Karachi Reportage and stereotypical Douchebaggery – by Ali Arqam
Last night in a recently launched TV show by Express News with a Janus-faced title “Sirf Sach” hosted by a relatively new face Ali Mumtaz, the participants from Karachi were asked about violence in Karachi.
He chose the area of “Water Pump”, where most of the people were from the educated Mohajir community; Most of the participants have their outbursts revolved around “Mini Waziristan”, the new name assigned to the place “Katti Pahari”. The killing spree by the terrorists was in the whole city started from Gulshan-e-Iqbal, when ANP activists have an armed clash with the rival MQM workers, the violence consumed innocent lives near to hundred, most of them Pashtuns, but these deaths went unaccounted.
Pakistan’s educated urban middle class speaks about certain issues with Stereotypical Douchebaggery, victims of this pigeonhole mentality is Baloch, Sindhis and Pashtuns as well. Today everyone talks about East Pakistan, the genocide of Begnalis who they love to call Bingos! Because the narrative built around that debacle too is garbled.
When it comes to the current situation, the same people cursing the perpetrators of East Pakistan tragedy are “Muted” or have excuses based on generalizations, lies and distorted facts destitute of ground realities.
Same happened while commenting at various social networks about Karachi recent spat of violence, the chatterers concerned about the city were getting updates from Karachiites and some TV reporters, but like TV screens, whole discussion was about Katti Pahari and the people under siege due to armed clashes in rival groups, ANP and MQM. People who were hostages were from both communities and those who were killed are also Pashtuns and Mohajirs too.
While having focus on Katti Pahari, no one in the electronic media spoke about those 5 killed in a Bus at Gulshan, when a bus of route D-7 was kidnapped on gunpoint by the assassins and CCTV cameras had the footage of the sad incident. When MQM was observing Yaum-e-Siaah, 37 people mostly Pashtuns, Baloch and Punjabis were killed in various parts of the city.
Laibaah: daughter of a rickshaw driver
The brutality shown by the terrorists when they fired on passenger Buses was reported, the footages of the unfortunate families and funerals of innocent victims were telecasted but murders went unreported were those of the Pashtuns, the Hindus at Napier road and a Christian in Baldia Town. And most barbarous and vicious among all was the target shooting of a 5 year old innocent girl, Laibaah, daughter of a rickshaw driver, who was shot on chest and shoulders at the doorstep while returning from a madressah, but haven’t seen any update or news segment on this.
So what!!! Pashtuns are killed by the state for the last three decades, their territories used as buffers to avoid strategic blowback, and people have been held hostages to militants conglomerated here from the whole Aalam-e-Islam with the money provided by Biradar Arabs, if they got killed here in Karachi so what!!!
Relatives of a victim of D-7 Bus tragedy
After all they are mafias, Bus mafias, Kaali Taxi mafias and Rickshaw mafias, and as per the revered intellectual, who is extremely biased when it comes to Pashtuns, Mr Khaled Ahmad call them Taliban supporters and it is revealed to him(by whom?) that Taliban from Waziristan are killing citizens randomly in streets of Karachi.
At a point of discussion in the talkshow, an educated participant was emitting his gems of knowledge about Pakistan political history and his politically correct views, (keeping the developing MQM-PML-N alliance) he referred to Late Mian Sharif and Dr. Imran Farooq declaring him sons of the soils as they preferred to be laid to rest in Pakistan, while adjudicating Khan Ghaffar Khan on this criterion held him not a “Son of the soil” as he preferred not to be buried in Pakistan.
He will never know this from the TV screens and drawing room discussions that why Badshah Khan chose not be tombed in Pakistan.
Thank you for writing this bold and honest assessment of the situation in Karachi. Punjabi and MQM dominated media is completely ignoring or misrepresenting the Pashtun perspective.
Bold it is and quite correct too. I cent percent agree with the views on the program, about which I read in Express. It did seem like a focused attempt to alleviate the grievance of one nationality than all.
The discussions on sons of the soil have to end once and for all. In a globalized world, how can we be termed as sons of the soil? Those who prefer to remain sons of the soil will remain backward. The world is moving. The people are moving. They are moving for greener pastures, growth and exposure.
Sons of the soil is a wasteful discussion which has lost its value in the last 14 years!
There you go again, LUDP, casting your allegations. This critique is (1/2) another personal attack. Look at your atrocious language “douchebaggery”. Also, (2/2) LUDP authors use pen names.
Now get this straight LUDP: ONLY WE WHO ARE CIVIL SOCIETY CAN USE PEN NAMES AND CALL YOU “TWISTED IDIOTS” FOR CALLING OUT WHAT YOU THINK IS HOMOPHOBIA BUT WHICH WE DISMISS AS PRACTICAL JOKE.
We will block your trolls, we will block you and then we will block your site, you dirty jiyalas. The web, blogsphere and twitter are OUR domain so get the hell out. We are the true liberals of Pakistan and being a true liberal means that one should have the decency to curse PPP and their leaders and supporters and supporters of Baloch, Hazara and Pushtun rights. Now bugger off!
Way to go Tristam, give it to these LUDP ethnofascist storm troopers!
Way to go Tristam man! Great seeing you at the amazing dinner thrown by Tammy in Isloo. We liberals need to stick together. We should coordinate agains and block LUDPers from Twitters this time.
Jiye Altaf. LUDP has been taken over by ethno-nationalist storm troopers. I have voted for PPP but completely support MQM in the latest situation in Karachi.
The above comments posted under the name of Tristam Perry, Five Paisas, Kalakuta and The Real McCoy have One person behind this, Whose IP address is 116.71.41.41,
I will post more details also
I can’t imagine if such allegations were came from the people who call themselves educated middle class that Baacha khan not choose Pakistan as their burial place. If it is so then why half of the families of Urdu speaking migrated from UP, Bihar and Dilli. Mahmud Hussain was former vice chancellor of Pakistan and his brother zakir hussain was president of India. Hakeem saeed opt Pakistan and his brother opt India. most of our famlies divided across the border. Because we took advantage on both side and still taking it. We migrate (I also belong to this community, unfortunately) according to our choice, because we see benefits in new established state. If the credit of migration goes to any body they are Punjabis and Bengalis, Bengalies the same nation whom we call “4 fotay Bengali”..
And last I want to ask such peoples who said the great Baba Baacha khan not buried in Pakistani soil. In which land your forefathers buried?
Every event has some historical and philosophical context, analyzing events with out it create tensions and half truths. I travel o all areas of Pakistan from Turbat to KP. Punjab to Azad kashmir but the ethical and moral downfall that mohajir urdu speaking faced is worst of all.
Dear Ali Arqam,
I’m really surprised to read such a biased write-up which is full of lies !
1- “””The killing spree by the terrorists was in the whole city started from Gulshan-e-Iqbal, when ANP activists have an armed clash with the rival MQM workers,””” >>> Violence started after an ANP activist was injured near Qasba Bazar …. goons of ANP started firing from hilltops of Kati Pahari and they also fired on vehicles on Sir Shah Suleman Road near Essa Nagari from Mekas Apartment where ANP’s office is located !
2- “””violence consumed innocent lives near to hundred, most of them Pashtuns,””” — How can you authenticate your claims that most of the victims were Pashtoons ?
According to ANP their 25 workers died (which is also their claim and can be an exaggeration) !
3- It’s really sad that 5 people were killed in a minibus in Gulshan-e-Iqbal (which seemed a reaction of a firing incident near Kati Pahari in which four people belonging to Muhajir community were killed and around a dozen including women injured), though you mentioned Gulshan incident but you deliberately avoided mention of three incident viz-a-viz (a) firing on a bus near Kati Pahari — four Muhajirs killed and many injured (b) firing on a bus near Banaras in which 12 Muhajirs killed and more than 20 got injured (c) firing on a passenger coach near Banaras flyover 4 killed and many more injured !
thanks God at least we hv sm people speaking the truth. This would not reach to all pakistani but still it creates a sense of hope tht thr r people who can raise thr voices against the GHASIBS on media (both MQM nd PUnjab)….realy wel done…keep it up….
Dear Truth-Seeker
First of all I wont like to communicate with one who has cockiness shown in his penname, truth seeker, what’s this?
If had enough time, I will have provided a chronological order of what happened in Karachi in the last two weeks.
But I am afraid you will have your objections sustained and my version of the whole events be overruled.. so am Ok with your version of truth, keep seeking Truth…
As in a recently released bollywood movie ‘ZNMD’ Naseerudin Shah says,
‘Sach kia hei? Har eik ka sach ka apna version hota hei.
116.71.41.41 is from Larkana ! I am shocked !
@Tristam Perry
I could not find any personal attack in this post. Further, by objecting to LUBP authors’ pen-names you surely want our narratives to be as compromised as are those in the mainstream media and urban elite drawing rooms.
Punjabi and MQM dominated media is completely ignoring or misrepresenting the Pashtun perspective.
——-
You really had to throw in Punjabi in there, didn’t you?
Racist scum can be spotted like a dog turd in snow.
What does Punjabi media have to do with Karachi killings?
As fa as I am concerned than I don’t give a hoot about Karachi, Karachiites are dead beats who keep voting in scum like MQM yet they can’t stop bitching about the condition of their dump of a city….
Karachi needs to be nuked…problem solved!
@Ali Arqam Sb,
“First of all I wont like to communicate with one who has cockiness shown in his penname, truth seeker, what’s this?”
That’s so rude and arrogant …. do I need to ask you what’s an appropriate penname ?
Would really appreciate if you avoid Ad-hominem !
“If had enough time, I will have provided a chronological order of what happened in Karachi in the last two weeks.”
You should have already done that instead of writing a biased article … anyway, will wait for that !
“so am Ok with your version of truth, keep seeking Truth…”
No Sir, it wasn’t ‘my version of truth’ rather it was the truth and can be verified by just going through the newspapers reports about violence in Karachi during 5th to 9th July !
“‘Sach kia hei? Har eik ka sach ka apna version hota hei.”
If you believe in subjectivism then there’s no point in sharing your ‘version of truth’ on a public forum and then not expecting criticism !
P.S. An eighteen year old boy was killed the other day by ANP goons who resorted to indiscriminate firing on buses around Banaras and Orangi after one of their workers was injured in a firing incident ….. could you please also write an article on ANP’s terrorism in Karachi which is dividing Karachi’ites on ethnic lines !
http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/19/boy-killed-two-wounded-in-firing-on-buses.html
Dear Truth Seeker
In my whole post, I was never been sympathetic to any political party, but your comments here are showing the same stereotype mind, as you are referring to news reports and Tv footages, which I am complaining about.
Unfortunately your comments are leading a discussion about suffering of people’s of a community’s to a narrow intra-party feud, which never was the aim of my post. It was about the lacunas in media reporting on Karachi. As tragic events you are mentioning in your comments are equally condemnable and heartbreaking.
As for as the sufferings of bihari community are concerned,( I had a long neighbourhood with them when was living in Karachi.) am worried for them too,
But my post is not a comprehensive tale of all the happenings in Karachi, as its clear from the title, its about a rather neglected part of this.
I will prefer be called ‘subjective’ rather than observe things with that mind and capacity I have and claim to be ‘objectives’ atleast a penname should be a noun not an adjective, I suppose?
@Truth-Seeker, with all due respect, the newspaper reports and the views of the media were appallingly one-sided in favor of MQM. This culminated in the editorial by Cyril Almeda for DAWN where he laid the entire blame on one burst of violence on the irresponsible statements of Zulfiqar Mirza and not on the violent thuggery that followed which claimed 10-15 lives and dozens of vehicles torched. Couldn’t MQM have responded with a rebuttal; surely they had been issuing their racist statements in the last few days without respite. ZM apologized for his untactful and uncalled for remarks and was censured by his party. What did MQM do? And aside from the odd exception, the media was completely one-sided in their coverage. If Mr. Arqam is pointing that out, let us hear him at least.
we will not see the end of this till we call ourselves Muslims first then Pakistani; pointe finale
Majority of the people of Pakistan upon independence were Mohajirs.why are you Mohajirs if you are born in Pakistan.
do people have some sort of attachement with India that they still call themselves Mohajir?.
maybe the so called Mohajirs were “late arrivals” but that’s not the fault of the rest of the population.
I am sick of “India backed” pakistani news channels.people have really got to stop watching this rubbish and see ground realities.we ARE at war whether we see it or not.its time to save this nation as one people.and if the deuche bags don’t like Pakistan then they can leave.