May
25, 2007
Dispassionate
Apportioning of Blame
Pakistan’s history,
it seems, is being written right here,
right now, in shorthand. The only other
event that could eclipse its current
crisis would be its division in 1971.
The stakeholders in Pakistan’s
destiny come in every stripe. There’s
the army of course, then the feudals,
bureaucrats, businessmen and lawyers.
And now there is another breed of politician
— the one that remotely controls
Pakistan from thousands of miles away.
Benazir sits in the Emirates, Nawaz
Sharif in S. Arabia and London, and
Altaf Hussain also in London. The first
two are dying to return, the last shuns
return to avoid dying.
On May 12 Pakistani-Americans awoke
to satellite television stations recounting
the anarchy that reigned in Karachi,
initially there were 23 dead and soon
the number rose to 41. Commentators
seemed at a loss to recount the mind-numbing
events, but the video clips were heartrendingly
articulate. A car with four dead around
it is glued to my mind’s eye,
and the bloodied man with billowing
smoke in the background, a Kalashnikov
wielding man and an armed policeman,
the latter just observing, in the foreground.
You tell yourself you are too sleepy
for it’s a Saturday, and surely
the policeman could not have been just
hanging out. Thanks to digital video
recorders you can rewind and confirm
that you are uncomfortably awake and
the policeman was indeed out for an
observational stroll.
Karachi could easily be classified as
one of the most dangerous cities in
the world. On May 12 Chief Justice Iftikhar
Chaudhry was to address the Golden Jubilee
of the Sindh High Court, an event decided
well before the March CJ crisis. In
cahoots with the increasingly besieged
government, Muttahida decided to have
a competing rally. It is vital to remember
that the MQM administers Karachi. After
all it was real important to eclipse
the rousing welcome that the Chief Justice
received traveling from Islamabad to
Lahore a couple weeks earlier, for chances
were that Karachi would do much the
same.
The gripping tension in Karachi was
bad enough, the deaths like mounds of
salt on my wounds. And the human mind
falters with sensory overload. Videos
of the carnage slapped the brain, and
then the MQM rally was televised and
the sea of people added to my confusion.
Then there were pitched battles in Falak
Naaz Apartments for five hours, with
no sign of any security personnel.
And then Aaj Television’s office
gets sprayed with gunfire and the employees
plaster themselves on the floor. And
miracle of miracles, survive, without
injuries. Video footage, revealed five
days later shows three government cars
drive up to Aaj, hand out arms to surrounding
men who then fire on the station for
five hours. The sealing off of Shahra-e-Faisal,
attacks on ambulances and murders of
ambulance drivers and other salvos of
shocking information continue.
What was gained by having a Muttahida
rally on the same day as the arrival
in Karachi of the Chief Justice? If
the idea was to eclipse him, it failed.
The MQM has historically operated with
unwarranted hooliganism.
As one sat helplessly glued to the television,
reports began of the preparation of
the government sponsored rally in Islamabad.
The dichotomy of rule application in
Pakistan never ceases to amaze me. There
was much brouhaha when the Chief Justice
traveled to address the lawyers in Lahore;
that he was politicizing the issue of
the reference against him. When the
government sponsored rally was being
planned and objections were raised that
it was conduct unbecoming for a sitting
president to address rallies such as
these, the objections were summarily
dismissed.
As the government rally was getting
ready to start, notices were served
to the lawyers accompanying the Chief
Justice at the Karachi airport, that
under some 1960 Sindh law for protection
of law and order, they had to leave
Sindh and not come close for one month.
The statesmanlike and wise Chief Justice
decided to return to Islamabad with
his lawyer contingent. To just imagine
what would have happened if he had proceeded
to the Sindh High Court strains my forbearance.
While Karachi burned, the hired hands
of the government-sponsored rally in
Islamabad beat drums and danced. Rumor
has it that village nazims across the
Punjab were paid Rs. 50,000-100,000,
and they herded the tempted into free
buses for the rally. Signs held up by
the crowd identified their villages,
and Sheikh Rashid in his speech wanted
them folded up before the president
showed up. He even confirmed that he
had personally spent Rs one lakh for
the rally. Maybe the rumors were grounded
after all.
Contempt of court threats are thrown
at people about the CJ issue, but again
the dichotomy was evident. The CJ reference
was discussed by all speakers - Pervez
Elahi, brother Shujaat Hussain, Sheikh
Rashid, Shaukat Aziz and of course President
Musharraf. But all others be warned;
the reference must not be discussed.
At an APPNA, Association of Physicians
of Pakistani Descent of North America
meeting, I asked MQM’s Farooq
Sattar why his leader was perpetually
remote; the addresses on the telephone
appeared incongruent in their verbal
force but physical absence. The audience
broke into loud laughter and applause.
Sattar said weakly that there had been
three attempts on Altaf Hussain’s
life.
MQM is now floundering as Pakistan is
convulsed with shock and disgust at
this state sponsored terrorism. Now
there is video-footage competition between
the MQM and the PPP. In the MQM footage,
PPP information secretary Sherry Rehman
is seen driving an SUV packed with PPP
leaders and a Kalashnikov wielding man
on the step next to the driver and another
next to the passenger side. In a press
conference televised by ARY, PPP’s
Sherry Rehman shows footage of trucks
and fire brigades blocking off streets
with the air let out of their tires.
Fire brigade trucks belong to the government,
needless to say. Then the video, which
bears the stamp of GEO television, shows
the rally of the PPP and ANP going under
a bridge and persons assembling on the
bridge and firing on the rally below.
The GEO television reporter speaks in
a panic about how he barely got out
of the melee.
Another video-clip that is very incriminating
for the government is a group of five
policemen lounging, with legs crossed
on a patio, with MP3 headphones in their
ears. All this while around them spread
anarchy and gun-toting lawlessness.
Before my litany against the perpetrators
of the Karachi carnage, I must report
that I was born there, of an UPite father
and a Hyderabad Deccani mother. Abba
(God rest his soul) was part of the
Pakistan movement as a student in Aligarh;
he traveled in 1947 to Pakistan robbed
of an entire railway wagon of possessions,
but fired with the zeal to build Pakistan.
The image of him crying at the dismemberment
of Pakistan in 1971 will remain forever
etched in my mind.
I feel terribly at home in UPite company.
My joyful memories of my father come
flooding through, especially how he
taught me Urdu when he was posted in
Singapore and all the Urdu aphorisms
I know. Hyderabadi culture, especially
its commitment to educating its women,
deservedly makes all Hyderabadis proud;
and even though I am not a double-dose
Hyderabadi, I owe all my success and
achievements to my Hyderabadi mother.
But it is for Pakistan that I have a
love that knows no bounds; it is my
focus and it defines me.
My mother has repeated Surah Nisa (4:135)
all my adult years and taught me my
sense of justice: “O you who believe!
Stand firmly for justice, as witnesses
to God, even as against yourselves,
or your parents, or your kin, and whether
it be (against) rich or poor: for God
can best protect both. Follow not the
lusts (of your hearts), lest you swerve,
and if you distort (justice) or decline
to do justice, verily God is well-acquainted
with all that you do.”
Naturally, interacting with an Urdu-speaking
Pakistani has a deeper sense of satisfaction
for me than with any other variety of
Pakistani. Just their inflection in
Urdu is heart warming and can remind
me of my times with my father. So I
am as much of a muhajir as they come.
And yet I could never justify the carnage
that occurred in Karachi on May 12.
Muhajir or any ethnicity, we must call
a spade a spade. We must stand firmly
for justice as the Qur’an exhorts
us to. Pakistan would not have been
created without the sacrifices by the
muhajirs. At the same time, if a group
that is ethnically ours commits a heinous
crime, we must have the objectivity
to condemn it and condemn it unequivocally.
Pakistanis must be represented by the
concept of Pakistan, the idea of Pakistan,
the institution of Pakistan, not by
their individual ethnicities. Divisions
in Pakistan are many. All entities,
be they within or outside Pakistan,
must be prevented from playing the ethnic
card. For, as history shows clearly,
fanning ethnic division can pulverize
a nation.
(Mahjabeen Islam is a physician and
freelance columnist practicing in Toledo
Ohio. Her email is mahjabeenislam@hotmail.com)
