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.
@Naved Haqqi
They never came out about her illness in public, especially in Pakistan where understanding of psychological and neurological disorder is very limited and socially unacceptable but just to put record straight here is an excerpt of her recent interview along with the link to it.
Benazir Bhutto Interview
Former Prime Minister of Pakistan
October 27, 2000
London, England
“……..Was there a moment of self revelation or self-discovery when you knew what you wanted to do with your life, that you were going to be different just as your father had been different?
Benazir Bhutto: It was not sudden. It came gradually. There were two moments, let us say, when it happened.
One of the moments was when my father died and I had my — before he died, I had my last meeting with him, in the death cell, and he said that, “You have suffered so much.” I had been in prison myself, and he said, “You are so young. You just finished your university. You came back. You had your whole life and look at the terror under which we have lived.” So he said, “I set you free. Why don’t you go and live in London or Paris or Switzerland or Washington, and you are well taken care of, and have some happiness because you have seen too much suffering.” I reached out through the prison bars, and I remember grasping his hands and saying, “No, papa, I will continue the struggle that you began for democracy.”
So that was one of the points where I decided that I didn’t want out. I’d stay, but I still didn’t think I’d ever be prime minister.
I thought my mother would be the prime minister, and that I’d work for her to be the prime minister, and that’s what I did. But my mother got sick and actually she had lung cancer, but we didn’t know she was getting Alzheimer’s. So she started behaving differently and we thought it’s because she’s had this serious illness, and she’s reflecting on how to lead her life. And suddenly I found that since mommy was away and the whole party was about to collapse unless I was there, so I started looking after the party at that stage. When I went back, I remember people were shouting, “Prime Minister Benazir!” And suddenly it struck me that “looking after” means — with mommy ill — “looking after” means that I will be the prime minister. So it was in that sort of moment when I realized the responsibility that I had taken over could lead me all the way to an office that could govern the destiny of more than 100 million Muslims in Pakistan. …………”
This interview can be accessed at:
http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/bhu0int-2
I am not a PPP supporter and do not like BB, but I am very sad for her. This was very sad loss for all of us.
Check out Robert Fisk’s recent column in The Independent, UK.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article32 91600.ece
I mostly liked the part about the coverage of the local and international media. But as for who did this, many questions remain unanswered. Perhaps we do not have enough evidence as yet, probably we never will!
This is a sad tragedy, nonetheless. My condolences to the families of all the victims in the current wave of violence and to all concerned around the world.
Her tragedy is too great for me to write about. It required the pen of Waris Shah or that of Shakespeare to do justice to the tragic death of Benazir like that of Heer Syaal at the hands of Paki Keidos or that of Prince Hamlet by the treacherous userper king Claudius of Denmark.
The state of PakyStan is reeking today with treacherous ‘na-paki’.
CNN acts like a terrorist news channel.
They dramatize a simple news to the extent that it sells like a hot cake to people who want to listen to that kind of stories.
And mind you which attracts lot of teenagers to violence.
CNN is spreading hatred amongst religions which is satanic and deadly.
Look at the irony of the so called most civilised U.S. democracy and it’s presidential candidates, they are taking mileage over this saddening killing of Pakistan’s former prime minister through CNN.
Why doesn’t CNN give the answers regarding the assassination of US President J.F Kennedy whereas they seems to know every answer in the world and every angle of politics.
They are not perfoming the duties of journalism and a news channel rather they are performing the hidden agenda against ISLAM.
Extremely Shameful to even talk about.