For Rehan Shamsi, 61, hope is a double-edged sword. A seasoned participant in Pakistan’s tumultuous political history, Rehan was but a 25-year-old engineering student in Karachi when the death knell sounded on General Ziaul Haq’s decade-long stint at the country’s helm.

Amid cheers of hope and merriment, Benazir Bhutto assumed the reins of power in the winter of 1988 — an event considered to be a critical inflection point in the country’s long, agonising crusade to democracy. It seemed the sun had finally dawned on a people downtrodden by decades of shattered promises and dead aspirations.

“I don’t think today’s generation understands the optimism that permeated the air in ’88. It was a genuine moment of hope. I know it sounds idealistic now, but you have to understand where we were,” reminisced Rehan. An active member of the National Students Federation and a worker of the Qaumi Mahaz-e-Azadi Party in the 80s, he vehemently believed in and campaigned for Benazir’s Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD).

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