Barely hours after MQM’s day of ‘mourning’ over the killing of their activist, Karachi was once again consumed by violence. Tuesday’s bloody episode of chaos and destruction had left ten people dead, scores injured and a staggering number of vehicles destroyed. The following day with another ‘high-profile’ death, the ANP had announced their own day of ‘mourning’, the city was once again brought to a standstill, while bandits spread chaos and unleashed their wrath on citizens, bringing Karachi once again to it’s knees; leaving six dead, three injured and a dozen more vehicles torched.
Inspite of the continued violence endangering not only the lives of innocent citizens who have nothing to do with the ugly politics that have tainted their lives, no action has been taken against these ‘progressive’ political groups and their heavily armed militant wings, ready to wreak havoc on the slightest of provocations. Not only has no action been ever taken to disarm them or set up legislature banning or dismantling these terror-espousing organizations, the liberals, secularists, the ‘champions of human rights’, too have left these intolerant and racist groups free to terrorize the city.
Pakistan is a state in crisis yet the more pressing problems are ignored in favor of bashing the conservative and right wing organizations. More and more people and writers are selling their own brand of remedy, where secularism is the underlying answer to all problems.
The solution most Pakistani writers and ‘intellectuals’ give is not only impractical but in no way capable of fixing the problem. The Pakistani problem is rooted in an ugly mixture of greedy self-serving politicians, corruption, and anti-state elements bent on breaking the country apart. Secularizing the country can not fix the problem simply because Pakistan has always been under control of secular parties and still remains so. At his book launch, sponsored by an American publishing company, veteran writer and staunch secularist Irfan Hussain mentioned how the future of Pakistan will remain bleak until ‘misconceptions’ about secularism remain, he encouraged the media and politicians to work on clearing doubts, for a secular future. Responding to why secularism is met with distaste among average Pakistanis, Hussain explained, “The word secularism has been wrongly translated into Urdu, giving it a meaning which says ‘lacking religion’. It doesn’t mean that. You can be religious and be secular at the same time.” A change of definition can not change the failure to realize that the major problems plaguing the country are not religious in nature, but result from deep-rooted political dissension, ethnical divisions, a destructive foreign policy, ‘unequal’ resource and financial distribution, national debt, inflation, corruption, energy crisis etc.
However, the liberal sector remains shameful and is stuck in its strong mode of denial; continuously denying the existence of liberal thought in the mainstream politics is one thing, but downplaying violence stemming from political dissension is sheer ignominy, and is tantamount to giving a free pass to certain parties solely based on their secular credentials. As a result, they are left to blame all society ills and violence on the religious sector which has become a favorite pasttime for liberals on television channels and newspaper column writers. One needs to honestly look into this blame game, and do some honest soul searching, instead of defending organizations merely over their association with ‘modern’ thought. Retired Brigadier and liberal, Asad Munir wrote, “Progressive political parties like the PPP, the ANP, the MQM and the nationalist parties always poll more votes as compared to religious political parties but they remain under the pressure of radical elements, rejected by the masses.” The statement is true to an extent, but massive corruption and intimidation play an important part in winning elections, ‘radical elements’ do not use targetted force, extortion and blackmail to garner votes, however the part that most concerns one here is Munir’s usage of “progressive” for the aforementioned groups.
Can a term such as “progressive” be used for these parties dominating the country’s political arena since decades? How has Pakistan progressed? One would love to find out on what bases was this deduction made or which state did Munir use to draw comparisions with, perhaps Somalia? The sad part is, more and more people are ascribing to this dysfunctional defeatist mentality, sidelining religion for a secularist ideology, under the exaggerated fear of extremism. When the fact is more people are terrorized and threatened by these groups than they are of religious extremists. More harm has been inflicted on Pakistan by politicians than by any right wingers.
A report for the year 2010 compiled by The Gulf Today puts the number of dead from targetted killings and political warfare at a staggering 1,233, with fifty percent of all incidents taking place in Karachi, a stronghold of MQM. The report also stated the number of dead from incidents of terrorism, putting it at 1208, a number that has signicantly gone down. Yet the number of victims from political violence continues to climb. According to the HRCP 1,100 people were killed in the first six months 2011 in political violence. Here is an excerpt from a statistical report for the year 2011 published by FAFEN:
“During the March – May 2011 quarter, a total of 216 incidents of political violence occurred across the country which affected 1,740 people of which 595 people were killed, 1,094 were injured and 51 were kidnapped. On average, seven people were killed, 12 were injured and one was reportedly kidnapped every day during this reporting period.”For years these groups have worked to create chaos in Pakistan’s most important economical hub, Karachi; generating half of the total revenue of the entire country. By deepening the fissures and engulfing Karachiites with issues of ethnicity and language, these anti-Pakistan forces have instigated bloodshed that has cost the country a staggering loss of billions in forced ’shutter-down’ strikes over the years, not to mention the huge loss of human life. The spasmodic nature of these parties at times lead members to short-term peace processes with rival factions, and still at times full-blown armed conflicts, May 12 is a date most Karachiites will never forget.
What supporters of these racial and nationalist parties fail to realize is how their politicians are subverting all chances of mutual co-existence by continually replaying past incidents that make the public wallow into a mode of destructive self-pity, igniting sparks of vengeance and racism among the youth. As a result, these tactics are successful in insinuating a resistance among the people against imaginary forces of ‘oppression and inequality’, leading to clashes with other ethnic groups. In the last few months, the cries of inequality have finally evolved into demands for seperation. So blindly do these supporters stick to their brand of truth and politicians one is baffled by the amount of brainwashing these groups have successfully carried out over the years. Ask any MQM member why they support an organization notorious for it’s armed conflicts and they will brush aside all statistical figures and brandish their own set of stats on Karachi’s development, and a winding list of projects under construction. Is the cost of human life worth the development which per se is the right of the tax-payers of the city, and not something the people should be overly grateful for?
The irony of it all is, had the same blood-thirsty actions been committed by any single religious outfit, the outcry would have been deafening. All the newschannels, talk shows hosts, anchors, journalists, community leaders, NGOs, HRW groups, would come out to fiercely condemn these ‘terrorists’, their members, their sympathizers, their affiliates, their allies, their mentors, right down to their religious ideology. And had these religious ‘zealots’ made the mistake of taking the city of Karachi hostage like the MQM, PPP, ANP routinely do, taking turns, after every few weeks, the response would resonate in similiarity to the Lal Masjid killings.
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