(no subject)

[rm]

Everytime I see Bhutto's son make a statement about his new role in the PPP, I have to fight off tears.

He's 19!

It's so incredibly fucked up I can't even process it.

Comments

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

It's incredibly fucked up, isn't it?

I'm right in the middle of the first Dune book, right where Paul and Jessica are in the sand storm, and this situation makes the book seem even more timely. Or maybe the book makes the situation seem more timely.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That kid's situation at least on the surface is so insanely iconic. I'm sure I'm seeing any number of Hero's Journies every time I see him.

I feel like I'd be less freaked out if he wasn't so beautiful, which is fucked up, but true.

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

I don't recall the photos I've seen of him, for some reason. Maybe it's because he looks young and fragile to you because of his looks?

Poor kid. It's bad enough to lose a parent to violence (homicide and suicide survivors' issues are in many ways very similiar), but add in the publicity and the politics and the very scary nuclear issue and...yes.

[rm.livejournal.com]

He's not fragile looking, but I'm probably reacting to the fact that when I've dated outside my ethnic group, it's almost always been with South-East Adians. There's something there I respond to.

He's on the right in the photo here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10484845

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Ahh, thanks! I have really bad facial recall - to the point I mix people up and forget them and get confused until I really get to know them. I remember his face now. You're right, he doesn't look fragile but he does look very young, and a tiny bit blindsided. Not that I blame him!

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

He is stunning, isn't he? And changing his last name to Bhutto... I wonder what kind of man her husband is, you know? I wish I could see in his head.

I am sure this is a situation that while they couldn't prepare for it, they surely had to have envisioned it, more than once. It's terribly sad. I wish him and his advisors well.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

She was only a few years older than that when her father was executed. In a recent interview, she mentioned that as her reason for entering politics. So it goes...

The entire situation, on both a family and a national level is simultaneously so epic, so sad, and so horrible that I have no words. I suppose if Pakistan is (very relatively speaking) lucky (and perhaps even if it isn't), the story of her family will be the stuff of tragically heroic national legends in a few generations.

[schpahky.livejournal.com]

I am still shocked to see her picture on all the newspapers, in the past tense.

[mme-furiosa.livejournal.com]

I have been gracefully holding my tongue for as long as has been possible, but no more. Why is it so difficult for everyone to look past the physically beautiful veneer of the Bhutto family to recognize the outrageously overt corruption of their governments?

If anyone needs to be crying right now, it is Western politicians for having lost their only reasonable chance of a media-friendly ally in Pakistan. Perhaps the nation of Pakistan should be crying for having lost their best chance of a democratic government, which was a sorry excuse for a chance to begin with.

I am all for female governance, but Bhutto was NOT a good leader, nor was the dynasty she represented. We have got to look past gender and beauty and acknowledge the political facts at hand here.