the heir apparent

Benazir Bhutto’s 19-year-old son, Bilawal, has been named to succeed her:

Acting in accordance with Benazir Bhutto’s last wishes, her Pakistan People’s Party today named her teen-age son and her husband as its leaders.

Young Bilawal seems to have taken in certain Enlightenment ideas with his mother’s milk [e.a.]:

Phillippa Neal, 19, lives in the same on-campus housing as Bilawal. She says he was not accompanied by any security at Oxford. According to Neal, Bilawal posted a statement from his mother the day of her assassination, which read: “You can imprison a man but not an idea. You can exile a man but not an idea. You can kill a man but not an idea. — Benazir Bhutto.” The day of the assassination his Facebook status read: “Well behaved women rarely make history.” Neal is not sure whether that quote was portentious [sic] or posted after Benazir’s assassination.

During the meeting at which the Pakistan People’s Party succession announcement was made,

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, a tall and composed Oxford student, took the center chair at the news conference at the Bhutto family enclave as he read the announcement that the party would contest the coming election.

“The long and historic struggle for democracy will continue with renewed vigor,” he said. “My mother always said democracy was the best revenge.”

Bilawal sounds like a worthy heir to a worthy cause.

Long may he live.