Adil Najam
Karachi is at war with itself. Again.
Karachi bleeds, so does all of Pakistan. And Karachi bleeds too often. In a country that seems to be forever falling apart, the falling apart of this, the greatest of its cities, is both a sign and a foreboding. As painful as the daily killings and mayhem in Karachi is the sense that no one has any interest or any idea about what can or should be done. To be honest, I am not sure what I would do myself.
And so, dear readers, I turn to you: What would YOU do if you were made King of Karachi?
What realistic, practicable, and implementable steps would you do to deal with the perennial bouts of panic and death and destruction that this wondrous metropolis seems to be perpetually caught in? What would YOU do: in the short term? In the medium term? In the long term?
This question hit me hard when this morning I was talking over the phone with a rather influential Pakistan. In desperation I lambasted at how no one was doing anything. In equal desperation, he agreed. But then he asked me what could be done? What would I do? It was an honest question, not a cynical one. He was not making an excuse. He was searching for solutions. As am I. I have thought of this question all day and not come up with much. I do have some ideas. But they are vague and I wonder how practicable and realistic?
Hence, I reach out to you, dear readers. What would you do if you were made king of Karachi for a day?
Someone, desperately needs to come up with an answer. And soon. In the very first weeks of this blogs life (back in 2006) we had carried a post about why nobody in Karachi whistles anymore. We desperately need Karachi’s whistling days back!
True, this is a city that has never really been at rest. We have seen all of this, maybe even more, before. But any city – even one as resilient as Karachi – can only take that much restlessness. At some points its nerves have to give up. Distraught and in disarray, it has to scream out in anguish and hit out at itself. One wonders if we might already be beyond that point.
Well said Hasnat!
I wish there was a law to prohibit all elected politicians including their immediate family to not leave the country for at least 2-5 years after serving their term in gov’t.
If Pakistan and Karachi make it past the year 2020, it will remain a backward and violent country because of too much influence of religion in public life. Unless we make Pakistan a secular country, we dont really have a future. Once religion is confined to private/family life, we can bring real issue such as economy, law and order, and education to the forefront. I feel because of Islam overwhelming and suffocating presence everywhere, real issues have taken a back seat. We dont have to look far just take a look accross your eastern border and learn from India. Personally, I believe most of us are corrupt and intolerant to the core and unless we start owning up to our personal failures we will never progress. Knowing my people, I have no hope of a positive change. It is tragic that the people in power who will cause most of the suffering but will escape to foreign countries when the country breaks up and not suffer themselves.
What would I do if I were King of Karachi for a day?
I will ask Mufti of Makkah to give me a team of honest people who will guide us religiously and establish rule of law.
I will then ask Chinese to give me a team of businessmen who can turn us around.
Finally, I will ask Japanese to provide me with a team who can introduce hardwork and quality education to our people.
By evening time, I will award each and every team member Pakistani nationality and hand over Karachi to them.
I do not think a King of Karachi could fix Karachi’s problem w/o the help of other provinces. Jobs need to be created in other provinces and rural areas outside of Karachi to distract new migrants from coming to Karachi. Not trying to blame non-locals for all our problems, but Karachi has limited space and resources. It cannot continue to host unlimited number of people from all over the Pakistan and offer them jobs and other services….it is just not possible.
Second thing that needs to be done is confiscation of all legal and illegals arms.
Unfortunately the solution is not as simple as some people have suggested in these comments. First thing to understand is that what is going on in Karachi is just a war between different gangs over territory and resources. Suggesting that MQM is the only gang in town is naive. There were areas in the city before 1985 where one will not feel safe unless he belongs to certain ethnicity.
Our law enforcement agencies, in fact the whole society is deeply corrupt, nobody including all politicians is interested in looking at the big picture, everybody is looking after his own.
There is too much at stake, too many resources, none of the gangs will give it up easily. Unless somehow miraculously corruption is rooted out of the law enforcement agencies and other responsible organizations this war will go on.