Benazir Bhutto was buried today, next to her father's grave in the family mausoleum in Sindh. I've been watching the news, and it is so sad to see her supporters, grown men crying and waving their arms up and down--it looks almost like they're doing the YMCA, but in fact they're hitting the tops of their heads in grief.

All over the country people are burning, shooting and looting. Most of the violence has taken place in Sindh province (where Bhutto is from). Seven banks were burned in Karachi, three in Multan (in central Punjab). Somewhere crowds burned gas stations, and in many cities and small towns, cars and buses have been set on fire in protest, rage, and grief. There have been shootings of police in some places. The Pakistan Rangers have been stationed outside courts, and other government buildings; gas stations, shops, and well, everything were immediately shut down throughout the country. Musharraf has declared three days of mourning, so everything will stay closed until Sunday.

Roomie was at her khala's house last night when everything happened, and she said many people blame the president. There have been reports since the first assasination attempt in October (in which 134 people were killed by a suicide bomber) that the government did not give her all the security measures she asked for. In any case, this can't bode well for the head of state: I only have Roomie's comment and the local English news to go on, but it seems that much of public opinion is fingering him here. His party office in Peshawar was even burned.

The U.S. and British news is reporting that various extremist groups have been wanting to kill Bhutto for years--even since she was prime minister. They say that such groups want her dead because she is a secularist as well as a woman, and further because she is against military rule, and many in the military also are connected to or sympathetic with extremist groups in Kashmir, as well as to the Taliban. I've been skeptical of CNN and the BBC's coverage of Bhutto since she returned. It was often breathlessly admiring, glossing over the problems during her Prime Ministerships, including the many allegations of corruption against her and her husband. Also, the manner in which the U.S. government and media seemed to pin their hopes on Bhutto has smacked of the ways in which we generally stereotype Muslim-majority countries, particularly when it comes to women. And she played to this coverage, as any politician would.

On the other hand, I also believed her when she opposed military rule, and when she spoke against extremism in Pakistan.

Nawaz Sharif and the MQM have already suggested that they will boycott the Jan. 8 elections, which the government has so far insisted will go ahead as planned. Don't know yet if the PPP (of which Benazir was chairperson for life) will do the same, though a party leader has announced 40 days of mourning (a traditional period of grieving in Islam). If only Musharraf's party runs then obviously the elections will lack legitimacy. Then again, only his party ran for the Presidency in October. Obviously the assassination of Bhutto will add a different dynamic in this case; I wonder what will happen.

The PPP has more supporters--especially among average Pakistanis--than any other party, and Benazir Bhutto is probably Pakistan's most popular politician by far. The whole thing is tremendously sad--sad that a woman has been murdered, sad that politics has nearly always turned violent in Pakistan so far, sad that more people are suffering as anger and grief turns to looting and arson.

Since this is a blog for my loved ones, I'll emphasize again that I'm fine. Our Chief Security Officer remains in touch, but has had no major updates since yesterday. He predicts that things will be pretty stable in the next day or two. Meanwhile Roomie and I are sitting tight and watching a lot of t.v.

I spoke to the Family Pidgeon several times since last night. (They keep waking me up, which usually means I have nothing new to tell them.) They are of course very worried about me, and wondering whether they should postpone their trip to visit. I know Mom doesn't believe me when I relay Major Sahib's reassurances about the situation. I don't mean to suggest that everything's fine--obviously, everything is not fine. I, however, am fine. More specifically, I cannot emphasize enough that watching the news does not necessarily give an accurate picture of what's going on in The Lovely City. And you know how pundits are--the more time passes, the more speculative they get about how everything is going to lead to nuclear holocaust.