Access denied: The incredible shrinking Karachi that is scared of itself

NED University documentary examines security furniture.

KARACHI: As Karachi grows so too does it shrink. This contradiction is made possible by an Architecture of Fear that is colonising public spaces to rule with a fist of barbed wire. 

“It started with military installations [and] went into ordinary neighbourhoods,” explains Prof Noman Ahmed. He and his team at NED University, Bushra Owais Siddiqui, Dureshahwar Khalil and Sana Tajuddin, have made a 40-minute documentary that was shown at the Urban Resource Centre on Friday.

Drive around Karachi today and you will pass five-star hotels that are girt round by shipping containers to buffer them from a bomb attack. Gulshan-e-Iqbal has restricted entry into streets with barriers. In Lyari armed men and invisible turf markings ensure that only those who are permitted enter. The Dawoodi Bohras have created a ghetto after they were attacked. All streets leading to their institutions in North Nazimabad’s Hyderi have been sealed off. You need to show ID to enter.

“The residents were not able to find solace in the law-enforcement agencies and the city administration so they started fending for themselves,” says Dr Noman.

A resident of Gulshan-e-Iqbal’s block 9 remembers it began in 1992. “Huge gates were installed but the Rangers removed them [later].” But when the city broke down in 2001 they went up again. “All the residents got together. I don’t think we took permission from anyone.”

Thella wallahs are not allowed to enter any more. This reduces the important social interaction between the poor and rich. Have we learnt no lessons from the French Revolution? The Russian Revolution?

Who gave the residents permission to do this? “These streets are public property,” admits the resident. “You cannot make it your private property. But we are doing this.” But the irony is that these changes have still not prevented robberies at gunpoint. As one police guard at Imambargah Khurasan put it: “Not even airports are safe despite all their security features. Even the GHQ isn’t safe.”

The British High Commission has up to six-feet thick walls, topped with barbed wire with rows of concrete blocks, check posts and road blocks. Bilawal House has a 1.1km wall built to protect one person, destroying the socio-economic fabric of an entire neighbourhood. “The five-star hotels have taken over the sidewalks and inducted them into their own private spaces denying right of movement to passers-by,” says Dr Noman. Their buffer zones take up to 20 feet of road.

Military establishments are no better. “They have added boundary walls which have actually added several thousand square yards to their property,” says Dr Noman. They then make money off renting space on these walls. “What is the legitimacy of this space acquisition under the garb of security,” he asks.

Is this kind of security a long-term fix? “Whether planning around the premise is the answer or taking targeted steps based on intelligence to curb the root causes of terror is, is the question,” Dr Noman argues “[They] would not then have to physically safeguard each and every installation which is not only a costly exercise but in many cases has proved to be ineffective.”

But security is big business. “In our society, the things we are doing for temporary relief includes the concept of the ‘walled city’,” says Nooruddin Ahmed, a builder. The prices of walled cities have doubled in two years. It started at Zamzama, then came Malir Cantt and Karsaz and then one for the Air Force.

Residents of Askari IV defend their ‘fortification’. “We can hang out as much as we want,” says one. “No one will come snatch our mobile phone.” When all of Karachi shuts down, Askari IV doesn’t. “Askari is not linked to the city as such. We are not connected to the outside. We don’t know about what is happening outside. If we find out it’s just through the news.” Residents interviewed in KDA Overseas Society feel the same way.

The Askari IV residents felt safe. “You’ll never hear about a murder in Askari,” he says with confidence before pointing a finger at DHA where he feels this kind of crime is rampant. If only he had heard of the case in Askari III in February 2012 when a driver took a knife and butchered the family of five he worked for.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2015.