This is my gut response to the blog entitled “Benazir Bhutto”.
Benazir Bhutto was an icon. There were only a handful of international female leaders in the 20th Century and out of all of them, Benazir Bhutto was the only one who was truly beautiful. She had class, she had style, she was brilliant and charming, and she was gorgeous. She showed the world an Islam that was sexy.
Benazir Bhutto was an example to everyone that a woman could be strong and powerful and feminine and alluring. She was a paragon of glamour. And she was as glamorous at 54 as she was at 35. Benazir Bhutto was an intelligent, articulate, HOT middle-aged woman.
Benazir Bhutto was magnificent.
I don’t know that much about Pakistani politics and I don’t know how corrupt she really was. And even if I did someone would tell me that I didn’t. And I don’t know the extent to which she was independent and the extent to which she was in cahoots with the “West” and even if I did, someone would argue that I was wrong.
But Benazir Bhutto went back to Pakistan knowing her life was in danger, and as it became clearer and clearer that it was true, she remained and continued to make public appearances. Because Benazir Bhutto had balls of steel. Benazir Bhutto was fearless.
I don’t know exactly what Benazir Bhutto believed, and if I did someone would tell me I didn’t. But whatever it was, I know she was willing to die for it.
Benazir Bhutto had an apartment in my city, New York, and she could have been strolling down Fifth Avenue shopping and living the high life, and she chose instead to live and die in her homeland, Pakistan. Because Benazir Bhutto was a patriot. And regardless of where she stood ideologically, she stood on her own two feet, and Benazir Bhutto is a hero. She is a female hero for the beginning of the millennium and in her death she remains an icon for all women everywhere and for all men who truly love women.
And I didn’t hear what Mitt Romney said and I don’t know who it was who killed her, and I am sure the analysis in the major US media is largely skewed but what do you expect from the major US media? I don’t really care what they have to say, and especially not today. And with all due respect, I don’t really care what anyone else has to say about what they have to say today. Tomorrow I will but not today.
Tomorrow or the next day I will care about a political analysis of Benazir Bhutto’s death and how it is portrayed in the US media, but today I only know that she was magnificent. And like the Bamayan Buddhas and the Twin Towers, things that are magnificent should not be blown up.
Today is a day of mourning for the destruction of that most extraordinary of extraordinary creatures: a beautiful woman in the fullness and glory of her own power.
I hope one day I am as fearless as she.
