Pakistan has become a playground for global players and the main issues affecting common people have been overlooked, reports Shahid Husain
More than 45 innocents, including those hailing from the majority Muslim Sunni sect, were killed and 135 injured when marauders struck again at the thickly-populated entrance of Abbas Town on Abul Hasan Ispahani Road in Karachi at about 6.50 pm on Sunday evening.
A visit to the site by TSI presented an unbearable and grotesque picture. The powerful bomb had ripped two apartment buildings namely Iqra City and Rabia Flowers situated on opposite sides of the road. The target obviously was Abbas Town but religious extremists could not reach there and preferred to bomb the entrance of Shia-dominated Abbas Town.
Tragically, even by Monday morning, when the TSI reporter was present there, there were no security personnel in sight.Maulana Talib Jauhiri, a Shia scholar and Senator Faisal Raza Abidi, of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) visited the crime scene but top political leaders preferred to give statements from the safety of their offices.
The City District Government Karachi (CDGK) led by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) did a commendable job in removing the debris. Similarly, Edhi Ambulance Service and Chippa Ambulance Service played their usual dynamic role in shifting the dead and the wounded to public and private sector hospitals. Doctors, nurses and para medical staff too did their best and salvaged the situation under great odds and stress.
By all counts, this latest outrage is part of the deadly proxy war which has been going on in the sprawling port city of Karachi with an estimated 20 million population. The Americans and NATO forces after having lost the so called “War on Terror” in Afghanistan are too eager that the deadly weapons they used there do not fall into the wrong hands.
The previous Afghan War against Soviet Union was fought with the help of drug money. In turn it has brought misery to the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan happens to be the transit point of drugs and arms smuggling and that was why President Barack Obama asked the Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to “do more.” The armed forces of Pakistan fully aware that they will have to bear the brunt of the fall out of the Afghan War, are moving cautiously and dictating their terms.
A senior American journalist wrote a couple of years ago that the US itself creates a monster - and then it fights it. This is how its war and arms industry has flourished and unprecedented employment created there. But this war expenditure has almost crippled the US economy; recession is at its peak and millions are surviving on food stamps.
A former US national security advisor wrote some time ago that it was easy to deal with President Asif Ali Zardari because he has no hang-ups. Unlike twice Prime Minister and chairperson PPP Benazir Bhutto, her husband, and the party's Founding Chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Zardari does not suffer from delusions of grandeur. Eleven years in prison and exile have transformed him into a shrewd politician.
With millions in search of jobs, including highly qualified Pakistani youth and inflation at its peak, why would the army stage a coup? General Kayani, a former ADC to Benazir, has shown remarakble restraint.
The flooding in Sindh and Balochistan in 2010 and 2011 uprooted millions of rural households, hit the tribal and feudal structure in these impoverished provinces and also induced demographic changes. For the first time, these uprooted people lived the lives of their more urbane brethren, sent their children to schools and enjoyed healthcare despite being condemned to live in make-shift camps provided by international NGOs. Their standing crops were destroyed and a large number of flood victims were not ready to go to their ancestral homes. Hence demographic changes have taken place in cities such as Karachi and Hyderabad.
Since the creation of “New Pakistan” in 1972 when President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto took over the reins of power and the kick started the “Dubai Syndrome”, millions of plumbers, technicians, labourers, doctors, nurses and engineers opted for the Middle East.
Their remittances brought rich dividends to their families back home but along with remittances came a conservative culture and a brand of religion that was radically different than the tolerant religion in the 1950s and 1960s when Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Parsees and other minorities lived in peace and harmony.
In sharp contrast to migrants who have moved to the US, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Sweden, Norway and other advanced western countries, overseas Pakistanis who toiled hard in the Middle East brought with them money - along with big doses of conservatism.
Little wonder that the Pakistani society was Talibanised. The conservative mindset not only asserted itself in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) and the northern areas of Pakistan, but even in the country's financial hub Karachi that happens to be amongst the 10 largest cities of the world.
This mindset came to dominate the middle classes - lawyers, judiciary, doctors, journalists, teachers and even the armed forces. Little wonder that former Chief of the Army Staff and President General Pervez Musharraf failed miserably to undo the religious extremism promoted by Pakistan’s worst military dictator, General Zia ul Haq. The poisonous seeds sown by the general have now become a full-fledged, vast tree which is threatening the very fabric of the Pakistani society.
Ethnicity, sectarianism, intolerance and chaos prevalent in the country today are essentially remnants of the Zia era. It has manifested itself in many ways: there has been resistance to the anti-polio campaign and conspiracy theories dominate the thinking pattern in Pakistan today. The media, social media and civil society too have played a role. Greed has become the domin
More than 45 innocents, including those hailing from the majority Muslim Sunni sect, were killed and 135 injured when marauders struck again at the thickly-populated entrance of Abbas Town on Abul Hasan Ispahani Road in Karachi at about 6.50 pm on Sunday evening.
A visit to the site by TSI presented an unbearable and grotesque picture. The powerful bomb had ripped two apartment buildings namely Iqra City and Rabia Flowers situated on opposite sides of the road. The target obviously was Abbas Town but religious extremists could not reach there and preferred to bomb the entrance of Shia-dominated Abbas Town.
Tragically, even by Monday morning, when the TSI reporter was present there, there were no security personnel in sight.Maulana Talib Jauhiri, a Shia scholar and Senator Faisal Raza Abidi, of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) visited the crime scene but top political leaders preferred to give statements from the safety of their offices.
The City District Government Karachi (CDGK) led by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) did a commendable job in removing the debris. Similarly, Edhi Ambulance Service and Chippa Ambulance Service played their usual dynamic role in shifting the dead and the wounded to public and private sector hospitals. Doctors, nurses and para medical staff too did their best and salvaged the situation under great odds and stress.
By all counts, this latest outrage is part of the deadly proxy war which has been going on in the sprawling port city of Karachi with an estimated 20 million population. The Americans and NATO forces after having lost the so called “War on Terror” in Afghanistan are too eager that the deadly weapons they used there do not fall into the wrong hands.
The previous Afghan War against Soviet Union was fought with the help of drug money. In turn it has brought misery to the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakistan happens to be the transit point of drugs and arms smuggling and that was why President Barack Obama asked the Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to “do more.” The armed forces of Pakistan fully aware that they will have to bear the brunt of the fall out of the Afghan War, are moving cautiously and dictating their terms.
A senior American journalist wrote a couple of years ago that the US itself creates a monster - and then it fights it. This is how its war and arms industry has flourished and unprecedented employment created there. But this war expenditure has almost crippled the US economy; recession is at its peak and millions are surviving on food stamps.
A former US national security advisor wrote some time ago that it was easy to deal with President Asif Ali Zardari because he has no hang-ups. Unlike twice Prime Minister and chairperson PPP Benazir Bhutto, her husband, and the party's Founding Chairman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Zardari does not suffer from delusions of grandeur. Eleven years in prison and exile have transformed him into a shrewd politician.
With millions in search of jobs, including highly qualified Pakistani youth and inflation at its peak, why would the army stage a coup? General Kayani, a former ADC to Benazir, has shown remarakble restraint.
The flooding in Sindh and Balochistan in 2010 and 2011 uprooted millions of rural households, hit the tribal and feudal structure in these impoverished provinces and also induced demographic changes. For the first time, these uprooted people lived the lives of their more urbane brethren, sent their children to schools and enjoyed healthcare despite being condemned to live in make-shift camps provided by international NGOs. Their standing crops were destroyed and a large number of flood victims were not ready to go to their ancestral homes. Hence demographic changes have taken place in cities such as Karachi and Hyderabad.
Since the creation of “New Pakistan” in 1972 when President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto took over the reins of power and the kick started the “Dubai Syndrome”, millions of plumbers, technicians, labourers, doctors, nurses and engineers opted for the Middle East.
Their remittances brought rich dividends to their families back home but along with remittances came a conservative culture and a brand of religion that was radically different than the tolerant religion in the 1950s and 1960s when Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Parsees and other minorities lived in peace and harmony.
In sharp contrast to migrants who have moved to the US, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Sweden, Norway and other advanced western countries, overseas Pakistanis who toiled hard in the Middle East brought with them money - along with big doses of conservatism.
Little wonder that the Pakistani society was Talibanised. The conservative mindset not only asserted itself in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) and the northern areas of Pakistan, but even in the country's financial hub Karachi that happens to be amongst the 10 largest cities of the world.
This mindset came to dominate the middle classes - lawyers, judiciary, doctors, journalists, teachers and even the armed forces. Little wonder that former Chief of the Army Staff and President General Pervez Musharraf failed miserably to undo the religious extremism promoted by Pakistan’s worst military dictator, General Zia ul Haq. The poisonous seeds sown by the general have now become a full-fledged, vast tree which is threatening the very fabric of the Pakistani society.
Ethnicity, sectarianism, intolerance and chaos prevalent in the country today are essentially remnants of the Zia era. It has manifested itself in many ways: there has been resistance to the anti-polio campaign and conspiracy theories dominate the thinking pattern in Pakistan today. The media, social media and civil society too have played a role. Greed has become the domin
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