Benazir Bhutto (June 21, 1953-December 27, 2007)

I first heard of Benazir Bhutto in the seventh grade, which was in 1989. My social studies teacher was assigning us to write a report about a country that we drew out of a hat. When the hat came to me, I drew "Pakistan."

I was slightly disappointed. I didn't really know much about Pakistan in those days, nor did it interest me. My fascination was the Cold War. I was hoping to draw a Communist country so I could trash it. Or one of those right-wing countries that cracked down on Communism (e.g., El Salvador, South Africa) would also have made a good topic.

But Pakistan? When I came home, I complained to my mom about the country I got, and she tried to show me how lucky I was. She told me about Benazir Bhutto, the country's woman Prime Minister. My mom talked about the oppression that women experienced in many Islamic regions, which made the presence of a female Prime Minister in a Muslim nation quite extraordinary. She also mentioned Prime Minister Bhutto's remarkable beauty. So I wrote the first draft of my two-page report on Pakistan, and I said that its Prime Minister was Benazir Bhutto. My social studies teacher wrote in the margin that she's a woman. Apparently, he also found her gender to be an interesting detail.

I still had a hard time becoming interested in Pakistan, so I switched my country to Vietnam. But what my mom and my social studies teacher said stuck with me.

Years later, I was a junior in college. I went to DePauw University, which is in the small town of Greencastle, Indiana. Somehow, DePauw manages to draw a lot of prominent speakers, even though it's practically in the middle of nowhere. I got to hear both Barbara Bush and Ross Perot in the same week. Shimon Peres also spoke there, accompanied by his handsome security guards (to the delight of many girls). The reason we got such speakers was probably Ken Bode, a nationally-renowned television pundit who also teaches at DePauw.

Anyway, Benazir Bhutto was coming to speak. My political science professor humorously told us about her and her husband's famous scandals, but he recommended that we not ask her about them in the Question and Answer session. I went to the auditorium an hour early to get a seat, and there was a student guide who was giving a tour to a prospective student and her mother. The tour guide said, "DePauw attracts a lot of prominent speakers. In about an hour, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan will be speaking in this auditorium." I flushed with pride. I loved being a student at DePauw at that moment!

I remember watching Prime Minister Bhutto's speech, and she looked the same as she did on television, with her flowing robe and long scarf. She read most of her speech while wearing enormous spectacles. I don't remember much of what she said (I think she mentioned the word "peace" a number of times). But I do recall her answer to one of the questions in the Q and A. A student asked her if she was planning to re-enter public life, and she responded that she didn't really want to. "To be honest, I don't like dealing with people," she said as she chuckled. She was so human at that moment! And, of course, the thought that was going through my mind was, "Well, Prime Minister Bhutto, neither do I!"

But she did re-enter public life. She was concerned about democracy in Pakistan, and she continued to anger Islamic extremists who hated her pro-Western stance. She walked the streets of Pakistan, knowing that her life was in danger. And, yesterday, she was killed by a suicide bomber.

I was shocked. She was somewhat of an institution in my eyes, someone I expected to always be around. I don't know enough about Pakistani politics to say whether or not I agree with her positions (as opposed to, say, Musharraf's). And her scandals make me wonder how a person can be capable of both corruption and nobility, of greed and self-sacrifice. But I can't help but admire her, whatever her flaws may have been.