shortly after Charlie was born, leaving Hannah to provide for her children. In 1896, when Hannah was no longer able to care for her children, Charlie and his brother were admitted to Lambeth Workhouse and later Hanwell School for orphans and destitute children. He made his debut in Music Hall at the age of five, when his mother fell ill. Chaplin, like his parents, became a Music Hall performer, appearing as a clown in Fred Karno's Mumming Birds Company from 1906. In 1910, he went to the United States and with the Keystone Company in Los Angeles (1914-15), he made films in which his early hardships are reflected in humour and sadness. In Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914), he originated the gentleman tramp routine, with twirling cane, bowler, tight jacket, and baggy pants that became his trademark. He also learned to direct his own short films. During the next four years, Chaplin consolidated (strengthened) his growing international reputation. At the same time, he refined his tramp character into a poetic figure that combined comedy and pathetic aspects, yet retained his carefully timed acrobatic skills. His films grew in length and cleverness with A Dog's Life and Shoulder Arms (both 1918). After co-founding United Artists in 1919, Chaplin began independent production in the 1920s, of his best feature-length films A Woman of Paris (1923), The Gold Rush (1925), The Circus (1928), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936) and The Great Dictator (1940), his first all-talking film, in which he abandoned the tramp to parody (imitate) Adolf Hitler. Among his later films, only the poignant (moving) Limelight (1952) achieved popularity. The apparent cynicism of Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and A King in New York (1957) distanced audiences, while his last effort, A Countess from Hong Kong (1966), left little impression. Although he was loved and appreciated throughout the world as the inimitable (unmatched) Charlie, Chaplin's personal life including his refusal to accept U.S. citizenship gained him adverse publicity in America. In 1953, accused of Communist sympathies, he was denied re-entry into the country. Thereafter, he settled in Switzerland with his wife, Oona O'Neill and a
family of nine children. Initially embittered, he returned in triumph
(victory) to the United States in 1972, to receive a special achievement
award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, followed in
1973 by an Academy Award for his score to Limelight. In 1975, at age 86,
he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He died on December 25, 1977. |
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