[Pakistan] Vice Guide to Karachi

the Pakistani 'raid' is hilarious

 

Karachi is gang violence at its worst. Except even worse because all of the mobs and militias are aligned with elected political parties so they're shielded from ever being stopped because they have the backing of major political parties.

It's like the border cities in Mexico except if factions of the Mexican government supported different drug cartels.

 

Horrible.

 

looks like a swell place to settle down and raise a family

 

Awesome videos. Thanks for sharing.

 

This is not a guide to Karachi, it's a guide to the most violent areas/gangs of Karachi. The violence is clearly focused on, and thus overstated. You can go to the ghettos of any big city in the world and find violence and make a documentary on it.

I was born in and lived my first 5 years in Karachi before moving to the US. I used to visit every other year over the summers and I never was the victim of any violence or for that matter even in the vicinity of the violence they depicted.

 

I couldn't help but chuckle at the scene where the guy says "no wonder the US didn't include the Pakistanis with getting Osama".

That police parade was a JOKE. All show.

What a mess.....that country is insane. So much extremism, and no real government control.

 

Right but that doesnt answer the point that the violence has gotten WORSE. Far worse in recent years. I know plenty of people who are from or have lived in Karachi. Most wont go back now. It's just getting more and more unstable each day.

Outside of border cities in Mexico, you cant name another city with the type of gang violence going on in Karachi.

Until Pakistan learns to reconcile the ethnic differences in the country, this will only get worse as the government gets weaker.

 

ever considered moving back?

 

lol gang members from the american continents would destroy their 'gang members'

 

Go to vice.com they have some very excellent journalist and great documentary there.

 

My cousins are over there right now for the break. From what I've heard from them, its pretty bad. They were eating out with my extended family, came home and heard two people were killed at the exact same place they were just eating. My cousin told me they left 30 minutes before it happened. I still don't understand why people keep going outside when the violence is this bad.

I went in 2006 (middle of the Heat-Mavs finals) and I had no troubles with my stay over there. However, I have heard that its gotten much, much worse since then. Not sure if you've been there in the past 1-2 years.

 

Ever hear of Dawood Ibrahim?

 

Having been to Karachi last year, I can tell you the video is not an exaggeration at all, and it's not a stretch to state that Karachi is one of the single most dysfunctional cities in the world today. I have had family and friends killed in terrorist attacks and street violence in the city, and violent activity is pretty much a daily headline in the newspapers and on the news.

Basic infrastructure services are lacking- sewage systems, waste management is abysmal, electricity and energy services often require load-shedding of 5 hours daily, water supply shortages, and poor road maintenance are just a few examples. When a city that large fails to maintain even a modicum of physical and organizational structures needed for daily societal operations, instability is bound to ensue.

Add to that an enormous poverty rate and homelessness, rampant drug usage, a corrupt political class with regular political conflict, ethnic conflicts, religious conflicts and strife, and its not surprising to see why criminal activity is burgeoning.

Violence is but one problem in a large web of interrelated, interdependant problems that plague Karachi, and whatever the 'solution' is, it will have to be a multi-faceted solution that acknowledges and addresses the reality on the ground.

 

How safe is the airport? Thinking about doing a turnaround there, there are some sensational fares from KHI.

 

The airport is safe from what I've been told. There's a McDonalds and a Ramada attached to it if you need a room.

Also check out, http://www.sleepinginairports.net/asia/karachi.htm#.T9dIbtVrNv4

Great guides to airports that you may be stuck at.

 

Here's a small picture of the violence of Karachi. And this really only discusses the Muhajirs and the Balochs. Add in the PPP (Sindhis) and the Pashtuns, and you get a full picture of ethnically backed gangs slaughtering anyone of the wrong ethnic group.

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/01/140072067/pakistans-biggest-city-torn-by-ethnic-violence