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Karachiites on Karachi - Naveed Yaseen - 07-12-2008 09:07 AM
By Shahid Husain
Just what is that vibrant, sprawling megalopolis we call Karachi? Is it a dirty, polluted mass of concrete ugliness rife with chaos and teeming with people? Or is it a city of lights with something for everyone?
The people Karachi is teeming with have a whole host of views on what their city really is. Most at first say something bright and cheerful about Karachi:
“People here are loveable, helpful and cooperative,” says Parween Rehman, an architect and director at the Orangi Plot Project. Or, in the words of Habibuddin Junedi, a trade union leader, “Karachi has great tolerance and the distinction of being a port city,” he says.
Tauseef Ahmed Khan, an associate professor at the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology (FUUAST) says that the city has “absorbed the fine traditions of the entire subcontinent” and is a “poor-friendly city, offering opportunities to a large number of people with different ethnic backgrounds.” Then there is city psychiatrist, Dr Syed Ali Wasif, who adds: “In recent years, several new art galleries and good eateries have come up.”
Whilst it is certainly true that a great many eateries have sprung up catering to a wide spectrum of incomes - from the cafes in Zamzama to the kebab houses on Burns Road - it is also true that these very same people swiftly begin listing a string of woes on everything that they believe is wrong with their Karachi. Rahman is quick to point out that 41 per cent water in the city is siphoned off and sold through tankers. “Goths are being destroyed and the Karachi Port Trust is encroaching public land,” she says, adding, “The government is opting for mega projects, but doing nothing for mega management.”
Junedi comments on the traffic mess in Karachi, blaming commercial banks. “They lease money to people, allowing them to buy cars, without estimating the traffic load.” Wasif, meanwhile, is most unhappy about how Karachi is rapidly becoming devoid of any beauty whatsoever, with monuments being razed to the ground to pave the way for unsafe eyesores. “Old, majestic buildings and monuments are being replaced by a concrete jungle of ugly plazas lacking basic amenities with no exit system in case of an emergency,” he complains.
Where this concrete jungle ends, the Katchi Abadis (squatter settlements) begin — home to nearly a third of Karachi’s population. Hard labour is their only weapon, and even then, they can barely make ends meet. Treacherously high inflation has led to soaring rent and food prices, which in turn has led to a tense law and order situation and a widening of the already enormous gap between the rich and the poor to boot. As Mohammad Noman, associate Professor at the NED University of Engineering and Technology says, “On the one hand, there are plans to build ‘Sugarland City’ for the super rich, while on the other, hundreds of thousands of people have no place to live and sleep on the streets instead.” He goes on to say ruefully, “The city is rampant with land, drug and arms mafias. Gang wars have become routine.”
Despite all this, however, and the fact that Time magazine once dubbed Karachi the most dangerous city in Asia, Karachi is still home to a rising population. The reason? Internal migration. “Karachi happens to have the biggest job market in Pakistan. People from different nationalities and ethnic groups try their luck, and are ultimately absorbed and assimilated,” says Noman. These migrants come from all over the country, so much so that the original population of Karachi — Sindhis, Gujratis and Kathiawaris - has dipped into the minority. When migrants arrive, they are drawn to areas where there are others of the same ethnic background. Many ‘Deras’ have cropped up in the city with only Pushtoon and Seraiki migrants. According to Noman, this is a problem. “These settlements are all potential sources of burgeoning ethnic politics,” he explains.
Ethnic politics or no ethnic politics — an urban centre such as Karachi is an alien land to someone who has arrived here after living a rural life. Job opportunities aside, why anyone would want to come especially to Karachi to settle down is a mystery to many. Mohammad Ali Shah, Chairman Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, is one such person. He argues that while it is true that Karachi provides more people with jobs than anywhere in the country, urbanisation and industrial waste are destroying the city. Tahir Qureshi, director coastal ecosystem, International Union of Conservation of Nature- Pakistan has the figures to back him up. “One hundred thousand tonnes of solid waste is generated in the city every day, and 150 to 175 million gallons of untreated industrial and sewage water are thrown in to the Arabian Sea every day,” he says. Financial hub or not, he fears that the oil pollution, thermal pollution and agricultural pollution in the suburbs are wreaking havoc on the environment.
Within this mafia-ridden, dirty, polluted, financial hub is an educational system that many are unhappy with. According to Professor S.M. Naseer, eminent educationalist and economist, while there are several schools that students end up going to study abroad from, there are also schools that have opened up in apartments that charge exorbitant fees but deliver almost nothing in return, despite being funded well. “The educational system is compartmentalised,” he laments. “Even decent schools established by Parsi and Christian philanthropists now charge thousands of rupees and are no longer up to the par.”
So why would anyone wish to come to or live in Karachi at all, given its gang wars, smoky atmosphere, galloping inflation, concrete jungles and faulty educational system?
Mansoor Saeed, actor and documentary film-maker, attempts to elaborate, “No other city in Pakistan can match the cultural diversity of Karachi, be it in the food or clothes or anything else.” The cultural diversity and the ripe job opportunities keep this throbbing metropolitan ticking, making it a melting pot of a variety of ethnicities, regardless of the poverty, the pollution and the towering concrete plazas.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=123644