'If you have a gun... I have a gun': Gandapur quotes The Godfather during army chief meeting

Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ali Amin Gandapur revealed on Samaa TV’s program last night that he quoted a line from the legendary movie The Godfather during his conversation with the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Gen Asim Munir.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Barrister Gohar and CM Gandapur confirmed on January 16 that they met with the Army Chief in Peshawar.

While discussing security issues with the COAS, CM KP quoted a phrase from The Godfather movie: “If you have a gun in your hand and I have a gun in my hand, so we can talk reasons.”

It merits a mention that The Godfather, a legendary 20th-century crime film about the Italian mafia, does not have such a quote.

However, in 2024, an AI-generated audio clip featuring the movie's protagonist, Marlon Brando (who played the original Godfather), was released on social media, which had a somewhat similar quote.

The AI-generated audio follows as: “If you hold a gun and I hold a gun, we can talk about the law. If you hold a knife and I hold a knife, we can talk about rules. If you come empty-handed and I come empty-handed, we can talk about reason.”

Gandapur claims to have told the Army Chief, “We will have to be on board with many policy decisions, while we also need to review those policies that haven’t given us any benefits,” adding that the most significant problem in KP is that people have lost trust in the state. “We need to restore that trust.”

Interestingly, however, the Chief Minister of KP did not stop with the apparent movie references and went on to quote from Gladiator during his meeting with Gen Asim Munir.

“I used a quote from Gladiator, ‘If you want to win freedom, win the crowd’. That is what I told the Army Chief that to win this battle, they will have to win the crowd. Any person who knows the dynamics of this area knows what I am talking about. Without the public support in KP, terrorism can not be eliminated,” he said.

CM KP claimed that the Army Chief responded positively to his opinions and stated, “The Chief said that we should try our best, along with the federal government, to negotiate with the Afghan government. Just to be clear, I am not talking about negotiations with the terrorists, but rather with the Afghan government.”