Thursday, January 10, 2008
Bhutto Who?
The other day, I was talking to some of my aquaintances (data privacy...:) and I mentioned the assasination of Benazir Bhutto, the former leader of Pakistan. I was met with blank stares, and that worried me. Granted, I don't know everything that is going on in the world (I probably know very little as a matter of fact..) but it seemed to me that you should have had at least heard if a world leader had been assasinated! For those of you who don't know who Bhutto is, here is a quick refresher course. She was a former prime minister of Pakistan, serving from 1988-1990 and again from 1993-1996. In fact, she was the first women ever elected to lead a muslim state! Her family is similar to the Kennedys here. http://www.nysun.com/article/68675 (Meaning that they have a long history of political involvment and a fair amount of money) She headed up the Pakistan People's Party, a centrist (though leaning more towards the left) political party founded in 1967. During both of her terms, she was accused of, and subsequently removed from office on charges of, corruption. After the second alledged scandel, she went into self-imposed exile in Dubai. Recently, after reaching an understanding with the current leader, Musharraf, she returned to Pakistan. Soon she grew in popularity, holding massive rallies. She was assasinated on December 27th, 2 weeks before the general election. During her terms, she worked for women's rights, but acheived little due to political opposition. Early in her career, she was pro-Taliban, viewing it as a group that could bring stablity and trade to her neighbor, Afghanistan. However, she reversed her position later on. Although controversial, she was loved by her fellow Pakistanis, and her death threw the country into chaos http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7161660.stm Her 19 year old son recently took his mother's place as the head of the PPP. If you are interested in learning more, you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benazir_Bhutto, which is where I, along with the Star Tribune, and my parents, found most of my information.
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6 comments:
Thanks so much for the links. They really helped me understand Butto more.
That's really interesting to be honest I had never heard of her and I agree with you that we should know more about important leaders.
I have heard of her and I read the CNN headlines everyday. I think the death of such an influentual person is terrible. What makes it worse is that people our age don;t know or care.
I have never heard of her either. Thanks for the explanation of her it was interesting. I also think that it is sad we don't learn more about world leaders.
I had heard of her from my dad, and find it very amazing that she was so influential in her country and thought it was sad when she died. I also think it's sad
that we don't know much about the leaders in other countries.
I watched Bhutto from the begining and was extremely devasted when she was killed. I was watching the today show and they said she was wounded then dead then wounded. (taped earlier) She was one of the true martyrs of our life time.
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