The current scenes of violence coming to us from Pakistan, might seem to Americans to be the same televised bloodshed we have become accustomed to from the Islamic community around the world. Well it isn't. The recent disturbances in the Sindh specifically in the monster city of Karachi (population 15 million) have 20th Century roots in the partition of India and in the mass movement of humanity that followed that event.
The riots are between the "native" Sindhi population and the Mohajirs (or Mojahir Urdu) who are the descendants of those Muslims who fled India during the Partition. The Sindhi who have often felt left out of the political loop due to what they feel to be historical Punjabi domination of Pakistan. The Mohajirs (which means essentially "migrants") feel them themselves to be true, sometimes the true Pakistanis, for all that they have suffered in the past. The dispute between those who consider themselves the natives and those who, justly or not, are considered the outsiders, combined of course with economic grievances and a political system that lacks respect for the rule of law has created a sweltering sub tropical gangland in one of the world's largest cities.
A city that most of the world is almost unaware exists.
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