THERE'S A RUSH ON CLIFTON BRIDGE (Dawn Magazine Friday, June 8, 1990)

Dawn Magazine Friday, June  8, 1990

THERE'S A RUSH ON CLIFTON BRIDGE

By Adil Ahmad

When Karachi Weeps, Pakistan Weeps, for Karachi is Pakistan. This proud city of a proud Nation plays host to all and sundry - Sindhi, Punjabi, Pathan and Balochi, all flock here to gain their livelihood. Karachi extends its hospitality to beyond national frontiers. Afghans, Iranians, Bengalis, even Sri Lankans and Filipinos. Karachi is indeed truly Blessed. It is God's chosen place for food and shelter of so many millions of people.

And yet there are those who would spurn Karachi's hospitality. Kick it in the teeth, as it were. For these ungrateful wretches, Karachi has no time. The panic mongers and subversives have tried their damndest, but cut little ice. Even Karachi's children refuse to scare anymore. There is a rush on Clifton Bridge every morning at nine. And thank God for it. For in that rush lies the silent majority’s vote of confidence in their adopted city. College students have colourful stalls on the sidewalks outside their Colleges where they sell the New Year's Prospectus. The work weary flock to the Clifton Beach, and sit peacefully on the seawall. To hell with the Kalashnikov! To hell with the bloody white Charade!

"This is our city!" says one angry individual. "We will stand by it. When push comes to shove, I am a Karachiite. To hell with ethnicity! To hell with parochialism!" Such sentiments, surprisingly, are not in short supply. It's just that the silent majority is too refined to have aired them previously.

But there is a flip side to every crisis. Pakistan's problems, indeed the Subcontinent's problems, have made it the centre of World attraction. We have created controversies, and fuelled the fires of debate. In this day and age of global indifference, we have sent shockwaves by feeling so strongly about abstractions that we have been prepared to kill, and have killed.

Okay! So now that we have everybody looking at us, what do we do next? It has to be something very profound, or otherwise it would constitute an anticlimax. Having been at each other's throat with such a vengeance, can we now show the World our flipside? The one which reads compassion and understanding? Can we show the World that our love has a greater intensity than our hate? That our constructive capabilities are more ingenious than our destructive designs?

If we can show the world all of the above, then we would have taken a quantum leap across the Nuclear Age, and landed squarely in the forefront of the Human Age. Happy Landing, Karachi! Happy Landing, Pakistan!