The BBC commissioned Tariq Ali to write a three-part TV series on the circumstances leading to the overthrow, trial and execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan. As rehearsals were about to begin, the BBC hierarchy - under pressure from the Foreign Office - decided to cancel the project. Why? General Zia ul Haq, the dictator at the time, was leading the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. He was backed by the USA. According to expert legal opinion, there was a possibility of a whole range of defamation suits from the head of state to judges involved in the case. In consequence, it was decided not to broadcast this hard-hitting and provocative play.
The Leopard and the Fox presents both the script and the story of censorship.
“Ali broadens our horizons, geographically, historically, intellectually and politically. His mode of history telling is lyrical and engaging, humane and passionate.”--The Nation
Book Description
In 1982 the BBC commissioned Tariq Ali to write a three-part TV series on the circumstances leading to the overthrow, trial and execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the first elected Prime minister of Pakistan. At the time of production, Bhutto's forceful successor and the new Pakistani dictator, General Zia ul Haq, was leading an American backed jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Under pressure from the Foreign Office, the BBC abruptly cancelled the project. They claimed the high profiles of major players in the case--from heads of state to judges--provided too great a possibility of defamation suits. Unsatisfied with this explanation, Ali wrote The Leopard and the Fox, which presents both his unaired script and investigates the political persuasions that resulted in a sordid tale of censorship.
This review is from: The Leopard and the Fox: A Pakistani Tragedy (Hardcover)
Amazing book!. Stretched over more than a 100 short scenes of screenplay the books tells the 'behind-the-scenes' tale of the Bhutto-Zia face-off between 1977-1979 in Pakistan. The book as it seems is very close to what one would expect to have actually happened behind close doors. None-the-less, it's one of those stories which will be read for decades to come to revisit the life of the fist democratic Prime Minister of Pakistan. Zia is irrelevant.
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This review is from: The Leopard and the Fox: A Pakistani Tragedy (Hardcover)
I have a friend who, somehow, justified dictatorship in Pakistan. After reading this book, he admitted that he did not know enough to make that claim.
This is very-well written book.
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