Say No to Racism

Racism is virus that badly affects the very roots of a nation and brings about its downfall....Perhaps a very drastic statement, some of you would think and not too long ago I would have tended to side with the majority on this one. While in Freshman Year of College in US I came across this phenomenon. I was moved by how much emphasis US puts on curbing down on racism. I felt they over did it sometimes; still racism exists in most parts of the United States. For me, as  a naive young man, investing so much on curbing racism seemed like a wasted effort. I am an ethnic punjabi and having spent most of my time in Islamabad till then had left me totally alien to the concept of racism. I could see pathans, punjabis, sindhis, baluchs and urdu speakers living together in harmony and getting along just fine in Islamabad. The only logic I could come up with was that US was a very diverse nation with people form all over the world and they really must have issue regarding racism (keeping in mind the slavery issue).

Nowadays, I am living in Karachi, Pakistan, having completed my college education from US and having moved back. Living in Karachi is a real eye opener, or perhaps I have matured with passing years. Karachi is the hub of Pakistan in every sense, financially, business wise, politically and culturally. I came on head on with racism in Karachi for the first time, I was shocked at the racist graffiti that was embossed on all streets of Karachi. Muhajirs, Punjabis, Baluchs, Sindhis, Pathans all ethnicities were equally indulged in demeaning one another. I could see how people from one religious sect were declaring others as 'Kafirs' and heretics. Within a few weeks, I realized that racism was an extremely important issue in Pakistan as well. We were advised by our employers not to go to certain areas (mostly urdu speaking areas), which seemed odd as I could see people from every ethnic background in Karachi engaged in violent racism....therefore, it seemed a little odd to label the urdu speaking areas as unsafe, and collectively the urdu speaking population engaged in violent racist activities.

There is nothing new in the preceding Paragraphs for most of my Pakistani friends, some would even argue why i choose to write about it now all of a sudden.  However, recently this issue come to the foray of my thoughts as I was reading a book about creation of Bangladesh or should I say fall of Dhaka called "Dead Reckoning" by Sarmilla Bose.  This book turned out to be a real eye opener for me, it highlighted how Bengali and non-Bengali committed atrocities against each other. It was a blood bath and no one was spared, women were raped, children stabbed to death and many souls burnt alive. The color of rivers of Bangladesh became red. Contrary to popular belief, majority of the killing was not done by Pakistan Army (although it did play its part in unjust deaths of civilians), in fact the most audacious of the atrocities were committed by common people like me and you whether they were Bengali or Non-Bengali, they were at the receiving and giving end of these atrocities and killings. There was so much hate among various ethnic groups that no one even felt the guilt of torturing young children and women to their untimely deaths.

It scares me to no end that the current situation between different ethnic groups in Pakistan is no different. People from different ethnic groups can hardly stand each other. And it is not just the activists who are involved in ethnic based political parties, even the common man on the street who is struggling to stay alive is filled with this hatred. Whatever the reasons may be it is a worrisome situation, some will blame it on the politicians but I think the fault lies elsewhere, it lies at the very core of the fabric of our society. We lack any other motivation other than the religious and ethnic drive. Ideally the religious drive should serve as the uniting strand, however it serves to further divide the Pakistani society.

We have to act now or its going to be too late and we will be left repenting that we failed to pay heed to this monster called racism. It is here to stay and refuses to go away. What we can do is to contain it and slowly start the process of eradicating it. But for that we must kill the racist within, and the duty falls on the shoulders of the very few educated people of Pakistan. We are the ones who must lead the process and it is us who will have to identify some sort of ideology which can motivate people to stay united and replace the religious and ethnic drive as the only motivating factor.