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.
At one level it does not matter what the context was, if the video is real then this behavior is just plain wrong, no matter how provocative the comment from the crowd might be.
But overall, I share the feeling of the author that I would like to know more about the context and specially what was said immediately after this.
I have seen this on other sites and most are using this as propaganda only. One site even had a post that he was saying shut up to democracy, another had the video doctored and played again and again so that it seemed he kept saying this over and over again. That sort of behavior is itself wrong and only gives sympathy to AAZ. Personally, I think he needs none.
By the way, looking at this reminded me, has anyone heard of or from Hussain Haqqani recently! WHen friends like him desert you it is usually a sign of worse to come!
Although I am not at all in favor of AAZ, but writing a whole blog and drawing conclusions from a partial video without knowing the background is itself jahalat.
I agree, bad as he is, his jahalat is no match for our jahil aalim’s
Mr. Zardari is for me not a person I as such hate or admire.
-But I am obliged to give this a fair treatment,
– I am not in a position or state to comment on something that is not validated or verified ,
but in spe…. having acquired relevant information this will certainly be a opportunity I will use.
Some comments from the ATP Facebook Page:
– “yes he shuld apologize”
– “Do we know if the tape is authentic?”
– “I am also wondering why the video does not show what he says next?”
– “what will he say all he tells its a lie…”
– “incomplete info is dangerous than poison.”
– “ya ur right but complete infomation about zardari mor dangerus…….”
– “misinformation is also injurious to health.”