Benazir Bhutto - SZABIST

Perhaps the burden was too heavy to ignore. She alone had the charisma needed to talk to all the
peoples of a land facing discord and division. There is a mystical aspect to this strange attribute of
human leadership and she had it in great abundance.
Not even the death of more than 150 of her followers in the ghastly bombing of the historic procession
upon her return on October 18 deterred her people from flocking to subsequent addresses in all parts
of the country. Each passing day strengthened the covenant with the masses and, as I had warned her,
every success increased the danger to her life.
The covenant was not just of those misty heights of imagination and passion where reason gets
obscured. It was also rooted in the memory of her politics. Like other human beings she was prone to
error but nobody in Pakistan, not even her worst critics, could ever say that she ever weakened in her
commitment to the unity of the country.
In a polity that remained brittle, she was a solid symbol of the federation. With her around, Pakistan
would never face a crisis like the one in 1970. This is what brought millions to her meetings and made
them hang on every word that she uttered.
For her to be the beautiful princess of hope that she was for a vast majority of the 160 million
Pakistanis, there was another reason too.
A decade of slander directed against her had made hardly any dent in the perception of the toiling
masses of her impoverished nation that she cared for them and that her homecoming meant a better
tomorrow for them.
Her legacy, they believed passionately, was that of her father's promise that every member of
Pakistan's sprawling under-class could aspire to food, shelter, education and health care. In her return
lay an opportunity to peacefully redress the frightening imbalances of the economic elitism of several
years. The terrible damage inflicted upon private property, banks and government installations by
mobs outraged by her assassination was an index of what happens when this hope perishes.
Benazir Bhutto was expected to bring peace within by promoting national reconciliation and peace
abroad by opening a new chapter in relations with neighbours. This expectation was widely shared.
Upon her death, President Karzai, who met her hours before she was struck down, ordered the flag of
Afghanistan to fly half- mast. Gracious and sympathetic words streamed across the border from India.
Pakistan needed her charisma, her unrivalled ability to relate with people, her tireless "sisterly"
relationship with the people that became the locus of the political support she asked of them, her
openness to the demands of our age, and in no small a measure, her extraordinary diplomatic skills.
I travelled with her to tens of capitals -from our second homes in the Arab world to lands that were not
happy with Pakistan's policies - and I saw her modulate her communication to every change of
inflection.
I remember her giving a highly professional presentation on India-Pakistan relations to President
Hafeez Al Assad. The veteran warrior said that this being done it was time for him to speak to her
about war and peace like a father, who had seen far too much of war, to a daughter who he hoped
would never have to see it the same way.
This was a moment for a new semantics, a new commitment to peace, and an event which she often
recalled in subsequent conversations with me. Pakistan could have it all but lost it in a flash of hell
that would haunt it for decades.