[Reader-list] Just Causes

[rehan ansari]

Early this year in Qasbah Colony, Karachi, I saw a poster that proclaimed, �Shahadat Conference.� Its central image was of a masked man holding a machine gun, the background red, as in the afterglow of an explosion. Along the margins of the poster were photographs of martyrs, all the faces were young, some ridiculously so. The poster also had a date for the conference and promised a �telephonic� address from Syed Ali Geelani. It was placed on the outside wall of a house that served as a school.

I was standing in a narrow lane of houses when I saw this poster. The lane was on a hill. As I looked further up the lane, over the rooftops following the phone lines, towards the hillside, I saw a sign that commanded the community � it said �Jaish-e-Muhammad�.

Qasbah Colony is adjacent to the SITE area where the heavy industries of Karachi are located. It is one of the colonies that houses the industrial workforce. I had gotten there along broken roads, open sewers and open-air trash burnings. In the entire township I saw only one building that said it was a government-run educational institution. 

I wonder if any of the $1 billion that Washington promised Islamabad for the defanging of the madarsas, will make it to Qasbah Colony. I wonder if the most obvious signs of violence will be removed. 

For once I would like Barkha Dutt and her Star TV crew to cover Kashmir from Qasbah Colony, Karachi. 




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