She Looked So Happy

Though I was not surprised by the terrible and tragic news of Benazir Bhutto's assassination yesterday, I am still very shaken and sadden by the event as also my parents are. My parents admired her too. Yesterday morning my dad admitted that he had long felt great admiration for Bhutto because of her beauty and intellect. Last night when I arrived home from my part time evening job, my mother had apparently been standing in front of the television in our den for a long time time avidly watching news reports on several channels about Bhutto's death. Mom told me that Bill O'Reilly of FOX NEWS had been ranting as usual, but this time about how they had in his words, "killed that beautiful woman." Though she was long past the slim college student or the stately leader, Bhutto was still beautiful even though she had put on weight in these last years and looked matronly. Here she is less than a minute before the attack. Indeed she looked so happy. So unsuspecting that so much horror was about to happen to her and some of her supporters.

Today it was reported that Bhutto did not die from bullets to the neck and chest as previously thought. She apparently was critically injured when the suicide bomber who shot at her detonated his bomb, the force of which threw her up against her vehicle's sunroof's lever and fractured her skull. Here are more photos of before and the aftermath of the shooting and the bombing.

Today Benazir Bhutto was laid to rest beside her father. Her dramatic and epic life is over and now she is a figure of history. In a interview not too long ago, she revealed that even though she believed she must go back to Pakistan to carry on her life's mission, she was afraid. Several weeks ago when I went to see the movie Elizabeth: The Golden Age, there was a scene in which Queen Elizabeth I expresses a degree of fear when she learns that her ex-brother-in-law, Philip II of Spain, has sent the Spanish Armada to attack England. She knows that if England is defeated, she will probably be captured, imprisoned, and perhaps executed as a heretic. I was surprised that mighty and iron Elizabeth I would have a moment of weakness, but she was human and so was Bhutto. Aren't we all, but those who are special and who impact lives are able to reach a point that is larger than life and defeat their internal fears and weaknesses. Bhutto must have done this. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in one of his last speeches that he was not afraid or worried because he had "been to the mountain top and seen the promised land." When people learn to believe and care about something bigger than themselves they can attain this level of courage.

In a society and world that is fast becoming desensitived to happenings like Benazir Bhutto's death, what I write here is meaningless and irrelevant to too many. The attitude seems to be to just to live, sit back, self indulge, and willingly accept the next batch of carnage, devastation, trivia, and degradation; accept the next batch of lies.

Fearsome times are coming, I believe. Only those with spirits like Dr. King, Bhutto, Mother Teresa, and the other greats and Romantics will truly see the promised land. The rest will be swept away.