Violence on the street

Lasting peace can be achieved only when political parties feel that violence is counterproductive to their interests.

Predicting if violence — that has been limited to an isolated section of Karachi — may be seen spread to other parts of the city is a most obvious conclusion. Violence has become such a part of everyday life in Karachi that one can never be sure if a slight spike may soon lead to the political parties battling it out in the streets. The omens, however, are not good. For most of this past week, clashes between protestors and the police in Lyari turned deadly in nature. So far, the violence has only been limited to certain sections of Lyari. But there is no guarantee that this will remain the case.

As much as the political parties love to blame each other for sparking each new round of violence, this is a game they ought to stop playing. At this point, the three main parties in the city — the MQM, the ANP and the PPP — all have their areas of influence and they have all demonstrated their ability to defend their interests in their respective areas through the use of violence. Furthermore, the trait to disavow any responsibility, characteristic of these parties and the ease of blaming their opponents, does not make any one party less culpable than the other. Thus today, Lyari may be a PPP area and they may feel they are being singled out by the MQM. But tomorrow, the exact opposite may well happen in some other part of the country’s largest city.

Since the fault lies with the political parties, the solution, too, must come from them. Deweaponisation, despite being necessary, is a non-starter because none of the parties will give up their guns until the others have done so. For talks between the parties to come to an uneasy truce will serve only as a temporary respite from the violence. Lasting peace can be achieved only when the political parties feel that violence is counterproductive to their interests. As the Lyari violence has shown, we are still a long way from that realisation.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2012.