The assassination of Benazir Bhutto

Death

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. (Isaac Asimov, U.S. science fiction novelist and scholar, 1920 - 1992)

For Benazir Bhutto the “troublesome” part probably was the suicide bombing that eventually took her life on Thursday.

When the news about her death started to spread, people all over the world were filled with dismay especially because the country she loved so much was in the final stages of holding general elections.

But, Bhutto—although popular and charismatic—did have many enemies. Some members of Pakistan's intelligence establishment, for example, resented the idea of a woman leading a Muslim nation while there were Bhutto's verbal assaults as well against militant Muslims.

In the Pakistani (secret) agencies and in the army it is believed that there are many people who are not secular, who are fundamentalists and will help a suicide bomber to carry out his job.

A former Afghanistan Taliban intelligence official, Mullah Ehsanullah, earlier this year was quoted as saying that there were more than 500 men training as suicide bombers in 50 sites across the region in Pakistan and Afghanistan. “These camps are run by al Qaida and include Pakistani jihadis and Arab militants,” he said.

And Bhutto, being as outspoken as she had always been, on many occasions openly threatened these militants, something that led to an ever increasing hatred toward her especially because she had—rightly or wrongly—also been described as a U.S. ally.

And it was nothing but hatred that culminated in her assassination. But everything would not end there because even less than 24 hours after her death, Pakistan was already rocked by riots—dashing hopes for a smooth transition from a military dictatorship to democracy and raised the possibility of lasting chaos in the nuclear-armed nation. This should prompt us to—while mourning for Bhutto’s demise—clearly see how hatred sometimes does not only lead to the death of one person or more, but also of democracy.

The late Jim Morrison, the lead singer of the legendary rockband The Doors once said “hatred is a very underestimated emotion.” Are we going to continue underestimating it and let it kill democracy? That’s exactly the question each and everyone of us must be able to give an answer to.