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Die Gewaltordnungen Karachis
Abstract
Abstract Following the retreat of the State in the 1960s, the Pakistani metropolis Karachi witnessed an informalization of its political
economy. Since then, Karachi’s population — largely immigrants from Central India (Muhajirs) and from northern parts of Pakistan
(Pathans and Punjabis) — has settled, lived and worked along ethnic lines. The city’s development and its administration of
violence have been managed largely by protection rackets. The article shows how the ethno-functional segmentation of daily
life led to civil war in the mid 80s when Muhajirs tried to take control of the divided city.
... Consequently, they can gain basic legitimacy among the local population. Examples of the establishment and transformative dynamic of such protection rackets can be found in other countries, such as Russia (Volkov, 2002), the Pakistani port town of Karachi (Wilke, 2001) and in zones of crises in central Africa (Niemann, 2007). ...
In studies on war, looting is utilised as evidence for the economisation of violence and withering state control. This article comparatively examines practices of looting in Somalia and identifies five types of looting. Rather than being driven solely by economic motives, lootings are complex and ambiguous social activities, which are embedded in the everyday practices and the political rhetoric of the war. Beyond a state centred conceptualisation of order, the case study furthermore reveals that looting is not an expression of political chaos, but patterned by and rooted in local moral universes, which are, however, fundamentally transformed in the course of the ongoing war.
... rnment according to the patrimonial principle of using strangers for purposes of political control. Being Pakistani nationals and a relatively modernised segment of the population, the Muhajir were able to independently secure their influential position and eventually became so strong that they represented a challenge to the central government (cf.Wilke 2000, cf. Wilke/Friederichs 2003. 55 That correlation would be even more striking if we included the two most important cases of refugee involvement in fighting in the host country that occurred after the publication ofGantzel/Schwinghammer (1995). Rwandan Hutu militias supporting Zaire's president Mobutu in the mid-1990s as well attacked th ...
... Consequently, they can gain basic legitimacy among the local population. Examples of the establishment and transformative dynamic of such protection rackets can be found in other countries, such as Russia (Volkov, 2002), the Pakistani port town of Karachi (Wilke, 2001) and in zones of crises in central Africa (Niemann, 2007). 19 Lootings are complex social activities. ...
This paper examines practices of looting in the Somali war. Rather than being inspired primarily by economic objectives, lootings are complex and ambiguous social activities, which are embedded in daily practices and the political rhetoric of the war. In Somalia, looting activities have been driven by a broad range of motives, including military-strategic considerations and/or desire to revenge past atrocities and (perceived) injustices, as well as economic interests. Furthermore, the organisational structure, the performance of actions and the main targets of looters have differed widely. Based on an empirical analysis of different waves and phases of looting in the context of war and state decay in Somalia, the paper identifies five types of looting. Beyond a state-centred conceptualisation of order, the study reveals that looting is not an expression of political chaos, but rather is patterned by and rooted in local moral universes, which have been fundamentally transformed during the course of the violent conflicts in the country since the end of the 1970s.
More than four decades after the state of Pakistan was created it is still a country in search of an identity. This is not because the issue of our nationhood has not preoccupied our minds. To the contrary, it is one that we have been obsessed with and much blood has been spilt in the process. Political debate and conflict have revolved around the question: what is the legitimate place of subnational aspirations and demands within a larger concept of Pakistan nationhood? There is a tension and a dialectical opposition between these two levels of political identity which has never been resolved, for those in power have tended to look on subnational movements as a threat to ‘the nation’ and subversive of national unity.
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