Words from Pakistan, Rest in Peace Benazir Bhutto

Goethe wrote something like "the world is a smaller place when one knows people who live and feel like us though far away." And so, for the last week, I have thought and prayed for a new friend and colleague from Pakistan, in the wake of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. And worried.

Yesterday, she sent those of us who met her in Istanbul in November an email. I asked, and received permission to share her words with you. I ask you to pray for her and all those working for peace (and fair elections) in Pakistan.

Here's what she writes:

As a new year starts, I sit here still numbed by the events, paralysed by the events that seem to have shut down our ability to think and act, unable to concentrate (like many others).

Only after her assassination have we come to realize just how many of our hopes were pinned on Benazir, her presence and leadership of the only mainstream party that consistently speaks of the federation, of the poor, the peasants, the workers; spoke of equality for all, especially the minorities and women. The one party with supporters until now across a deeply divided and troubled country, who gave us hope that, maybe – just maybe we could turn this nightmare around, if elections were held and if they were not entirely rigged, and if we received some breathing space…so many if's and still we dared to hope.

I met Asma on the 29th and thanked her for having inviting Benazir that night last month as soon as they lifted the house arrest on Asma and Benazir both. Asma said 'but no, I didn't call the meeting. Perhaps she was meant to meet us all that last time because it was she who phoned and asked for a meeting with civil society'…A meeting we were pleasantly surprised at, that left us commenting on how much she had matured. She listened to all of us with great patience and grace, answered with patience and good cheer, even some of the sillier points made/questions asked. She reserved her fire for a short passionate intervention on how the fight with the extremists was our own fight not someone else's agenda and on how precarious Pakistan's situation was, and how it was time to act.

And yes, it was important that she was a woman, a woman of great courage of defiance and of passion who led from the front foot (as they say in cricket). I am old enough to remember the day she became Prime Minister in 1988 and how immediately – and I do mean immediately – after eleven years of brutal and increasing oppression of women (and others) under Zia, the atmosphere shifted the sense of oppression in the streets lifted and women felt the burden lighten. And if she didn't always deliver (and often she didn't), as peasants said of her father, at least she made us the promises, and gave us hope.

Right now, it is difficult to foresee the future, whether and when elections will take place – what will happen during Muharram and ashura, around the corner, when nerves are ragged anyway and the menace of potential violence lurks.

We can only hope that some sense prevails somewhere, that elections are held as quickly as possible and that we find a way out of this spiral descending to madness…

Please add these people just like us to your prayers.