Yet another strike

In the last few years, barely a day has gone by without some form of political violence happening in Karachi. The main political parties in the city, despite being part of an alliance at the centre, are all territorial rivals in Karachi and so, are constantly at one another’s throats. All the parties also have armed gangs to back them up, thereby making the city even more dangerous. As is inevitable, on some days, the violence gets out of hand, leading to a call for a strike. Conveniently, a strike is almost always called for a Friday, giving Karachiites a three-day weekend. Unfortunately, no one accounts for how costly these regular days off are for the country’s financial hub.

Karachi now basically operates on a four-day workweek. Given the regular violence in the city, coupled with the outbreak of targeted killings, which upset one constituency or the other, every political faction in the city has a reason to regularly call for strikes. On top of that, they have the guns to back it up. Then, we have the regular federal and provincial holidays given to observe things like Kashmir Day. Given that we already go through so many days without work, the government should now stop announcing holidays unnecessarily. The toll this takes on our financial health is in billions of rupees, a sum the country can ill-afford.

Of course, ideally there would be no need for regular strikes. As quixotic as this wish may be, it is actually feasible in Karachi. All it requires is for each political party to respect their rivals’ territory and not try to expand its sphere of influence. On top of that, the three power brokers in the city — the PPP, the MQM and the ANP — all need to realise that Karachi simply cannot continue down this path to economic ruin. They will all need to sit down and hash out their problems. There is no reason they can peacefully coexist at the centre but constantly be at war in Karachi. The three parties need to purge their ranks of black sheep and pursue deweaponisation in earnest. Peace can only be achieved through a mutual desire to reduce violence and come to the negotiating table.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 11^th, 2013.