Simon Hardy
The city of Karachi in the south of the Pakistan was gripped by violence last week after Raza Haider, a leading MP of the right wing Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was assassinated outside a mosque on Monday 1 August.
Haider’s death led to a wave of ethnic violence as MQM supporters, mainly Urdu speakers, targeted members of the city’s Pashtun community, whom they blamed for the killing.
The MQM originated as a party of the Muhajirs (immigrants), Urdu-speaking Muslims who migrated to Pakistan from British India in 1947. Though Urdu is the national language of Pakistan it not the mother tongue of the large majority of Punjabis, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Baluchs. Karachi as a huge port city has always been a multi-ethnic city.
So far around 92 people have been killed in Karachi in just a few days of violence and many more have been injured. Most of the dead are Pashtuns, but some Punjabis and Sindhis were also killed. Some Pashtun shops were burnt down and vehicles were also attacked in the fighting.
The MQM accused the Pashutun based Awami National Party of killing their MP. But the MQM itself has a long history of stoking up racial tension, positioning themselves as loyal supporters of the war on terror and the Pakistani military, they see themselves as the political wing of virulent Urdu Pakistani nationalism.
Of course it is easier for right wing parties like the MQM to blame the ethnic and linguistic minorities in Pakistan rather than blame international capitalism and the weakness of the Pakistani state and economy for the problems.
The fact that an entire community has been targeted after the assassination of the MQM MP is the result of the MQM itself, blaming all Pashtuns for the actions of sectarians or terrorist groups. The Karachi police claimed the attack was carried out by an organization called Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, which is currently banned by the government.
There is a fear that the violence could continue, and end up ghettoizing parts of the city, dividing Pashtuns off from the Urdu speaking majority and creating a climate of fear.
Pakistan in the last weeks has seen huge working class struggles and an incredible victory of the power loom workers, but at the same time the outbreak of ethnic violence has shocked many. Pakistan is at a cross roads, it can either head down the path of working class struggles and socialism or further into the nightmare of terrorism, ethnic violence and civil war.