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.
Does anyone know if there was a message of condolence, of grief or Fateha from the MMA, from Jamat i Islami or Fazlur Rahman?
This is all very interesting to me because I can’t help but think that the press is responding as if she were the present leader of |Pakistan. Can anybody tell me when the assasination of a third world opposition politician not currently in power has garned so much press attention outside his/her own country? Never. It’s worth maybe a brief mention if that. It’s not front page news for days and days.
I think it’s less to do with Benazir Bhutto and more to do with the fact that people recognize that the stability of a very volatile area is shaken, if not lost completely.
I have also posted a time line of B.B on my blog
This indeed one the saddest moment in my life span so far. The event of assassination of former PM of Pakistan, itself is terrifying. However I would like to appeal the entire nation to think about the country instead of putting blames on each other. It is country which is wounded not any province or any group of people. And please try to console each other in this time of great difficulty by Praying to God and seeking his guidance.
Whatever is happening in Pakistan, Afghanistan and in the region is due to USA a fallout of COLD WAR era which was between USA and USSR/Russia which lasted over a decade 1979-1989 and interestingly this war was not fought in the USA but the battlefield was a country called Afghanistan. The US and it’s intelligence agencies created, funded, organised and trained Muslims (unfortunately) to fight against Russians and CIA and other agencies have been owning the very same so called Talibaans for over a decade untill the completion of COLD WAR. Strange thing! a country is at war but thousands of miles away and it’s own borders are secure with almost US people having no idea what a war is like because their cities are intact and there is no devastation and effects of war. This is a subject on which you can write millions of words and can cry for millions of years but words and tears will never end because it is the killing of mankind and USA is responsible for that just for oil and maintain the supremacy over other countries/regions.
Now, I would like to express my views to the entire world and would like to address the world leaders to leash the USA and it’s intelligence agencies which has been unleashed for decades now stop targeting countries enriched by minerals and great potential otherwise which are unfortunate MUSLIM nations. Just look around the globe and see whats happening to the places where USA has been interfering, all those countries/regions are in turmoil.
The world has become extremely unsafe and dangerous place to live USA being the only super power, had there been another super power to balance USA out, situation would have been better.
May GOD help us make this world safe place to live for the generations to come, irrelevant to the religion, race or ethnicity.
In the END a simple question to everyone who reads this article: Look whats happening in IRAQ, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Palestine and WHEREVER in the world brutal killings are going on and think IF this happens in your country or in your family how would you feel.
I think you will find the ANSWER by putting yourself in the situation and would resist the STATE TERRORISM.
It’s extremely disturbing to mention Irshad Manji’s name with that of a great woman like Benazir in the same sentence.