Rs. 1 Billion memorial for Benazir

A memorial to Benazir
By: Zubeida Mustafa
Wednesday, 06 Jan, 2010

The government has, after much thought I presume, decided to erect a monument in Liaquat Bagh, Rawalpindi (Pakistan), to honour the memory of the first woman prime minister of Pakistan and the late chairperson of the PPP, Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated two years ago. This move was long overdue as Ms Bhutto merits a tribute irrespective of the political controversy surrounding her.

But can only a brick and mortar monument commemorate Ms Bhutto's achievements? I think not. First of all the lavish spending would invite a lot of flak and rightly so. Being so fond of erecting concrete structures as memorials to the dead, we tend to forget that such pretentiousness reeks of contempt for the impoverished masses without whose adulation the dead leaders in a democracy would not have achieved the status they did.

Hence it is time we started the tradition of honouring our dead by creating living institutions in their memory. The brick and mortar stuff tends to be popular with the powers-that-be for the wrong reasons and should be shunned. Seen from this perspective, isn't one billion rupees from the treasury a rather huge amount to throw on a concrete structure?