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In the past few days Karachi has seen bloodshed the likes of which no major city in the world has witnessed. Over 100 people were killed in acts of violence ranging from shootouts to simple cold blooded murders.
Underlying this grim situation is the fact the authorities are unable or unwilling to come up with a long term solution to put an end to this mayhem. Many Karachiites would remember the blood soaked days of the 1990's when the city seemed more like Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War, rather than the city of lights. Nobody wants a return to those days, least of all the political parties that are stakeholders within the city.
Karachi is essentially plagued by a turf war between the Pashtun-speaking Awami National Party (ANP) and the Mohajir-dominated Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). The latter party has been the dominant political force in the city for over twenty years, whereas the former is slowly emerging as a power broker in the city.
Arif Hasan in his op-ed ‘Politics of ethnicity’ quoted the 1998 census, according to which 48 per cent of the city’s population is Urdu-speaking, 14 per cent Punjabi-speaking, 12 per cent Pashto-speaking and about nine per cent is Sindhi-speaking. The Pashtun population in the city is largely from the working class and has grown in numbers mainly as migrants to Karachi seeking work as labourers at construction sites or as bus and truck drivers.
This demographic shift has gone in favor of the ANP and against the MQM, which fears its power in the city is slipping. Add to this mix is the notion that criminal elements within Karachi have the support of political parties whether tacit or out in the open. The MQM is accused by its detractors of being behind extortion rackets and target killings in Karachi. The ANP on the other hand is accused of supporting the land and drug mafia in the city.
This leaves us with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the party that until recently was in coalition with both the MQM and the ANP in Sindh. The PPP faces a political dilemma as it precariously maintains its government at the centre and the provincial level. It needs to satisfy the other two parties and bring about a détente between the two so that Pakistan's largest city does not go down the tubes and take their government with it.
The PPP and the MQM have not done Karachi any favours by having their party loyalists and supporters become part of the police force and effectively making them subject to political influence rather then defending the law of the land. The politicisation of the police means that criminal elements that have the political parties support cannot be taken to task. For people accused of being involved in target killings, an arrest warrant is simply a passport to a revolving door which allows them to get out as simply as they were let in.
In the end it is the people of Karachi who are suffering. It’s bad enough that they have to endure prolonged loadshedding and skyrocketing prices and add to this an unwanted bullet fest, then you have a perfect storm of rage and anger that could explode at any minute. People not just in Karachi but in the rest of Pakistan are feeling despondent. If the country’s largest city can be rocked by such a prolonged orgy of violence then what will happen to the rest of the nation. The worst casualty out of this situation is the fact that the people’s hope for the future is being snubbed out. To truly destroy a man you need to break his spirit and that’s exactly what has happened in Karachi.
There is either incompetence or simply a lack of will to tackle the problems head on. Sending the Interior Minister Rehman Malik once every two months to patch things up and say that a third party is involved in the violence (presumably its the same 'Star Wars characters' who attacked the PNS Mehran Base) will not solve this issue.
The MQM and ANP both need to realise that this city belongs to them as much as it belongs to any other Pakistani citizen. They have to accept that vying for an increase in political clout in Karachi is a democratic right of all political parties. However, no single party should be allowed to monopolise the political process in any city because that goes against the very idea of democracy. The MQM will have to accept the fact that if another party is rising in influence in Karachi then increasing its vice like grip on the city will not be beneficial to it in the long run. The MQM has been trying to extend its political clout in other parts of Pakistan, which is a good thing because as it tries to become a more national party, it will no longer need to feel that Karachi must be kept in a stranglehold for it to have any say in national politics. The old slogan of "Karachi is ours" is self defeating.
The politics of ethnic identification and nationalism has to be stopped. Parties that exploit and spread fear along ethnic lines are sowing the seeds of violent discontent that likes of which Karachi now witnesses. Pakistan can ill afford havoc in its largest metropolis, especially when the country faces a tanking economy, rising extremism, bad governance and unprecedented international pressure. "A house divided against itself cannot stand," said Abraham Lincoln. A country which cannot be at peace with itself will inevitably be seen as a threat to the peace of the world. Let that not be the epitaph of our Karachi and of our Pakistan.
