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Irrelevance of innocence

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  • Irrelevance of innocence



    As the attacks on the Shia in Pakistan continue relentlessly, a sense of fatalism is overtaking demands for accountability and justice

    Rabia Flower is an apartment block in the Abbas Town neighbourhood of Karachi, on the road named “Isphahani” after an associate of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The twin-blasts that of Sunday, just as the evening prayers were coming to a close in this Shia residential locality, was the result of a “triggered IED.”

    More than 150 kg of high explosives were detonated as shoppers filled the market below, and families took in the evening sea breeze in the upper storey balconies. Fifty died and many times that were maimed. Water from broken mains mixed with the blood of innocents.

    Local youth and ambulances swung to the rescue, while the security personnel took their time to arrive. They probably came late because the mass-murderers have taken to setting off explosions in sequence, meant to kill those who respond to the emergency — local youth, journalists, firefighters, police and rangers.

    Karachi has become an intensified microcosm of the bloodletting in Pakistan, and earlier politico-ethnic rivalries have transmogrified into deeper, cross-cutting complexities. The city today harbours a frightening brew of militancy, involving drug, arms and real estate mafiosi placed on top of additional layers of communal polarisations. Class-based secular politics, for which Sindh and its capital were celebrated, has its back to the wall.

    Beyond the tension between the political parties representing the Urdu-speaking Mohajir and the Sindhi indigenes, there are now those claiming to represent Punjabi, Baloch and Pashto interests. In terms of sectarian targeting, the sense of vulnerability now goes beyond the Christians, Hindu or Ahmadiya.

    What has taken Pakistan by deathly storm is the attacks on the Shia, a somewhat larger minority. There has been Shia-targetting in all parts of the country, from Gilgit-Baltistan, Lahore to Quetta in the north, east and west. And now Karachi in the south.

    For a while, other issues are forgotten as television brings live reports of the hospital emergency intakes, the family members in shock, and excavators digging into the debris. The nervous wait for the upcoming national and provincial elections slated for May, the fears of how the departure of Nato forces will buffet Pakistan, the threat of U.S. sanctions if Islamabad insists on importing desperately needed natural gas from Iran, the debate over the handing over development of Gwadar port to Chinese contractors — all are forgotten momentarily by the opinion-makers as all eyes are glued on the upper storey of Rabiya Flower that continues to burn.

    CONTINUOUS EXERCISE

    But, Karachi is a massive city of nearly 20 million, and the regular preoccupations take over as evening turns to night. Other localities, from the violence-prone Lyari township to the humongous “informal settlement” of Orangi, to the posh and secure colonies of Defence and Clifton, go back to their interrupted lives. The wedding reception of up-and-coming Sindh politician Sharmila Farooqi proceeds as planned. Other than in Abbas Town and the nearby Patel and Agha Khan hospitals, the sound of sirens indicates not the arriving ambulance but the ubiquitous signal of “VIP movement.”

    A well-regarded journalist had told me Sunday afternoon, “The killings in Karachi are now more targeted. Unlike in the past, there are fewer mob killings or random blasts.” By evening he would have changed his mind.

    The killing of the lay citizenry has become a targeted and continuous exercise, and the sense of fatalism is such that instead of demands for accountability and justice, there is simply the sad wait for the next mayhem. Last month it was Quetta, next month it will be someplace else. Says one IT engineer: “Religion should be a warm cloak, but it has become a shining badge of certitude.” Across the breadth of the subcontinent, in Bangladesh, the perpetrators of 1971 are being brought to book four decades after their crimes. The masterminds of the mayhem at Abbas Town may at least feel threatened if they knew that the sturdy arm of justice will follow them years and decades from now, and hold them accountable for drawing the blood of innocents.
    Irrelevance of innocence - The Hindu
    Attached Files
    In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

    Leibniz

  • #2
    God knows what Pakistanis are hiding or what rest of the world doesn't know.

    Can sectarian violence be that on the spike that long, when politics, law and enforcement, military establishment, judiciary and media in Pakistan all talk against the same in open.

    The kind of homogeneity Pakistan claims being a Muslim state makes it a unique case if one has to give examples like insurgency/violence in Kashmir, Punjab, Ireland etc. I know it may be like comparing apple with oranges but due to lack of good information I am just trying to open the debate further.

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    • #3
      First the Hindus and then Christians and then Ahmedis and now Shias! Who next? Barelvis?
      Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie!'...till you can find a rock. ;)

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      • #4
        Originally posted by hammer View Post
        First the Hindus and then Christians and then Ahmedis and now Shias! Who next? Barelvis?
        The ironic thing is that many Ahmedis were at the forefront of the demand for a separate homeland for Muslims before the partition. And now, they find themselves in the only country on earth to have declared Ahmedis as non-muslims by law.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Firestorm View Post
          The ironic thing is that many Ahmedis were at the forefront of the demand for a separate homeland for Muslims before the partition. And now, they find themselves in the only country on earth to have declared Ahmedis as non-muslims by law.
          Karma is a bitch.
          Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie!'...till you can find a rock. ;)

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          • #6
            My condolences to the families and friends.
            Rest in peace.
            sigpicAnd on the sixth day, God created the Field Artillery...

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            • #7
              Im the Dim thinks it is all due to a "Global Conspiracy" that Sunni pakistanis are killing Shia pakistanis.

              Imran Khan sees ‘global conspiracy’ behind Pakistan sectarian violence

              “Similar to Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain, sectarian violence in Pakistan is part of a larger global conspiracy,” said Khan, speaking to reporters in Lahore

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Firestorm View Post
                Im the Dim thinks it is all due to a "Global Conspiracy" that Sunni pakistanis are killing Shia pakistanis.

                Imran Khan sees ‘global conspiracy’ behind Pakistan sectarian violence



                Is it than a surprise why he is a rising star in Pakistan?
                Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
                -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

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                • #9
                  It is shocking to see how they are going after Shias. What is the plight of a people when they realise that a majority of your countrymen, your governement, and your armed forces are really not too bothered when you are being klled in hundreds? And it is not sporadic. Or one off. And no, the excuse that Sunnis too are dying is just ringing too hollow. I honestly feel it is a targeted genocide, and will only get worse as the attention of the pepetrators widens over others who do not toe their narrow visioned line of the true Islam.

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                  • #10
                    Only the Jat Punjabi muslims will remain in Pakistan, the rest will be killed.

                    Cheers!...on the rocks!!

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by lemontree View Post
                      Only the Jat Punjabi muslims will remain in Pakistan, the rest will be killed.
                      You think they can kill off the guys from the Baloch and Afghan belt? Those are equal to the task I think. Plus I do not think that either Afghanistan or Iran will stand by and watch silently. Right now they are picking on soft targets. I am sure something is going to break soon and the Shia will retaliate. They may be a minority, but there are still around 40 million of them all told.
                      Last edited by doppelganger; 07 Mar 13,, 09:56.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by doppelganger View Post
                        You think they can kill off the guys from the Baloch and Afghan belt? Those are equal to the task I think. Plus I do not think that either Afghanistan or Iran will stand by and watch silently. Right now they are picking on soft targets. I am sure something is going to break soon and the Shia will retaliate. They may be a minority, but there are still around 40 million of them all told.
                        They stood by and watched the Bengalis getting killed in the east, in fact they took part in killing them too.

                        Cheers!...on the rocks!!

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by lemontree View Post
                          They stood by and watched the Bengalis getting killed in the east, in fact they took part in killing them too.
                          I know. And the scary part, if you were a Shia, is that India will not be able to intervene and stop the killing this time.

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by lemontree View Post
                            Only the Jat Punjabi muslims will remain in Pakistan, the rest will be killed.
                            Unlike Indian Punjab, the power in Pakistani Punjab isn't held solely by Jat Punjabis but shared among the Rajputs, Ghakkars, Zamindar Gujjars (distinguished from the nomadic herder Gujjars), and other landowning clans. Though, they are still vastly outnumbered by the "low caste" clans like the Churas, Lohars, Chamars, Mirassis, etc. So the dynamics are a lot more complicated but overall, Pakistan isn't really too different from India when it comes to class based politics. The only extra angle here is radical Islam. The "lower caste" clans are more easily recruitable to radicalism by dangling the carrot of equality.

                            If in India, the aboriginals and the "lower castes" in certain parts turn to Communist/ Naxal ideology for equality, in Pakistan they turn to Islamist ideology for the same.

                            The way things are going, it's actually the Zamindars who are becoming the target, not the other way around. Even in the NWFP, the first people to be bombed and driven out by the Taliban were the Zamindars. It's a class struggle with the lower classes turning over to Islamic extremism.
                            Last edited by Tronic; 07 Mar 13,, 21:00.
                            Cow is the only animal that not only inhales oxygen, but also exhales it.
                            -Rekha Arya, Former Minister of Animal Husbandry

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