Humour or racism?

[Kabira]

That exactly what happened....though a Mohajir would tell you that their beef with Pashtuns is since Ayub Khan times. It appears that Ayub Khan encouraged settlement of large number of Pashtuns in Karachi to counter-balance the absolute dominance of Mohajirs in the city who were at odds with him and had supported Fatima Jinnah. The first Mohajir-Pashtun riot broke out when Mohajirs attacked rally of Gohar Ayub Khan who was celebrating win of his father over Fatima Jinnah. Mohajirs did not like the arrival of Pashtuns to the city. My study says that there were Pashtuns, but big chunk of them were actually Hazarawals who were staunch supporters of Ayub Khan. Mohajirs called them Pathans nonetheless. Hazarewals were getting killed as many as Pashtuns in target killings at the hands of MQM in recent years, they were put in the category of Pathans. The 80s anti-Pashtun riots were also started (this time led and organized by Altaf Hussain and co) to oppose the change of demographics of the city due to arrival of Afghan refugees and Pashtun economic migrants. While the 60s and 70s riots were spontaneous, the riots in 80s against Sindhis and Pashtuns led by MQM were intentional and planned. MQM fueled anti-Pashtun , anti-Sindhi and anti-Punjabi sentiments to rally Mohajirs around them. Pashtuns were responding in tit for tat so they are detested the most out of all. The arrival of Biharis from Bangladesh, , many of whom were trained in combat, benefited MQM. The spread of AK47 all over Pakistan, a side effect of Afghan Jihad, also made the riots bloodier as both sides easily acquired it.

So this bad blood between Mohajirs and Pashtuns is rooted in politics. As they do not have their own province and are mostly confined to a city, still carry the label of "Mohajir", so they are quite edgy about arrivals of people from other provinces to Karachi but they cant do any thing about it as the cities belongs to Sindh province. The unfair Quote system of Bhutto also angered them. MQM cashed on these sentiments and made the Karachi a hell-hole. A big difference and change has been observed ever since the city is cleansed from MQM.

In my opinion MQM was the main culprit. They were burning the buses of Pashtuns and promoting racism against them, and their was big motive behind that. MQM was behind spreading Pathan jokes through sms (a cell was caught in Karachi where daily 500 sms were sent , replacing word sardar with Pathan). They turned the dead Ahmad Faraz into a joke, assuming him to be a Pathan even though he was a Hindkowan from Kohat city. Things will get better as MQM has been uprooted but not overnight as we are talking about decades of riots and hostilities.

@Kaushika

I don't think Ayub Khan settled pashtuns in Karachi to take on muhajirs. They were simply economic migrants in Karachi. Their population kept increasing because in FATA there were not enough opportunities available. In fact in FATA population decreased between 1972 and 1981 census despite decade of natural increase, that's in post Ayub era.

Then Afghan jihad made things worse.

 

[django]

Sarcasm and little bit of Satire to me ..
@Hell hound @Zibago @The Sandman @django your comments brothers ?

It was racist plain and simple ,it went beyond funny banter.Kudos bro

 

[niaz]

Yesterday I came across this.

Dark’ Indian cricketer calls out racism
August 10, 2017

By: Samaa Web Desk

PALLEKELE: That racism is a centuries’ old social evil that exists even in the Indian society and in the sporting world is a well-known fact. On Wednesday night, opener Abhinav Mukund, currently touring with the Indian team in Sri Lanka, became the latest sportsperson to speak out on the issue when he posted an emotional tweet about fair not being the ‘only lovely or handsome’. The batsman reacted after being abused on social media for his skin colour, reported Times of India.

Recalling his past, Mukund, who scored 81 in the second innings in the first Test against Sri Lanka at Galle before being dropped in favour of the fit-again KL Rahul, wrote, “I have been playing cricket since the age of 10 and I have gradually climbed up the ladder to where I am right now. It is an honour to get the chance to represent the country at the highest level. I am writing today not to garner sympathy or attention but … with the hope to change the mindset of people on an issue I feel strongly about.”

https://www.samaa.tv/arts-culture/2017/08/dark-indian-cricketer-calls-out-racism/


While this may appear a bit funny, racism is a very dangerous thing and sometimes confused with patriotism.

Per my understanding, patriotism is love of your country and its people regardless of their ethnicity. On the other hand nationalism as I understand it, is the belief that there is a fundamental difference between people of different 'Nationalities. Nationalists tend to blame their problems on other 'Nations’ and / or on ethnically different section of the population. For example Nazis blamed Germany’s economic plight on the Jews and the Bengalis blame Biharis for taking up jobs thus leaving making Bengalis jobless. Even in the UK, Scottish do not like the English and would like to secede.

Obviusly there is a very thin divide between a Nationalist & a Racist. I would go as far as saying that racism is in fact a form of nationalism where a ‘nation’ is defined in a very narrow sense of the word. While being called a racist is bad, being labelled a nationalist is matter of pride.

This is however a very complex topic. Being an engineer I am weak in in the social sciences. I therefore greatly appreciate if someone could elucidate the difference between patriotism, nationalism & racism.

Let us however us be clear that racism has nothing to do with religion per se. For example, a Muslim, a Christian or a Hindu or a Buddhist or a Jew or even an atheist can be equally racist. It is to do with feeling, culturally, ethnically, linguistically or based on skin colour, superior to others. Racism manifests itself when one ethnic group or some ethnic groups dominate, exclude or seek to eliminate a group or groups on the basis of unalterable heredity differences. For example a Saudi Sunni Muslim considers himself superior to a Pakistani Sunni Muslim. Problem is that quite often the society on the whole sanctions / approves racist attitudes.

Before the enlightenment of the 19th century, racism was primarily a divide between the conquerors and the conquered /enslaved. However the enlightenment did not change the attitude and instead Western colonialism inspired the ethnologists to categorise the human race into different race groups with whites at the top and blacks at the bottom. To justify discrimination, some religious scholars interpreted the religious texts to prove superiority of one racial group over the other. Racism did not die with the death of Nazi regimes of the early 20th century. South African blacks had to wait almost until the end of the 20th century to get rid of the apartheid.

Racism still exists in almost all societies & countries to a greater or lesser extent. I have personally experienced racism not only in the UK where in the 60’s many landlords openly wrote “No coloured” when advertising for rooms/ apartments for rent. In the NWFP (now KPK) many a shop keeper‘s assistants would shout ‘Punjabi’to me and especially in East Pakistan (now Bangla Desh) where sometimes I was called ‘Shaala Behari’ roughly implying a Bihari bastard.

I have also experienced racism in Kuwait, in Afghanistan and in Saudi Arabia. My Kurdish friends complain of it in Turkey and it is evident everywhere in Karachi in the form of Sindhi /non Sindhi and a Mohajir versus a Pashtun. Many Baluchi tribals are also racist.

However, I must admit that while discrimination based on colour against the African origin people is rampant; I have not come across skin colour based discrimination/racism among the culturally similar groups. Arguably caste based racist attitude are widespread in India based. I am surprised at the above incident because both the accused and the victim appear to belong to be Hindu.