Adil Najam
Whatever her opponents may think of her, Benazir Bhutto was a most recognized and much-loved international figure. An icon in the best sense of the word. The shock of her death - and the manner of her death - was not confined to Pakistan. As comments on our earlier post suggests, in that moment, the entire world stopped in its tracks. It was not just the most tragic of moments, but also a most historic moment.
These are the pictures of the front pages from just a few newspapers from across the United States and across the world. They are but a fraction of the hundreds, possibly thousands, of newspaper front pages that mourned her death. They make a fitting tribute to a woman who served twice as Pakistan’s Prime Minister, but was also a global citizen in heart and in spirit.
Regular readers of ATP know our fascination with newspaper front pages, which we feature often as pictures in our political posts. But credit for this fine collection goes to the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA) who have featured this collection (ATP added a few images) on SAJA Forum. My gratitude to them for this, please do visit the SAJA page where you can click on each of the front pages images for more detail in them. Additional images of international newspapers were found at another wonderful post here.
Eidee Man,
Benazir is more than a Sindhi legend. I am a Urdu speaking Pakistani from Karachi and I just spoke with my folks from Karachi. It seems obvious that there is great grief in Karachi regardless of ethnic background.
People will keep looking for their ‘typical Muslim leader’ but, by their grief, Pakistanis have already spoken: We did have one single charismatic leader who combined grace, beauty, charisma, wit, courage, buttressed with a 30-year old track record of struggle.
And we killed her! We killed her, a leader who may well be the main reason that many generations later the word ‘Pakistan’ may be recognized.
Yes, it is cynical and pessimistic, but I see not much hope in Pakistan anymore unless there is a radical change in direction. And if there is no radical change in direction then we, the people of Sindh, are getting tired of seeing ‘Pindi return our leaders in coffins!
173 bank torched completely
26 bank damaged
158 office torched and burnt completely
23 office damaged
24 petrol pump burnt
2 petrol pump damaged
370 cars completely burnt
61 cars damaged
72 trains bogies/coaches torched completely
18 railway station burnt completely
4 station damaged
765 shops were torched completely gutted
19 offices/shops damaged partially
38 people killed
53 people injured
Maybe you could keep adding more to this if readers send you more and turn this to an ongoing tribute to this great woman.
I have rarely seen this amount of solidarity in Pakistan. The blog posts (not just here) are quite cynical. But it was surprising to see how so many in Pakistan, even those who were no fans of Benaizr, felt a sense of sadness. That seems to be the explanation for why statements from political opponents have been more than perfunctory condolences–no leader seems to want to go counter to the prevailing public sentiment. Let’s hope this is a glimpse of our long dormant ‘insaniyat’.
Your readers may be interested in the Blog comments of David Milliband the British Foreign Secretary at
http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/blogs/david%5Fmiliband/
You can submit comments directly to him as well, so if there’s anything anyone wants to say about his policies this is a chance to do so.
Good post. Frontpages of English, Hindi and Urdu newspapers of India are missing. Some of them like Urdu dailies like Hindustan Express Delhi and Etemaad of Hyderabad gave unprecedented coverage and the frontpage was much better than Jang.
As a Pakistani I find it appalling that the media and some people of Pakistan have named Benazir bhutto the so called “champion of democracy”. I mean this a woman who was kicked out of office TWICE on corruption charges and always said “innocent until proven guilt” while sitting in exile afraid to go back with 40 pending corruption charges on her. If she was so innocent and a great leader what was she afraid off? I sympathize with her supporters and family but quiet frankly it is much better to live under military rule then corrupt politicians any day. Hopefully one day Pakistan will see democracy but until then Gen Musharff is the only man who can handle the state Pakistan is in right now. So I beg all my fellow Pakistanis and the media to understand that Pakistan is not ready for democracy yet. Pakistan need a leader with an iron fist who can solve the terrorism problem, build schools, hospitals and other social services. You can’t have free and fair elections in a country where the poverty rate and the illiteracy rate is so high that if you can feed someone’s family for a day you can guarantee their vote no matter what your platform is. Politicians like Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Shariff have stolen enough money from Pakistan and this time around hopefully we won’t stand for it.
oops! its ….Articulate…1st line