Benazir Bhutto: Values for a political leadership IN Hunza

Daughter of Pakistan’s first democratically elected prime minster, Benazir was an unmistakeably quintessential Pakistani democrat who twice became its prime minster, first in 1988 at the young age of 35 when she also became the first head of state of a modern Muslim country. Assassinated on December 27^th Benazir‘s enemies ranged from al-Qaeda to various outfits of Islamist groups to Zia loyalists. ‘We may never know as to who killed Benazir’, says Akbar Ahmed, a Washington based internationally acclaimed Pakistani academic; ‘it is a Kennedy style assassination [Interview to a British TV, on December 28^th 2007]’. Educated in Harvard and Oxford where she became the president of its union, Benazir won hearts and minds of people both within her own country and globally.

She had returned to Pakistan, on October 19^th after about an eight year self-imposed exile to be welcomed by hundreds of thousands of people reminiscing images of a yet another of her homecoming in the late eighties, when about two million people had greeted her in Karachi. This time was however different: her enthusiastic and zealous welcome was also occasioned by a couple of ruthless suicide bombers who killed well over hundred people but Benazir was miraculously saved. This incident, coupled with several government warning of potential attacks on her election rallies, had made the point abundantly clear that her life was in acute danger, yet she defiantly took the risks to save Pakistan from plunging into new episodes of darkness. Pakistan is a country which was founded by a commitment to embody Islamic principles of social justice, equity, brotherhood and of course as a bastion of freedom for all of its inhabitants. Its founding leaders had wanted Pakistan to become a tolerant, progressive, plural and a liberal Muslim state to be governed by the will of its people. Unfortunately this founding vision was never realised and instead the country spiralled into so much chaos that after about sixty years of its existence the ‘founding vision’ looked quite misty. Benazir was one of those few leaders in Pakistan about whom one could confidently bet and repose one’s confidence in recovering Pakistan’s foundational vision.

In a country driven by centrifugal forces of tribalism, Islamic militancy and sectarianism she was a symbol of unity, moderation and inclusive politics and she stood up for what she believed as she said in an interview to NBC TV ‘I have a choice to keep silent and to allow the extremists to do what they are doing or I have a choice to stand up and say that this is wrong. And I am going to try and save my country.[Interview on October 21^st, 2007]’

History will remember and judge this brave and a very intelligent woman, not for her abortive attempts in power, but for her courage, commitment, and, tragically, a sense of destiny.