Shutdown series: Stage 2 - Karachi

[Jolie]

Re: Shutdown series: Stage 2 - Karachi

@PyariCgudia

I’m actually impressed with the dharna/city shut down. It was quiet, it was relatively peaceful, and some stuff was still open, no one bullied anyone to shut down their shops, no one got killed.

:k:

You guys can say what you want about PTI and people who support PTI, but of all the parties, and of all the leaders, Imran Khan seems to be the least corrupt, most down to earth, and he really shows he gives a *** of the Pakistani people.

I don’t see even 1% of that in the corrupt feudal politicians who control the country, and yet those morons have support, it is unbelievable to me.

Ignore the lousy wrist slitters on internet who suddenly like to pretend that in a country like Pakistan, burning tires is the biggest offence against humanity and the most criminalised thing to do. They need to YouTube what happens in countries like UK, USA, Greece when angry protesters take on the streets. But of course burning tyres is pathetic, the police should arrest those who do, but it is hardly a tearjerker (if someone had paid for the tyre they are burning - that’s I’m interested to know before anything else).

But to get back at your original point, I agree that it was a largely peaceful protest, we haven’t heard of any major incident of violence, death and assaults. This must be some kind of record for Karachi considering rate of politically motivated crime and violence there. However, So much for the City of Karachi being painted as helpless hostage of two political parties and a total no go area for 'outsiders, PTI’s September Jalsa which was arranged on three days notice and a mighty big (mainly middle class and diverse) crowd turned up, and now their shut down, had effectively proved the point that a third political force can make inroads in Karachi without stirring any ethnic, lingual and sectarian hatred. Proud moment for PTI that without having any ethnic affiliation, that are able to muster grass root support from Karachi on the issues of electoral rigging, politicised police force, institutionalised corruption, bad governance etc etc. No more politics of ‘this side of xyz speaking Karachi is yours, that side of xyz speaking Karachi is ours’. Most people still the remember the utter violent mess ANP made when they entered Karachi.

Karachiites must’ve had enough of getting divided by political parties over the issue of ethnicity, sect and language, but that is not to say that are not capable of standing up for genuine issues.