[HN Gopher] Understanding Pakistan through the story of Karachi
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Understanding Pakistan through the story of Karachi
Author : daddy_drank
Score : 23 points
Date : 2021-09-22 17:36 UTC (5 hours ago)
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| virtuabhi wrote:
| It pains me to see where Pakistan and India are after 75 years of
| independence [1,2,3,4]. Both share common culture, history,
| traditions, and people.
|
| [1] https://iranintl.com/en/world/afghans-protest-against-
| taliba... [2] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-
| organised-ter... [3]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Bangladesh_genocide [4]
| https://www.livemint.com/news/india/who-chief-thanks-india-f...
| gremloni wrote:
| I agree but it would be terrible to merge with Pakistan at this
| point.
| ripe wrote:
| I don't think OP was suggesting merging the two countries.
|
| My relatives in India would consider such a suggestion with
| horror. Pakistan rarely enters their conversations, except
| when there's a terror attack. Most of them just want Pakistan
| to mind its own business and leave them alone.
|
| Back to the story: In terms of size, diversity, and economic
| potential, Karachi is comparable to Mumbai, but the two
| cities couldn't be more different today.
| IMAYousaf wrote:
| 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_hn wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| The civil war in Yugoslavia was the result of independence
| referendums after one party rule ended. It was the result
| of "democracy". This old idea that racial movements should
| be given free reign to express themselves as an outlet is
| the exact opposite of what most elites in the current
| democracies believe, as they are scrambling to reduce
| populism and ride the tiger of Democracy in diversifying
| societies while keeping things togther. The outlook is
| grim.
| baybal2 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| baybal2 wrote:
| 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.
| IMAYousaf wrote:
| I'm not so sure "no rights zone" is an appropriate framing
| here.
|
| A more appropriate comparison, good and bad, are like
| Native American Nations inside the US. But we're not
| talking about small pockets here like reservations. We're
| talking entire massive, massive areas.
| IMAYousaf wrote:
| 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.
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(page generated 2021-09-22 23:02 UTC)