KARACHI, March 27: “The commercialization of urban centres is responsible for severe environmental fallout and the eviction of poor communities from city centres,” said architect/town planner Arif Hasan at a plenary session on urban issues on the third day of proceedings at the World Social Forum.
To outline the city issues faced by urban centres, Karachi’s noted figures, involved in different civic development programmes, had gathered at the evening session on Sunday for a discourse on how to address the rising chaos engulfing Karachi vis-ŕ-vis the education, transport, land and environment issues.
Addressing the small group of people, Mr Hasan went on to emphasise that the gaps in our education facilities were resulting from urbanization, pointing out that the emphasis has shifted from vocational training to mostly university level programmes while polytechnic institutes having almost disappeared from the city.
This marks rise of an elitist society where the gap between the rich and the poor is actually being institutionalized. With globalization commanding only high technology development, the poor class finds itself with no space to live in the cities either and those who resist evictions have their settlements burnt down.
He claimed that 3,500 houses had already been burnt down, and this was a recorded proof.
Hence, the land development schemes have resulted in mass evictions and sent the poor class towards the city fringes.
And now the rising middle class finds itself crushed under financial pressures resulting from high living expenses and the burden of private education since the government level education is substandard and only opted for by the very poor.
Pointing out the socio-economic changes resulting from mismanaged urban planning, Mr Hasan blamed these circumstances in Karachi for creating a disgruntled and disparate society where the rich were too far removed from the reality of the poor and the lower middle income group which comprises almost 70 per cent of Karachi.
Since this informative discourse on Asian cities was just one of the many sessions being held simultaneously at the Kashmir Complex, the attendance, despite the subject being the core issue of governance regarding Karachi, was rather poor.
In fact, attendance at most of the sessions after four days of continuous activity has been relatively low.
While issues of Kashmir and Palestine having caught the attention of political activists, the prevalent feeling has been that the WSF is not gathering mass appeal as visitors are primarily those which represent the numerous participating NGOs or the political activists of large and small parties. However, the ambience, despite heat and dust making the environmental conditions rather arduous, is one of continued rallying with protests and free speech giving it a colour not seen before in the city. It is, in fact, a large scale speaker’s corner.
Upon entering, one is bound to encounter a rallying assemblage merrily waving flags and chanting out their demands which may be anything from wanting to give their regional language its due status or from dissenting against the Kalabagh dam.
With the WSF mandate being staunchly against globalization, wanting corporations and governments to change their ways and, “do more for the people and nations of the developing world,” the intention of this polycentric event in Karachi has probably been fulfilled.
However, with regards to its slogan of ‘another world is possible’, as one colleague commented, it is quite difficult to change the world with the heat and dust slapping rudely in your face!
But ironically, the common man in our city, for whom this medium should be the ideal platform to vent anger, does not appear to be bothered about the ‘hugeness’ of the World Social Forum either.
As per Arif Hasan’s statistics which point out 70 per cent of urban Karachi to comprise of lower income groups, how can they even think about indulging in the luxury of speaking of their issues when they are battling with so many other compelling forces on an almost hour to hour basis?
The commuting nightmare for those using public buses has turned a 40-minute distance into a three-hour trek. How will that blue-collar worker take time out to attend the forum?
