Zardari bashing reaches ABC News blog – by Sarah Khan
It was saddening to see how an engineered video clip defaming President Asif Zardari made its way to ABC News blog. Here is the article which inspired me to write this post particularly because I was in the audience on that day:
ABC News’ Nicholas Schifrin reports from Islamabad, Pakistan:
A few weeks ago, a short video of Pakistan’s unpopular, democratically elected president began playing on endless loop on the dozen private channels here. In the clip, he is giving a speech in Urdu to a crowd that apparently wasn’t listening to him too closely (not uncommon in Pakistan). As he speaks, you can hear background chitchat from the inattentive audience. Well, he could hear that same chitchat too, so at one point he looked down at someone and yelled, in English, ”Shut Up!”
There are a few obvious things to be noted about this article.
- First of all, the use of ‘unpopular’ and ‘democratically elected’ in the same sentence betrays the biased mindset of Mr Schifrin. (Let us hope that while browsing certain cheap blog posts about President Zardari, Mr Schifrin is keeping himself abreast of the landslide victory that President Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party and its allies earned in recent elections in Gilgit-Baltistan, Quetta and the NWFP.)
- The video seems to be fabricated by the same anti-democracy mafia which has in the past produced various forged items, such as the forged letter of Benazir Bhutto to Peter Galbraith (former US diplomat).
- The short video itself is so obviously engineered.
- It does not provide enough information to form a conclusive opinion about the context of the utterance of the words “shut up”. People, who have posted comments on various blogs, are extrapolating using the model of Zardari that they have in their minds. They are doing this exercise without knowing the actual context of this video.
- People who have used this engineered video for Zardari bashing obviously do not know anything about what was said immediately before and after this.
- The video has been posted on various sites, particularly those with pro-Imran Khan or pro-Jamaat Islami tendencies. Most are using this as a propaganda tool.
- One site even had a post that Zardari 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, towards the left and right of his audience (one can read words ‘PTV’ in reverse). That sort of behaviour is obviously unethical and unprofessional.
- Also, look at the expressions of the people standing behind President Zardari. Obviously they seem to be unperturbed or are not looking at a particular person because no such words were said by Zardari to a specific person or persons in the audience. The words were meant for certain members of the Pakistani Taliban Union of Journalists.
- I was personally present in that public meeting, and I listened to the full speech by President Zardari. This is what he said in his speech:
“jo log jamhoori hukumat per tanqeed kartay hain, aur jab hum jamhooriat ka difa karte hain tau who siasi adakar hamain munh band karnay ka mashwara daitay hain, un key liay mera aik hi jawab hay, shut up” (translation: those elements who are critical of the democratic government in Pakistan, and when we defend democracy they advise us to keep silent, I have only one message for them ‘shut up’!”)
- Thus the “shut up” was part of the speech itself, in which President was referring to certain agents of the anti-democracy establishment in Pakistan media (commonly known as Pakistani Taliban Union of Journalists).
- Without knowing the content and context of the video clip, writing a whole blog and drawing conclusions from a partial video is a weird thing to do. Apparently, Mr Nicholas Schifrin of ABC News is more interested in attracting a few visitors to his blog post instead of safeguarding the credibility of ABC News.
President Asif Ali Zardari has himself done this to him. He has lost respect and trust of Nation. We people are ourselves insulting him so much that how can we accuse an outsider. But even then people should not fall blindly after these things. Thanks for making things clear.
But no one can help it But Mr. Zardari himself by showing some decency and maturity in his acts and by somewhat restoring his image in public.
Worst times have arrived therefore Mr. 10% (ten percent) have become leaders of our beloved country. I will not go into the details how corrupt our leaders are. Along with corruption they don’t care if poor people live or die. Zardari and his government have sold our country for few dollars and now our national interests are also on sale by him. When I think about the situation in Pakistan my heart really goes, looking at the necessity which Pakistani nation does not have, such as Sugar, Wheat flour, Electricity, Gas, jobs, clean drinking water and there is huge list of other necessities which Pakistani nation does not enjoy. However leaders of Pakistan have turned a blind eye to the problems of poor people. I always wonder that why Pakistan does not utilizes 18 billion people and produce various items which can later be sold in international market such as Airplanes, Fast Trains, Weapon technology and various other items. Leaders of Pakistan have pledged to neglect this nation and they are extremely busy filling their own pockets with stolen poor people’s money. I pray to God that the injustice vanishes soon and we see a real and authentic leader who can lead us through prosperity and happiness. I believe the leaders of Pakistan have failed to look after their country and they have failed to show care. We as a nation should unite together and raise against the ignorance we face today. Thank you
Here is yet another example of a shabby piece of journalism, an article written by Huma Yusuf at Dawn.com
Web of silence?
By Huma Yusuf
Sunday, 14 Feb, 2010
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/12-web-of-silence-420–bi-07
sarah,
i saw the snippet on ‘pakistaniat.com’ and was appalled by the lack of responsibility shown by the editors of the blog.
Thanks for explaining the context of the ‘shut up’, i was not far of the mark with my guess expressed on that blog. 🙂
Sarah,
I have seen this dubious “shut-up” clip posted on the Facebook. Thanks for so convincingly exposing the elements behind this. Please carry on the good work – it’s been a long battle since the 1970’s. Reminds me of many similar concoctions of disinformation that were propagated by the “spiritual” predecessors of the present day Right-wing parties and their henchmen in the media. Remember how they manipulated and still shamelessly quote Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s statements out of context like “Idhar hum udhar tum,” “Thank God, Pakistan is safe” and “tearing the Polish Resolution” in the UN Security Council.