TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/110890/1108008.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 8.7 KB | 169 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 33

All in the Family


Women leaders in the Third World owe their rise more to male
dynasties than to militant feminism

By HOWARD G. CHUA-EOAN -- Reported by Sandra Burton/Hong Kong,
Meenakshi Ganguly/New Delhi and Jan Howard/Managua


    The images still stir the spirit: multitudes, swathed in
yellow, sweeping Corazon Aquino to power in the Philippines;
Benazir Bhutto campaigning atop truck caravans in Pakistan;
Violeta Chamorro, in a wheelchair, toppling Nicaragua's haughty
Sandinista regime. In the past decade, no man has come to power
as dramatically and as spectacularly as these women. For
feminists everywhere, the rise of Aquino, Bhutto and Chamorro
seemed to augur huge steps forward for societies usually
characterized by unrelenting machismo. The images, however, were
misleading.

    Behind each woman in power was a powerful man or an
influential political dynasty. In their election campaigns,
Aquino and Chamorro constantly reminded voters that they were
carrying on the work of their deceased husbands. Aquino is the
widow of Benigno Aquino Jr., Ferdinand Marcos' most bitter
rival, who was assassinated in August 1983; Chamorro is the
widow of Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, the newspaper publisher whose
murder in 1978 led to the downfall of the brutal Anastasio
Somoza regime. During her 1988 election campaign, Bhutto never
ceased alluding to the legacy of her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto,
who was executed in 1979 by the military government she was then
fighting to succeed. She titled her autobiography Daughter of
Destiny. Ousted in a constitutional coup in August, Bhutto may
once again raise the rhetoric of martyrdom and rally her
followers to the banner of her descent.

    Unlike Britain's Margaret Thatcher or Israel's Golda Meir,
Aquino, Bhutto and Chamorro claimed power not through proven
political skills but on the strength and symbolism of their
family ties. For much of the Third World, the idea of the
nation-state has not evolved too far from the idea of kingdoms;
rulers are still heads of extended tribes or vast families,
rather than chief executives of the machinery of government.
Politics very often pits clan against clan, all the way from
Machiavellian patriarchs to the wives and daughters, whose chief
duty is still procreation and the maintenance of the tribe's
hearth. When chaos and violence rob a family of vigorous male
representation, its senior women then pursue the clan's goals,
much as queen regents or princesses of the blood would do in
monarchies. As extensions of their high-born families, the women
are allowed to domesticate crises and restore order to the
national "home."

    Political succession by pedigree, however, by no means
precludes women from brilliantly exercising power. For most of
history, it was the only path by which women could come to rule.
The pattern is not alien to the West, where potentates of genius
included daughters of kings, such as Elizabeth I of England;
their widows, such as Catherine the Great of Russia; and their
mothers, such as Eleanor of Aquitaine.

    In the 20th century, the most successful female dynast has
been Indira Gandhi of India, daughter of Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru. Over a span of 16 years, Gandhi proved herself
the most formidable Prime Minister India has ever had, masterly
melding the charisma of her family with the subcontinent's rich
religious images of motherhood and successfully passing her
office to her son Rajiv. Six years after her assassination, she
is still idolized. Says Sudhir Kakar, an Indian psychoanalyst:
"She is looked upon as the sacrificing mother of the joint
family." Born to privilege, Gandhi believed she was born to rule
as well. She once quoted Robert Frost to Rajiv: "How hard it is
to keep from being king, when it's in you and in the situation."

    Though they have yet to match Gandhi's political acumen,
Aquino, Chamorro and Bhutto share with the late Indian Prime
Minister the same aristocratic sense of destiny. No other
politicians -- certainly no men -- were capable of leading their
countries at the time of their ascendancy. Aquino and Chamorro
united quarrelsome opposition groups. Only Bhutto had the
charisma to overcome the puritanical appeal of Mohammed Zia
ul-Haq's Islamic regime. But winning was the easy part. Ruling
has proved problematic.

    Of the three women, Chamorro is the epitome of the
contemporary queen regent: benign, motherly and devout. As
President, she is still more likely to open her mouth in prayer
than in political double-talk. Showing up for a fiesta at the
town of Juigalpa, Chamorro was asked by the local parish priest
to say a few words. She replied, "What better words than the
Lord's Prayer" and proceeded to lead the crowd in the
Paternoster. With just a high school education, she leans for
major decisions on what she calls her "sixth sense."

    But Nicaraguans see in her life a reflection of the traumas
their country has gone through. Dona Violeta, as she is always
called, lost a husband to political violence, and her family was
split along political lines: two of her children are ardent
Sandinistas and two are just as ardent anti-Sandinistas. Yet
through it all, Chamorro has kept her family together. Says
Emilio Alvarez, a longtime friend of the Chamorro family's: "If
she could reconcile her own family, she could do it for the
country as well." Nicaragua remains in severe economic crisis,
but so far Chamorro has stymied the Sandinistas with her
motherly style. She ended the contra war in less than a month
and quelled riots without bloodshed. "The Sandinistas are used
to violence and confrontation," says Alvarez. "They didn't know
how to react."

    But symbolism and persona are not enough to rehabilitate
devastated nations, as Aquino has found out. In a land of
political victims, she came to power as the most famous victim
of Philippine dictator Marcos, who is popularly assumed to have
ordered the murder of her husband. Many saw her as a veritable
mater dolorosa. As devout a Roman Catholic as Chamorro, Aquino
was irreproachable at the beginning of her presidency. The
fearsome insurgency, led by the communist New People's Army,
lost steam in the face of her saintliness. The military plotters
who threatened to overthrow her were seen as thugs.

    Aquino knew she would have to be more than a symbol. To
those who would have her be "Mother of the Nation," Aquino said,
"I will remain a mother to my children, but I intend to be Chief
Executive of this nation. And for the male chauvinists in the
audience, I intend as well to be the Commander in Chief of the
armed forces of the Philippines." But inexperience and the
chronic fractiousness of Philippine politics have frittered away
her advantages. Today many Filipinos, while still fond of
Aquino, would welcome a coup that would replace her dithering
administration with a strong, perhaps even authoritarian,
regime.

    A similar disaffection with Bhutto muted criticism of her
ouster. Educated at Harvard and Oxford, Bhutto nevertheless
seemed to govern Pakistan as she would have a feudal kingdom.
Her government appeared to operate largely by petition; she
bartered Cabinet seats for increased support in Parliament, and
she was unwilling to allow the army, which she distrusted, to
interfere in the violent politics of her power base in the
province of Sind. While a cordon sanitaire of friends and
relatives kept her insulated from critics, she made sure her
public appearances received immense media coverage. Like
Aquino's, Bhutto's reputation as restorer of democracy and
avenger of her father could not withstand her government's
weakness.

    For the moment, Chamorro has buffers. Nicaraguans can blame
political turmoil on Sandinista subterfuge and hyperinflation
on the previous regime and, perhaps, on Chamorro's son-in-law
Antonio Lacayo, who runs the government. But Aquino and Bhutto
have spent much of their popular support. Unable to end
Pakistan's ethnic strife, Bhutto has fallen, and her match-made
husband Asif Zardari has been accused of corruption. With each
threat of a coup, the Philippine economy falters, and Aquino's
grip grows shakier.

    The inability to resolve crises has been the downfall of
male leaders. The popular backlash against their widows and
daughters may prove equally cruel. What greater faithlessness
can there be than the mother of the nation failing her people?
Having come to power as emblems of national emotions, women
leaders like Aquino, Bhutto and Chamorro remain at the mercy of
those emotions. Their original strength lay in their symbolism,
but without substance, their legacies are bound to vanish.