A city shut down

It is a well known fact that Karachi has a tendency to shut down whenever violence hits even the smallest corner of the city. It now seems that the city can be shut down even if the violence is not within the city itself. The tragic murder in London of MQM convener Dr Imran Farooq managed to paralyse the entire city on September 17, with virtually nobody venturing outside their homes. The irony is that no party or individual even called for the city to be closed down — what did happen was that an announcement was made for a 10-day mourning period. However, given the city’s violent experience in the past, the majority of its residents tend to err on the side of caution. And this is precisely what happened on Friday, following Dr Farooq’s murder. According to some estimates, Karachi accounts for up to a quarter of the nation’s economy. A shut down of even one day costs the country billions of rupees. Some trade associations report that as much as a quarter of all export orders were not fulfilled because all industrial units were forced to close owing largely due to a lack of public transport on Friday. At a time when the economy is struggling to get back on track, such shut-downs, even if they are out of genuine solidarity, are simply not affordable.

Thankfully, despite the shock of an assassination of one of their most prominent former leaders, the MQM seems to have appreciated this fact and not called for the general strikes that were the norm during the early part of the 1990s. One also must point out the power – usually negative in this case – of the rumour mongers. Many news channels early on Friday morning began to report the burning of vehicles all over the city. As normality, in terms of traffic flows, began to return – albeit very slowly – as the day progressed, it turned out that the numbers of such incidents that had been initially publicised did not match up to the reality. However, the damage had already been done, and this is perhaps what the rumour mongers and conspiracy theorists wanted in the first place. The citizens of Karachi, for their part, now need to come out of their shells and stop being scared. A little more resilience will do them and the national economy quite a lot of good.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 19^th, 2010.