Well it’s 2010 and the dirty dancing days are finally over. Inside the mind of this eagle though and like all other birds of prey, the renowned song from the movie will be looping over and over like a toddler repeatedly watching a worn out ‘Teletubbies’ VHS, until it manages to gnaw on the prey it had been targeting with its hawkish large pupils, silently and relentlessly oblivious to most forms of danger around it. We have been told that its nature is so as it is an animal and animals only survive on the basic instincts not having the ability to ponder, feel, speak aloud, and most importantly make the right choices in life.

Yet that is not so true. While a fauna of one classification will prey and feed on an animal of another classification such as the ‘king of the jungle’ spotting a defenseless deer, stalking it, making the pounce, and finally biting through the flesh, it will in most cases defend its own kind, group together with the males realizing the remarkable force they have as one, to protect the female and the young. Petite yellow bees which to us seem to be buzzing aimlessly, minuscule black ants discovering our delicious edibles, raucous sea-gulls flying past the setting sun, or vibrant neon tetras glowing in the deep blue sea, all actually have a highly synchronized and harmonized purpose in life, travelling in magnificently coordinated queues or clusters, shielding with care for one another and making a living in their own unimaginable ways making the most of sometimes just a few months or years of precious life. Who on earth has told these creatures how they are to survive the way they do? Who on earth has given them opportunities for education, socialization and a world full of choices at their feet?

This is the heartbreaking reality that we citizens of Karachi as human beings bestowed with limitless wisdom do not realize and continue to finish off one another putting even the word  ‘barbarian’ to such shame that it will hide in between the incorrect pages of a dictionary never to be found again. Two of my respected colleagues at Dawn.com who recently researched, wrote and published an in-depth feature on the targeted killings in the metropolis highlighted some very interesting revelations including a comment by Waseem Ahmed, Capital City Police Officer Karachi, who said, “While every murder is technically counted as a target killing, [Personally] a target killing is a murder with a motive of sectarian, ethnic, and terrorism violence. On average, some 3.6 murders have taken place in Karachi every day since January 2010.” Another excerpt from their article quoting Nazim F. Haji, founding chief of the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee says, “The political parties are inextricably involved in this issue…they talk about target killings and land mafias as if some outside force is behind it…when truly it is a battle for their respective turfs and these murders are a significant, real feature in that battle.”

My predicament in this whole state of affairs is that I’ve been living in Karachi now for almost 27 years, and it pains me to see my people spending valuable time every day on making the wrong choices and lodging countless bullets into well thought over targets cold heartedly and mercilessly. It aches me to see my city burning up in flames every night with anger and hatred, and hear wailing ambulances rushing frantically to save the lives of the injured if any at all. According to the Dawn Newspaper, over 40 people have lost their lives in incidents of targeted killings just this past week. Adding this horrendous count to the double figured sickening numbers of the last two months which is over 70, what you have is a mass scale operation to eliminate the life and soul of the city.

We the people need to wake up and come to the realization that Karachi is not just a physical space but rather ‘a state of mind’. What good is foreign aid, investment, and infrastructure development if the inhabitants are in a state of constant insecurity, fear and misery. This ridiculous and juvenile blame game has to stop now, or optimistically speaking really soon otherwise all that will be left is the so called  ‘turfs’ and ‘lands’ but no living souls to inhabit them who are the ones who in all reality will keep the candle glowing giving the essence to the city known as Karachi.

Photo and text by Hasaan Haider/Dawn.com

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.