Asif Ezdi: On Bachcha's Behaviour
Only a diplomat can say so much between the lines - t
Zardari has been faulted – unfairly – for the flawed delivery of his speech at the General Assembly and for his verbal flubs – "unitarel" for unilateral, disposed for dispossessed and "fanatism" for fanaticism. If Zardari stumbled over these tongue-twisters, that is excusable. English is not our language and there is no shame in admitting that we do not master it. Even Palin had to struggle with the word "nuclear" in her debate with Biden. What is shameful is that so many of our political leaders take so little pride in our own languages and use English to set them apart from the hoi polloi. Musharraf often spoke in English when addressing the nation, a language understood by less than one per cent of the population. Now Zardari has been following Musharraf's shameful example: his oath-taking and his address to the joint session of Parliament were both in English.
With Zardari, the remarkable thing is that you never know if he means what he says. At the General Assembly, Zardari declared solemnly that "we cannot allow our territory and our sovereignty to be violated by our friends." But it did not take him long to contradict himself. He told Fox Channel News that "cross-border fighting" by US forces on Pakistani soil is "not quite as big a deal as the journalists make it sound." Then, in an interview with WSJ, he acknowledged that the U.S. is carrying out Predator missile strikes on Tribal Areas with the Government's consent.
Zardari has been faulted – unfairly – for the flawed delivery of his speech at the General Assembly and for his verbal flubs – "unitarel" for unilateral, disposed for dispossessed and "fanatism" for fanaticism. If Zardari stumbled over these tongue-twisters, that is excusable. English is not our language and there is no shame in admitting that we do not master it. Even Palin had to struggle with the word "nuclear" in her debate with Biden. What is shameful is that so many of our political leaders take so little pride in our own languages and use English to set them apart from the hoi polloi. Musharraf often spoke in English when addressing the nation, a language understood by less than one per cent of the population. Now Zardari has been following Musharraf's shameful example: his oath-taking and his address to the joint session of Parliament were both in English.
With Zardari, the remarkable thing is that you never know if he means what he says. At the General Assembly, Zardari declared solemnly that "we cannot allow our territory and our sovereignty to be violated by our friends." But it did not take him long to contradict himself. He told Fox Channel News that "cross-border fighting" by US forces on Pakistani soil is "not quite as big a deal as the journalists make it sound." Then, in an interview with WSJ, he acknowledged that the U.S. is carrying out Predator missile strikes on Tribal Areas with the Government's consent.
posted by temporal at 10/15/2008
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