World | Pakistan
They are killing women!
Why would anybody kill a woman? Obviously for what she represents. And certainly if what she represents poses a threat to those who don't believe in women leaders.
- By Mohammed Almezel, Deputy Managing Editor
- Published: 00:34 December 29, 2007
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Pakistan erupts in fury
Pakistan erupts in fury
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Pakistan loses a fighter
Pakistan loses a fighter for democracy
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Benazir Bhutto buried in Pakistan
Benazir Bhutto buried in Pakistan
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Al Qaida top suspect in murder
Al Qaida is top suspect in Bhutto's murder
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Chaos after Bhutto killing
Chaos in Pakistan over Bhutto's assassination
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'I can't believe she is dead'
I can't believe she is dead, says Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari
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Assassination throws wrench into US policy
Assassination throws wrench into US policy
Why would anybody kill a woman? Obviously for what she represents. And certainly if what she represents poses a threat to those who don't believe in women leaders.
According to Pakistani officials, Al Qaida militants, and probably their Taliban allies, were behind the cowardly assassination of Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. It is logical, isn't it?
They said they would kill her if she returned to Pakistan. And she did in October, ending an eight-year self-exile.
She was back to fight an overdue battle "to restore democracy" in her country, polarised by subsequent coups and military take-overs.
She died fighting that battle. She was leaving an election rally in Rawalpindi, standing in the open sunroof of a car, when a gunman shot her in the neck and chest. Seconds later, the attacker blew himself up, killing at least 20 people. She saw that coming, telling everybody as she boarded the plane from Dubai to Pakistan on October 18 she was "going back to [her] death."
Rare woman
She knew her killers. She pointed them out. We know them very well. Who else would kill themselves to kill a "woman", and 20 other innocent people, but them? Bhutto was a rare Muslim woman who won worldwide respect and admiration from other Muslim women when on December 1, 1988, aged 35, she won parliamentary elections to become the first woman prime minister of a Muslim nation. This gave all women in this troubled part of the world power. Other women, inspired by her, went on to lead other successful attempts.
And for that she became a natural enemy of the extremists, who were disappointed by her repeated statements condemning their demagogic, and indeed masculine, hegemony over her native society.
Al Qaida and its affiliates must be stopped. The so-called War on Terror doesn't seem to be working. As the George Bush-led war continues, the extremists seem to get stronger. Everyday, literally, they prove they can hit anywhere anytime.
They can only be stopped when we challenge them on their home turf by spreading freedom and multilateralism to defeat their backward ideology and isolationism. And for that Muslims are in dire need of more Benazirs. Every Muslim woman should be Benazir, think and fight like Benazir.
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