Bhuttoism bringing Pak into modern era: Rabbani

ISLAMABAD: Deputy Secretary-General of Pakistan Peoples' Party Mian Raza Rabbani on Friday said that Bhuttoism was a transformation which was bringing Pakistan into the modern era as a model for one billion Muslims and presented moderate, enlightened Islam.

"And thus to the fanatics, extremists and to the ruling elite, we became the enemy, the threat and the obstacle. To Islam at the crossroads, a modern Pakistan was one fork in the road, fanaticism and ignorance the other", said Rabbani while addressing the Socialist International at Cape Town, South Africa.

He said it was this fear that compelled the forces of international darkness coupled with internal forces to hatch and carry out the conspiracy of the assassination of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.

Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard University has written of a clash between civilisations. This clash is not inevitable unless we make it so," he said.

Referring to the vision of former PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto, Rabbani said that the precepts of Islam were a part of the Judeo Christian heritage.

"There will only be a clash of civilisation if we allow ignorance and fanaticism to take control, to shape the agenda, to shape the debate. They want the people all over the world to actually believe that this is a war between Islam and the West".

He said that during the Afghan Soviet war, Pakistan became the breeding ground for their political and religious manipulation and hiding under the cloak of religion, they preached a lesson that enslaves, not liberates, that teaches children to hate, that keeps people hopeless and desperate, bitter and paranoid.

"On the other hand the West nurtured, aided, trained and supported the jehadi elements. It then left the region to suffer the consequences. Pakistan inherited the Kalashnikov, drug and terror culture".

Rabbani said the PPP government under Ms Bhutto had them on the run and it disarmed their schools. "We stopped them from entering the Kashmir struggle. We stopped their friends, the Taliban from seizing all Afghanistan. Moreover, they were unable to plan a single act of international terror".

He said each act of international terror took place when the Peoples Party was in the Opposition. He said that the extremists greatest fear was the spread of information, social equality and democracy that were the principles of the International.

"In her death Pakistan lost a practical revolutionary and the world a bridge that would have avoided the clash of civilization.