Adil Najam
This video of Mr. Asif Ali Zardari losing his cool during a speech and angrily shouting “Shut Up” to someone in the audience has been making the rounds.
If authentic, and it seems to be, the video is striking, but also sad, to see. There is not much that one can say by way of comment. Such behavior is embarrassing for any politician, but especially for the President of a country.
In fairness, I should add that I have not (yet) been able to find any information on the context of this: where was this, what did the person in the audience say (it was probably a pretty demeaning thing in itself), and – most importantly – what did Mr. Zardari say immediately after this.
I think the last of the above is especially important. It does disturb me that in all the versions of the video I found on the net the video ends abruptly after he utters the killer words: “Shut Up.”
I certainly hope that his immediate reaction was to stop, realize his mistake, and apologize. If he has not yet, he should.
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