My workshop in Pakistan’s commercial capital, Karachi, was held at the Carlton Hotel, a few miles out of the city, in a large flat, sandy area reclaimed from the Arabian Sea. My hosts, the GEO television network, chose the Carlton because of its security precautions. At one time the hotel had four entrances; three had been closed and the remaining entrance had a guard post and barrier. Even after you entered, you could not drive all the way to the main entrance but had to park behind concrete barriers about 100 yards away. The entrance was manned by a uniformed security guard and a hotel staff member who, with his white tunic, maroon waistcoat and plumed hat, looked as if he’d stepped out of the palace guard for an 18th century Maharajah or off the set of a TV period drama.
I always approach metal detectors and scanners with trepidation. Surely, there’s something in my backpack or briefcase that will trigger an alarm or look suspicious. I am ready to spread out the contents, turn on my laptop and audio recorder, and explain why I’m carrying power adaptors and other accessories. I dutifully empty my pockets of coins and pens. After the first few here’s-what-I-have-that-you-may-want-to-check performances at the Carlton, I realized that the guards were simply not interested in what I was carrying, even if it triggered the alarm on the metal detector. All they did was smile and say, “Good evening, sir. I hope you are enjoying your stay at the Carlton.” It all seemed to me to be a problematic case of reverse ethnic profiling. Surely, white Western males in their 60s should be subject to the same scrutiny as everyone else.
Karachi has an unenviable, and today statistically undeserved, reputation as a dangerous city, ruled by gangs and terrorists, rife with corruption and street crime. Crime rates rose from the late 1980s, when Pashtuns fleeing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan arrived, opening up channels for smuggling arms and drugs. In the 1990s, criminal mafias with political connections became powerful, controlling much of the commercial transport system, water tankers and the sand and gravel industries. After a 2013 crackdown by security forces, the number of murders, kidnappings and extortion crimes dropped dramatically, although street crime levels remain high. As a result of the operation, Karachi went from being ranked the world's sixth most dangerous city for crime in 2014 to 93rd by early 2020.
With the drop in crime rates, real estate prices have increased sharply, and more upmarket businesses have opened. One evening, my hosts took me to Zamzana, a street in an upscale district known for its wide range of restaurants. We were welcomed by a young man sporting Levis, a denim shirt, scarf, and cowboy hat. Welcome to Gun Smoke, where the old West comes alive in modern Karachi. The interior of the restaurant is lined with cowboy kitsch, including a few cattle skulls, and there’s country music on the sound system. The usual menu of buffalo wings, steaks, and burgers. Wild West popular culture travels well.
On the wild west side of Karachi—a poker-faced cowboy greeter
“Pakistan: On High Alert in Karachi” is Chapter Thirteen of Postcards from the Borderlands, to be published by Open Books in November. You can pre-order here. Here’s what readers who had a sneak preview are saying about it:
With good humor and enthusiasm, David Mould takes us through Asia and Africa, meeting people, eating, using local transportation. Along the way are the square dancing Afrikaners in cowboy hats, the “Thank you Jesus Battery Charge” store, the Mongolian yak herders with their cell phones, and the bus that demands the phone number of your next-of- kin before you can buy a ticket. But its real focus is on the boarders: those arbitrarily drawn by colonial powers, those created to unite or separate ethnic, religious or political groups. It is how these affect the people now and in the future that makes this more than simply an entertaining travel book. -Gerry Veeder, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Radio/TV/Film (Retired) University of North Texas
Chapter Preview—Pakistan: On High Alert in Karachi
In the 19th century, the British transformed a fishing harbor on the Arabian Sea into a bustling port city, exporting cotton and wheat and connected by railroads to the rest of British India. Migrants arrived in from all over South Asia. After partition in 1947, Urdu-speaking middle-class Muslims from North India fled to Karachi; since the 1980s, Pashtuns from Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan have transformed the ethnic mix. In a city with a history of organized crime, terrorism and political assassinations, security levels are high. On a training assignment for GEO TV, one of Pakistan’s leading commercial networks, I explore this crowded, polluted yet vibrant city, visit colonial buildings, the home of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the country’s independence leader, and his mausoleum. I enjoy barbecue at a beach restaurant and burgers served by Karachi cowboys, and learn about ambivalent views towards the United States.
