The assassination of Benazir Bhutto was meant to plunge Pakistani politics into chaos. It is up to decent people now to frustrate the murderers and prove their evil hopes wrong.
Distraught PPP supporters even smashed the doors of the hospital to which their stricken leader had been rushed in vain. Further violent protests can be expected. But what ends will such displays of grief and anger serve? Bhutto’s many supporters should indeed ask themselves what she herself would have counseled at this dangerous moment. For all her faults, and she had many as she actually admitted to a journalist on the way to the rally where she was murdered, Benazir was a practical politician.
Unfortunately her undoubted personal courage led her to underestimate the dangers both she and her close entourage faced on a daily basis. The suicide bombing of her convoy during her triumphal return to Karachi ought to have taught her what she was up against. Yet, though her home became a fortress, she eschewed many obvious safety precautions when she was on the political stomp. Thus at yesterday’s rally, she had no bulletproof protective screen and was, therefore, a target for a sniper or a man with a grenade.
Benazir has become a martyr for the cause of peaceful, representative politics. She has died not for one political faction, but for all of Pakistan. Thus every decent Pakistani, regardless of their politics, must mourn her passing and vow to avenge her, purely by maintaining the values she held dear.
A clearly shaken Nawaz Sharif, her bitter political rival, said last night to PPP supporters: “I assure you, I will fight your war from now on”. This was possibly one of the finest responses he could have formed to the tragedy. His own rally yesterday in Islamabad had been fired on and 12 supporters had been killed. Whoever was behind this other attack, the raw truth is that in a single day, both leading opposition politicians have been attacked. The target was Pakistan, its future.
Pakistan faced challenges enough already without the impact of yesterday’s slaughter. The political horizon which was already hazy may now seem positively murky. This is precisely what the people who planned this crime will have wanted.
Therefore, once the immediate shock of Benazir’s murder has sunk in, her supporters must recognize that this was a wicked blow aimed against Pakistan itself, not simply at the PPP. Now is the time for narrow self-interest to be put aside. Assuming that the PPP can choose a new leader quickly, next month’s elections should very probably go ahead as planned, or at worse be only very slightly delayed.
In the meantime, if there must be public protests at Benazir’s assassination, let them include people from all parties and none, from all walks of life, indeed everyone who is proud to call himself a Pakistani.
