Bhutto | A Face for the Faceless

Because of her role as a political figure, Benazir Bhutto’s murder has a significant impact on Pakistan’s domestic and the international spheres. Perhaps the broader effect, though, should be symbolic, as a unifying event in protecting civilians from terrorist violence. Bhutto’s death gives the media an opportunity to place a face on the victims of terror worldwide. So easily a suicide bomb goes off in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and elsewhere, and the lives lost are quickly turned into faceless statistics. We must identify with the victims of terror, worldwide, as part of the process to alleviate terrorism. To learn more about this topic, please visit our website www.overcomingextremism.com, containing full footage from our conference in the fall on Overcoming Extremism: Protecting Civilians from Terrorist Violence.  

I'm not sure that it

Submitted by on Fri, 01/04/2008 - 5:14pm.

I'm not sure that it directly matters how much we in the U.S. identify with the victims of terrorism. We're well aware of the problem and if anything I'd bet the average American overestimates the number of deaths resulting from terrorism versus other causes.

I think the key question is whether people who are sympathetic to the objectives of the terrorists can empathize with the victims. My personal theory is that the July 7th bombings in England probably helped along the end game of the North Ireland piece process. I suspect that the evil of that act cast a definite pall over the acceptability of even lesser forms of political violence.

That said, our identification with the victim may very well matter if it turns out the assassin had support that extended beyond the lowest levels of the Pakistani Intelligence service.