I am increasingly horrified by the antics of kids who go to the supposedly top schools of Karachi.
KARACHI: Thank you for highlighting a growing blight on the social landscape of Defence and Clifton. (September 26). I am increasingly horrified by the antics of kids who go to the supposedly top schools of Karachi. Oral reports of their gang clashes involve proxy fights and marshalling the bespoke 'armies' of their zamindar/tribal fathers and violent confrontations involving firings - all hushed up by police. Your correspondent might like to look into the juvenile end of gang life and expose that too.
While identity and belonging are issues that feed into gang-culture, there are other factors like distorted ideas of entitlement, the injurious lack of accountability, the paucity of wholesome leisure pursuits and the general decay of moral fibre in the moneyed classes. It’s not only the poor of Pakistan who need help, it’s also the privileged. Youngsters have tons of energy that need grooming and channelling. As we try to raise Pakistan out of the mud of the floods, we should think what kind of a future we want for our society, and how the leading classes need to evolve in order to give the leadership that we sorely need.
Muna H Bilgrami
Published in The Express Tribune, September 28th, 2010.
