Claiming Pakistan

Book excerpt: In the late 1980s, a conflict which had been smoldering for years in the city of Karachi, southern Pakistan, escalated. Time and again, the focus of the disputes was the ethnic community of the Mohajirs and its political party, the "Mohajir Qaumi Movement" (MQM). In this volume, the escalation of violence, particularly against the background of the ethnically-based movement of the Mohajirs, is analyzed. Central to this analysis is the formation of identity and the politicization of the Mohajirs and their party, the MQM. Taking Karachi as an example, the forms, limitations, and possibilities of a purely urban ethnic movement and its interrelationships with local criminal gangs are examined. These factors are often not taken sufficiently into account in conventional theories of ethnic conflict. The author of Claiming Pakistan has not only spent a long time in Pakistan, but has also worked for international organizations in Central Asia and Afghanistan.