Newswise — Historian Joel Gordon visited Pakistan recently and is available to provide background and context about the upcoming elections. In an interview in Dawn, the leading English-language newspaper in Pakistan, Gordon compared the situation in Pakistan with Nasser's Egypt. The death of Benazir Bhutto, he said, "afforded the Pakistan Peoples Party a chance to reinvent itself as a 'real' political party, to transform the dynastic legacy into something broader."
"Benazir Bhutto," Gordon said, "whatever her political failings, seemed to hold potential to be a crucial transitional figure to move Pakistan beyond her father's legacy, which was so much a product of a particular time and place. Maybe in some respects she achieved as much as was possible in the immediate present. I'm guessing we'll look back and say that an era ended in December 2007."
Gordon, a professor of history at the University of Arkansas, studies modern Arab politics and popular culture. His most recent book is Nasser: Hero of the Arab Nation.
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