Remembering Pakistan's Prodigal Daughter

Peter Landesman on his friend Benazir Bhutto and the darkness to follow

Comments (0) Wednesday, Jan 2 2008

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I asked her the following, in death:

Benazir, the rally you addressed the day you died was in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of all who despised you: the Pakistani army, the ISI, the die-hard Islamists within, all forces that wanted you gone. Why, upon ending the rally in one piece, did you not consider yourself lucky to have lived another day, but instead chose to send your armored car straight into the throng, and then rise out of it for a last point-blank embrace of the crowd, a crowd you knew to be peppered with your mortal enemies? You of all people knew what wrath your murder would inspire. Hamid Gul, the former head of the ISI, told me himself. He and his brethren were not going to let you serve, meaning they were not going to let you live. But return you did. Your murder, then, was inevitable. You said so yourself. So what was in your mind, Benazir? Did you prefer chaos, fear and unfulfilled promise for a legacy, or did you think martyrdom would suffice as your last word? Or, if you couldn’t have Pakistan for yourself, did you want to leave Pakistan for no man, no other leader but a Bhutto? So, civil war, is it? Was this murder, Benazir, or was it really suicide? I can’t help but wonder if you set this up.

Were you not brave enough to have chosen life instead?