Understanding Pakistan through the story of Karachi

https://lithub.com/understanding-pakistan-through-the-story-of-karachi/

by daddy_drank • 5 years ago

57 23 5 years ago

lithub.com

baybal22• 5 years ago

An alternative suggestion:

https://www.scribd.com/document/91535583/Pakistan-a-Personal...

After the 1971, the establishment went into the deepest crisis, and went on a route of soul searching.

Yahya booted, Bhutto hanged, Zia crashed — basically, 20 years have gone to waste.

Taliban has not yet been called that way. Siachen misadventure made military even more unpopular. First genuine heavyweight civilian politicians came into power.

The military establishment truly fought for its survival, and a new raison d'etre. And here, conveniently, the FATA experiment lets to know of itself again.

Just like Pakistan itself, FATA started as a kind of semi-useful colonial appendage, and an experiment. Imprisoned by geography and damned by history, as the cliche says.

Just like a runaway lab experiment, Taliban really took off outside of its FATA petri dish — behind the Durand line.

For some time it looked that the future of the country was still hanging in balance. Military was big, but its influence on retreat, yet the new era civilian politicians were not yet fully in power, despite doing big strides.

It's been less than a decade since Zia died, but two newly minted civilian fractions of power were already at each others' neck. Then, 14th amendment happened, and it was that chink in the armour which the old establishment has seized on.

Musharaf period. Musharaf's putsch was truly the Swan's Song of the old regime, and the last desperate attempt at return to power after the Kargil fiasco. 9.11 been truly a blessing to both Musharaf, and then Zardari, and prolonged this interregnum by at least a decade.

This interregnum has nevertheless ended, and the military has since never been able to intervene into politics directly. Since then, there been few abducted journalists here, and there, few bribed MPs, but so far nothing really signifying a direct challenge to the civilian government. Most of officers who seen Zia's era are close to retirement now, or already died.

wavefunction• 5 years ago

I can obviously research some of the points you've raised but it would be helpful to readers for you to provide some context. I don't know what FATA refers to for example, and it's not mentioned in the article you linked either.

baybal22• 5 years ago

FATA - federally administered tribal areas, aka no rights zone, aka Pakistan's own Pakistan.

It used to be a special zone in place of what is the current Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, in the north of the country, bordering Afghanistan.

IMAYousaf4• 5 years ago

Do you remember the fraud that Greg Mortenson (of 3 Cups of Tea infamy) perpetuated regarding people in Pakistan? Many of those areas were FATA areas.

Part of the Taliban's origin stories over there have to be contextualized into those people's worldview and their culture.

For Westerners reading this, if someone over there declares you as a "friend", which can even happen with an innocuous casual meeting, it quite literally means that that person, their family, and all whom they consider as friends will die trying to save you or defend your honor etc.

That same extreme commitment to hospitality is cynically weaponized by terrorist groups to get volunteers en masse through political and religious means, whether that's framed as fighting Russian/American invaders or enemies of Islam.

It's quite a beautiful thing outside of that, but it only shows up in foreign media as populist support of bad actors.

iudqnolq• 5 years ago

What fraud are you talking about?

IMAYousaf4• 5 years ago

There's a history of regionalism with regards to the cities and provinces in Pakistan that governs a lot of the domestic politics and intellectual milieu.

Political parties tend to be a lot more regionally concentrated as opposed to American Political Parties which are spread out across the country. One of the often repeated lines is how any certain political party (take your pick) such as the one dominating the Sindh province where Karachi is, will give a higher quota of governmental jobs and postings to people from Karachi, specifically opposed to the Punjab region where Lahore is, which is the most populous region.

You have to understand that many of the cynical tactics common in the politics over there like large rallies are intrinsically populist, despite the subject matter of the rally (foreign or domestic), because they rely on the working class and poor masses at large, regardless of party. The politics are quite acrimonious and generally there's quite a bit more ad hominem than even the US. It's just par for the course, but if you lift the veil, you see many members of the same families (by which I mean really, really large extended families) in opposite political parties cavorting together on the regular in things like business and socializing.

It's also worth mentioning that people from Karachi tend to have a particular complex about Karachi with regards to the country as a whole. I say this as someone who is born in Lahore, so naturally I'm biased towards that city. It goes beyond the typical sports fandom type of "rivalry" that exists, IE people who prefer LA to Chicago or to NYC etc. Rivalry is inappropriate here because at one time, Karachi was considered as the National Capital, and those ideas/complexes shape a lot of the city today, because it's a case of what could've been, as opposed to what it is.

Karachi is faced with urban decay and blight beyond what is typically found in cities as a byproduct of income inequality. There's a lot of old money in Karachi, but at the same time, there are many perceptions that are quite deserved like being robbed continuously and constant drug use etc. I have first hand experience with that unfortunately. To further highlight this, the nation's founder's tomb is in Karachi. That's incredibly important there.

I would also say that there is a big divide between Western perception of how politics/democracy works and the reality over there. I do tend to agree with the platonic ideal that a powerful civilian establishment is important. There's no denying that. However, at large, the civilian bureaucrats are all seen as corrupt by and large which is pretty deserved. Kleptocrats ruined the country's trajectory. Civilian police isn't particularly well liked by anybody. The military as an institution, is the most respected institution domestically, even though abroad it's seen as something like a junta, and it's bodies like it's intelligence division seen as operating without oversight. That's quite unfair and quite wrong. Civilian infrastructure there is incapable of running many of the industries that the military can through discipline, hierarchy, and a chain of command.

There's also a pretty big intellectual divide that's existed for many reasons too long to list. Many of the disaffected particularly wealthy youth are called the Burger Class, a portmanteau word combining the Burghers of old with Western Burgers, because they have an intellectual cynicism through privilege. Many of my extended family falls into worldview because they've never faced any hardships.

The state neglect line at the end of the article is something that I would categorize as coming from the framing of Karachi's aforementioned complex. I'd also frame the paramilitary crackdown as a byproduct of the income inequality, blight, and the fact that civilian infrastructure is so crippled by kleptocrats that they can't do their job.

Not a good situation all around but there's some bright lights. I'd encourage everyone to look up the Edhi Foundation and see how modern politics suggest there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

rsj_hn2• 5 years ago

After travelling and observing the world, I've come to the conclusion that most nations need Democracy like a starving man needs a foot massage.

At best, it's just meaningless formalism. At worst, it can actively harm by providing outlets for ethnic/racial grievances in multicultural societies. I remember how instantly Yugoslavia disintegrated into racial and religious conflict after Tito. Heterogeneous societies tend not to do well with democracy.

pkd• 5 years ago

Providing a defined, non-violent outlet for grievances is good, otherwise they come out as violence, like with Yugoslavia in your example.

My view might be biased because I'm from the subcontinent, but basically the whole of the Indian subcontinent has done better with democracy than it was doing without it.

xyzzy212• 5 years ago

Exactly. The context is missing and bigger problems exist that would need to be solved first.

This is why spent 20 years and $8T in Afghanistan to displace the Taliban only to re-install the Taliban again!! We NEVER learned the right lessons of Vietnam and we repeated history only on a far larger scale of Epic Fail.

selimthegrim6• 5 years ago

I think I remember quite clearly Waseem Akhtar accusing Chaudhry Nisar of getting hair plugs in London to chase women and Imran Khan implying all of Babar Ghauri’s illegitimate children would be found in Africa.

xyzzy212• 5 years ago

This reminds me of Manila and the "rules of thumb" you need to have/follow. For similar reasons. Usually nothing happens but that's also because you have "situational awareness" to long avoid situations that could become dangerous.

My ex would never allow me to travel alone - I always had to be with one of her armed brothers. Being armed is technically illegal but that's really a barrier if you pay off the right people. You want a Glock or even an AK47 or M16/AR15? Just pay for the privilege.

My "fondest" memory is of a Magnolia ice cream shop being guarded by a placing security guard with a semi-auto shotgun as children were playing on the playground outside the ship.

selimthegrim6• 5 years ago

The Pashtun nationalists on this thread should really not be claiming sole ownership of Indus Valley civilization unless they are from Swat which is only place where male line descendants passed on genes and even then that’s hardly cause for jagirdari

ryzvonusef• 5 years ago

There were two different waves of violence, and I think a differentiation is needed.

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Yesterday I was watching a local pakistani vodcast[1], and a famous singer was mentioning how the entire music scene has changed

in the 90's, there was a lot of ethnic conflict and violence... but despite the shutter down strikes and other violence, the music scene flourished and records labels (mostly based out of Karachi) grew rapidly

but in the 00's & 10's, there was a rise of a different type of violence; religiously motivated terrorism, specifically suicide bombings.

What this meant was that concerts and musical and other artistic events were often banned by authorities as they were perceived as to be targets of terrorists, and thus a magnet for a suicide bomber who might feel justified in his act, by trying to go to heaven bombing sinners.

Concerts ended, record labels vanished, and musicians started doing other jobs. I recall being very shocked in learning that a very famous pak rock star now runs a dollar store in the US[2]; the money vanished and his life was effectively at risk, he had mouths to feed, so he migrated.

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life in Pakistan has become a race to get out. There is a general feeling of inability for people to fix things, of things just just never getting better.

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[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDt0aJO-jNk

[2] https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/news/living-the-dream-pakis...

selimthegrim6• 5 years ago

Our institution in USA hosted a math professor from GCU Lahore. I was so happy to meet him because my great uncle had gone there in 1950s. A few weeks later he pulled me aside in confidence and asked if I could get him some sort of under the table job in a restaurant to pay the bills and send money back home. He is an honest academic and was and still is doing great work here and back at GCU (he went back due to COVID) but if this is how Pak govt is spending its higher education money so that people like him have to take out katora and Ataur Rahman and that GCU math chair who Amer Iqbal exposed are building empires I’m ashamed to have a NICOP or call myself American Pakistani.

Understanding Pakistan through the story of Karachi

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