October 20, 2010

The burning silence of Karachi

The rangers and police appear unable to stop the violence.
(Photo: Dawn.com)
The situation is Karachi keeps getting precarious. Just yesterday, 13 people were killed in an attack on a market. 13 lives lost to mindless violence. Did that prick your conscience? Did you feel the pain that the loved ones of all those who is dead are feeling? The government is nowhere to be seen, but that is hardly surprising given its track record. The President is busy mulling things over in the Presidency because he’s afraid the Supreme Court will come after him. But does that even matter? For all I care, Zardari will leave the country as soon as his seat is pulled out from under him.

The Sindh government is a coalition government comprising of the MQM, PPP and the ANP. One would have imagined that the government of these “friends” would have some sense of unity or at the very least some compassion for human life. Apparently though, all is fair in the quest of dominance and superiority. I wonder how sociologists would rate us; probably write us off as a bad case of jungle animals who have contracted syphilis and have only a few days to live. People often comment about how the ‘pseudo’ intellectuals who were trained at the behest of Western education and foreign degrees don’t have any clue about the real Pakistan. Well here’s the answer to all those who make these claims: I am a born and raised Pakistani and I can’t help but agree with all the fake intellect being spewed by those princely chums.

I wonder where our humanity goes. I guess money, power and bloodlust makes everything legal particularly when you know you are not accountable to anyone. People talk about Islam and God and invoke His name and blessing in every phrase, but yet they have no qualms about beating someone up, ransacking and desecrating their homes, raping women, beheading people. These are the very same people who are in power. These are the people who rule Karachi where innocent blood is spilled everyday for some war that no one seems to be able to explain.

People talk to me and tell me it is the land mafia which is behind this latest spiral in the never ending violence. If I were to agree with them, then where are the police? Even the Italian police ripped apart Naples to cleanse the city of the last remnants of the dangerous and yet revered Mafioso. Our police have trouble defending 13 million people from the terrors of some land grabbers? Then some people come up to me and tell me it is a political war, and political personnel are involved in it. Maybe that’s true but then that would mean that we elected people who actually don’t give a damn about the very people who stood up and went to vote for them. Is that true?

The federal government couldn’t care less about what happens in Sindh, and the Sindh government? With people like Qaim Ali Shah at the helm of affairs, it’s no wonder Karachi is in the middle of a whirlpool of violence. On Capital Talk yesterday, a legislator from North Waziristan stated that there is no semblance of any government in Waziristan. Then, Haider Abbas Rizvi of MQM came on TV and said it looks as if Karachi is without a government. Well then gents, what difference, if any, is left between Waziristan and Karachi? Or do we expect the Americans to send some drones Karachi’s way too now?

Which reminds me that if Zulfiqar Mirza, the Sindh Home Minister had any decency, he wouldn’t only resign but also go jump off a bridge. But then again the hallmark of PPP government’s has always been the utterly shameless barbarians who literally rule over us like Kings used to over their subjects. Statements suggesting even the Americans wouldn’t have been able to stop this violence are tantamount to making a mockery of the current crisis. If the Americans were indeed in charge, they would clear up this nonsense in less than two days Mr. Mirza. After all, they have killed hundreds of terrorists including Baitullah Mehsud from up above, like a diamond in the sky. Maybe the same therapy is needed in Karachi.

The long forgotten phrase of City of Lights is quite literally hollow and dead now. There is no light except from the short bursts that come whenever someone pulls the trigger of an automatic weapon. Karachi suffers in silence because that is all the people can do. It’s a small wonder the world hasn’t started calling us barbarians as yet; maybe if we had a humanistic leader, we could’ve tried to maintain the status quo. Till that time comes though, let’s pray and wait for the next elections when we can teach these self declared Kings of Pakistan a lesson.