Adil Najam
Pictures on the television show Karachi burning. The city is at war. Morchas everywhere. Clashes, violence, firing, deaths.
The Chief Justice is holed up at the airport and the streets are ruled by mobs. Aaj TV is being fired at and Talat Hussain reports that the police and rangers are unable to get their to help because the roads are blocked (to stop the Chief Justice). Of course, these road blocks have not stopped the killers who are firing at the TV station. As of now 15 are reported dead. Over 100 seriously injured. Hospitals in Karachi have declared an emergency. The Prime Minister has called an emergency meeting of his own to respond to what the government is calling a ‘security situation’ but which sounds, smells, looks and feels like the beginning of a war on the streets of Karachi. Flights in and out of the city are stalled. Train traffic is stopped. The city seems to have descended back to its darkest days of street violence.
Meanwhile, the petty blame game continues. But things are changing too fast for one to analyze them. But one thing is certain. Things have gone out of control. Totally out of control. Totally out of everyone’s control. It is a sad sad day for all of us.
I wish I had something more profound to say. All I can hink of right now is what someone wrote on our comments section recently: Khuda Khair Karray!
(Picture credits BBC and The News and pictorial story at Bilal Zuberi’s blog; great blog coverage at Karachi Metroblog).
Here are some more video clips of the situation in Karachi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcOpCZpUo4M&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GU60WKjNtE
rally from isb.
To tell the truth, I’m not surprised that so much violence has occurred. The situation was set up the minute MQM announced that their rally would coincide with the pro-CJP rally. A Geo News report can be found here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKoP5Ht_HiA
I second Lal Salaam. Beside to say that an average Balochi or Pashtun IS responsible for all the ignorance and ‘badmashi’ in their respective provinces would be further mockery of their helplessness.
The fact is that we are poor and ignorant. The harder reality is that we are ashamed to accept that. Even bitter realization would be to admit we are driven by mindless and irrational behavior of our very own being and by external forces (media, politics, civic society in a negative way) and yet, and yet you see everywhere the tantrums of ‘individualism’, ‘freedom of self’, ‘i did it for Altaf bhai'(though the idiot can’t even earn more than Rs.4000 a month.
For me, though however it boils my blood to see the destruction of our civil society as well (blame Mushi or Altaf but who exactly killed and fired and looted streets?). Today, after a long time, I prayed. And I prayed if there IS a civil war looming on our heads, please God, let it be thrown to us and let us deal with it sooner the better. And let it be the last war of our shattered hopes, aspirations, high esteemed dreams and of our dignity. Let it be the last and let it be passed soon. However the price it may entail, it won’t be bigger than the constant rape of our moral, social and religious values. What worse could it be than to be so poor that you have to sell yourself for Rs. 1500???
Things went wrong in an effort to please the king. MQM wanted to prove that what pervaiz elhahi couldn’t stop in lahore they “will” in karachi. In that effort they shot themselves on their own foot. They should have known this was not an isolated karachi of the 80s and 90s but at the center of the focus with cj in the city and with flood gates of funding opened for development to make it a shining spot of the present govt. I know from the past only mqm is capable of playing by this rule. But by god this was a self-destructive effort. They should have remembered the huge jalsas they arranged for Nawaz Sharif in early 90s in the city, perhaps the biggest he had ever attended anywhere and then what happened to them later on. Politically they should have come out clean as opposed to becoming a party at such a level in this crisis. I think this is the beginning of an end for mqm.
I am watching the rally from lahore; the [hired] crowd is silent and speakers, the stake holders like ch. shujaat etc., are tentative at best.
About the issue that made cj a star, the steel mills, according to yesterday’s dawn will be making a profit of about Rs 2bn. That story is worth reading. I am pasting the link below.
http://dawn.com/2007/05/11/ebr1.htm