A Cosmopolitan, Diverse and Economically Vibrant City
Gerade in den 1990er Jahren grassierte in Karachi die politisch motivierte Gewalt, momentan jedoch ist die größte Stadt Pakistans jedoch relativ sicher. In seinem Blogeintrag nennt Nadeem F. Paracha folgende Gründe:
–––• The acceptance by the state of Pakistan of MQM’s mainstream status as a political organ with a strong electoral influence that cannot be deterred through any form of Machiavellian maneuvers.
• A delicate but promising compromise struck between the secular political expressions of Karachi’s mohajir, Punjabi, Pushtun, Baloch, and Sindhi populations, namely the MQM, the ANP, and the PPP.
• The diverse population’s reflective understanding of the importance of social and political plurality and tolerance as a means to experiencing a strife-free and economically benefiting survival in the metropolis.
• The withering away of the political support that politico-religious parties such as the JI and the JUP once enjoyed and whose recent politics (especially the JI’s), encourages a myopic and isolationist world view that can be detrimental to the people of a cosmopolitan, diverse and economically vibrant city like Karachi.
• The relative lack of support (compared to the NWFP and the Punjab), that the city provided to various militant groups. Thanks to Karachi’s staggeringly ethnic and sectarian diversity, it was always tough for puritanical sectarian and Islamist groups to find much sympathy from the bulk of the city’s population.
• The overriding consensus against the Taliban, reached long before such a consensus was struck by Pakistan as a whole.
• A popular and prominent city government, supported across the board and among distinct ethnicities.
• The Sindh and city governments’ firm stands on the issue of Taliban cells in the city.