Among the epithets accorded to her, she probably deserved to be called a brave person. She, defying ominous threat to her life from Islamic terrorists, returned to Pakistan and gave her life at the hands of a death-cult, she had propped up.
Moreover, although her actions, especially her support for the Jihadists in Kashmir and Afghanistan, were meant for the undoing of secularism ― she was, I believe, a truly secular-minded woman. She belonged to a secular family and grew up in the West, where lived the life of freedom and liberty and donned western dresses before her return to Pakistan.
Her support for the Jihadists was probably an outcome of her naivety. She, like many others at the time, probably failed to conceive how the whole thing would transpire in the years and decades to come. I believe, she finally realized the depth of the Jihadist crisis faced by Pakistan; and this time round, she was up for a fight against them. I, however, doubt her ability to do anything worthwhile to contain the Jihadist tide.
It is told that the Islamists have little support among the mainstream Pakistanis. But opinion polls have repeatedly proved that notion false. Since the 9/11, opinion polls have consistently demonstrated 45-51% popular support for Osama bin Laden among the Pakistanis.
It is a fact that the mindset of Pakistanis has become dominantly radicalized. Under such circumstance, it is doubtful that she, being a woman, was going to be accepted as the leader of the country by the mainstream Pakistanis. A photo of her wearing a min skirt was making rounds in the internet and among Pakistani communities, attracting negative comments. The Islamists were going to expose her on the grounds of her previous un-Islamic life-style. Her being a woman and her previous life-style were going to be useful weapons to the Islamists for further fanaticizing the minds of Pakistanis. They were going to bring her down sooner or later.
Yet, it would have been interesting to see how she was going to fight former Islamist protégés. Now that she has gone, my biggest hope at the first moment was that her death could probably galvanize the half-hearted secularists of Pakistan onto a single platform and wage a united confrontation against the Jihadists. It should be realized that the greatest Jihadist danger the world faces today lies in nuclear-weaponized Pakistan, not Afghanistan or Iraq.
The stability of Afghanistan is also intimately related to the situation in Pakistan, and the outcome in Afghanistan will ultimately influence the outcome in Iraq. The way the Talibanized elements are spreading their hold block by block in Pakistan already extending their tentacles to all major cities ― it only about time before Pakistan falls at the hands of Jihadists. Pakistan can avoid becoming another Afghanistan only if all the highly divisive secular and semi-secular secular and half-secular forces join hands and stand up against the Islamists. Benazir Bhutto’s death was a real opportunity for them to come onto a single platform.
Instead, the Pakistani society has become even more divisive in the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Today no prominent leader in Pakistan is more secular than Musharraf despite his tainted past. Neither does anyone else grasp the depth of crisis and the need to firmly deal with it, as does he. There was a strong likelihood that following the election, the parties of Benazir and President Musharraf would join together to form an anti-Jihadist platform. However Pakistanis have almost unequivocally pointed fingers at President Musharraf and his ally America and to Israel and India for Bhutto’s assassination. This has further shaken Musharraf’s already tenuous position.
Muslims are adamant that they will not point fingers at the Islamists, the guardians of the “religion of peace,” who can do nothing wrong. This wrong finger-pointing taints the secular fronts leaving the real culprits, namely the Islamists, clean and emboldened, accelerating their cruise to power.
Ominously for Pakistan, the Islamist politicians have already emerged as the power brokers. Bhutto’s death has made them only stronger. She has been a blessing to the Islamists in her death as she was in life during her time in power.
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