Some old photographs on the BBC’s website<\/a> show the young Benazir Bhutto. She wore standard international 1970s clothes – a vaguely “ethnic” dress in one picture and a silk blouse in another. She didn’t just lack an all-covering tent\/veil – she wasn’t even wearing a headscarf. She looked wealthy and confident. Hardly surprising, given that she was the Pakistani Prime Minister’s daughter. You could be looking at a young female member of the Kennedy clan. She could have been a privileged young woman from any cultural background. Becoming Prime Minister in her own right must have seemed an achievable goal, even at that age, with the example of Indira Gandhi in India.<\/p>\n

Her assassination was clearly horrific. It even took in a couple of dozen other people, in what could almost be the textbook definition of overkill. That is, Benazir Bhutto had already been shot dead by the time the assassin blew himself and the surrounding crowd up.<\/p>\n

I have no knowledge of what the killer expected to achieve or what his beliefs were. The BBC site suggests that similar attacks are being directed against the ruling party and other opposition parties and hence her assassination is indicative of a general regional destabilisation.<\/p>\n

However, Benazir Bhutto’s murder still has unusual international resonance, just because of the rarity of her career. A woman Prime Minister elected to power in a Muslim country. Twice. So huge numbers of Muslim voters and Muslim clerics didn’t have a problem with her lack of hijab, her high-powered education, her outspokenness, even with seeing her naked face.<\/p>\n

(At least as rare in the non-Islamic world. You can count major female political leaders on the toes of one foot and still have two to spare.)<\/p>\n

She was a successful and powerful woman in a country set up as Islamic from its very first day. How likely is it that a Pakistani woman from a similar background could even be photographed in such an innocent way today, let alone that she could achieve political power?<\/p>\n

Wasn’t the 20th century supposed to be about progress? It looks as if the world of 40 years ago was much more modern and progressive than today’s world. So why not all vow to devote the next century to returning to medieval values, so that, when we fail dismally to achieve that goal, we might actually find we’ve sparked some advances.<\/p>\n