Karachi: The Sight of True Evil

Its been hard to blog over the last week because of many things happening in my own life. New baby, Royal College exams, lots of call after the exam, but for the last two days, what has made it hard, is that when I do turn the computer on, I cannot turn myself away. I cannot pull away from the news stories and images pouring out of Karachi. My heart sinks another notch every time the death count rises, every time I read a story like the one on Metroblogging Karachi where physicians were forced to fight, fight?, for the right to look after and save the life of a wounded human being.

Its not the strike that bothers me. There have been many in Karachi. Its not the shut-down of the airport. That can happen. Its not the blockade on Shahrah-e-Faisal. Its happened before, and it may happen again. That there were altercations between political parties? Has been happening since before Partition. That everyone is blaming everyone else? Since when has anyone taken responsibility in Pakistan for anything. But yet, what I cannot, simply cannot fathom is how Karachi was left to burn.

Images and photographs have come pouring out of Karachi. Blog entries, news reports, newspaper summaries have been prolific. Yet, no matter where you look, all you see is chaos. All you see is Lord of the Flies at its worst. Where were the 90,000 strong Sindh Police? Where were the 18,000 Rangers who are stationed in Karachi? Where were the representatives of our Home Ministry in Sindh? Where were the soldiers situated in bases all across Karachi in Army, Naval and Air Force bases? Where were these servants of the people, these people sworn to look after us and ours? Why were the streets of Karachi a site of bloody carnage and lawlessness? Why were television reporters and television stations being shot at, with no one to defend them? Why were the Edhi ambulances the only signs of civilized society anywhere on the streets? Why did it take till Sunday evening for the Government to declare a curfew, or till Saturday evening for anyone in authority to appear on television?

TM is right to label May 12th as a significant day in the history of Karachi. People in Pakistan and Karachi have tolerated corruption, inefficiencies and callousness for the past 60 years. People have tolerated the collapse of civic services and have adapted and moved forward. Yet, this was the day that Karachi was left to burn, while the descendants of Nero fiddled in Islamabad and Karachi. This was the day that those who have pledged in front of all of us and God to provide us protection, actually showed that they are foresworn, fraudulent and perfidious. Andre Maurois said: "The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul", and that is what we have seen in Pakistan. The body politic, and the government may have been weak for many years, but on 5/12, all the powers that be were indifferent to the fate of Karachi. And that is true evil.