Bilawal Zardari tries to score brownie points by slamming Taliban

Developing Just Leadership

Crescent International

Rabi' al-Thani 18, 1435 2014-02-18

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

Bilawal Zardari is a spoiled brat. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, spent most of his time in the nightclubs of London but now he wants to lead the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. He made his debut by condemning the Taliban and called the Islamic Sharia a throwback to the Stone Ages.

Karachi, Crescent-online
February 18, 2014, 22:13 EST

Bilawal Zardari, the 25-year old scion of Pakistan’s Zardari/Bhutto political dynasty who insists on carrying his slain mother Benazir Bhutto’s family name, has made his political debut before the Pakistani public. He organized the Sindh cultural festival that was inaugurated on February 1, honoring the cultural roots of his home province at the site of the historic Mohenjo-daro ruins, reportedly the first settled city in human history.

As the UK paper The Guardian noted: ”[The festival] was as much political as cultural. The Sindh festival's slogan, “Preserve, promote, protect”, just happens to have the same initials as the Bhutto family enterprise the Pakistan People's Party, the now much-diminished political movement co-founded by his grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.”

What really made waves were his comments during the occasion about the Pakistani Taliban, represented in the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), with which Nawaz Sharif’s government is currently in negotiations.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the Sindh festival, Bilawal Zardari declared: ”Dialogue is always an option but we need to have a position of strength. How do you talk from a position of weakness? You have to beat them on the battlefield. They are fighting us. It’s not only confined to North Waziristan. They are attacking us in Karachi. We would like to eradicate the Taliban from Pakistan,” said Bilawal.

“The Taliban want to impose the law of terror in the country, but I want to tell them, if you have to live in Pakistan you will have to follow its constitution,” Bilawal declared at the ceremony. “We don't accept the law of terrorists,” he added.

“Some people are trying to bring back the stone-age era in the country in the name of Islam.” Bilawal Zardari attempted to represent himself as the leader of a counter-movement to the government, conveniently ignoring the violence spread in the country through the years of father Asif Ali Zardari’s regime, which tacitly green-lighted US policies, including drone attacks.

“Our country, our culture is in danger, our rulers didn't tell us the truth, they tried to suppress us, they wanted to break us but we didn't break,” Zardari junior bombastically declared.

END

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