Greed, grievance and Karachi

Greed and grievance are the two most compelling drivers of human conflict that have been identified as the main sustaining agents of conflict. The most prominent proponent of the ‘greed theory’ was Paul Collier who considered this human impulse as the prime motivator of conquest, violence and wars. He highlighted greed’s psychosocial role as the prime driver of the desire to maximise one’s individual or group advantages at the cost of another group or individual.
According to this theory an elite competition for capture of resources is at the heart of human conflict and is sustained by wealth. The caveat to the above concept is that greed itself would not be able to indefinitely motivate common people to render sacrifices in the cause of the elite. Hence the concept of ‘grievance’ was deemed necessary to ‘ennoble’ the conflict. Grievance as a cause of conflict was employed as a fig leaf to sustain greed-based conflicts.
The Bosnian conflict is an example of the symbiotic nature of these two – greed and grievance – where Tito’s Yugoslavia was a stable federation of six republics with a fair mix of different races and religions.
When the federation was dissolved the unbridled process of democratisation created an intense competition for ‘elite capture of resources’ resulting in a fratricidal civil war. The ostensible reasons adduced for the mayhem were grievances rooted in historical animosities between Muslims, Serbs and Croats. While the masses were galvanised on the basis of those grievances, in actual fact all those grievances were a fig leaf for the greed of the Bosnian, Serb, and Croatian political elite.
The classic case of Blood Diamonds’ in Africa is yet another apt example where a conflict was sustained due to human greed for resource extraction and covered by a fig leaf of tribal grievances that fuelled inter-tribal conflict. The international community had to institute measures such as banning international commerce in ‘conflict diamonds’ to attenuate the greed index in the conflict.
In Rwanda (1994) the genocide was a result of Hutu-Tutsi grievances that were rooted in relative deprivation perceptions and politico-economic differences but the underlying greed factor is conveniently overlooked. The Hutu elite resented the Tutsi domination and were looking for an opportunity to depose Tutsis from their economically ascendant position. The greed and grievance combine was therefore evident in that conflict too. All the above examples however pale in comparison with the conflict mosaic in Pakistan.
In Pakistan’s context the Karachi conflict fits the theoretical construct of the above theories. Here is a political party representing the middle class segment of Sindh’s urban population concentrated mostly in Karachi that has taken up cudgels against the socio-economic injustices meted out to the Urdu-speaking Mohajir community. Quota system, politico-economic marginalisation, and cultural exclusion were some of the grievances that the MQM latched on to in order to rally the Mohajir community to the common cause of gaining their legitimate rights.
The grievance mantra of denial of Mohajir rights, however, concealed a sinister impulse of power aggrandisement by a coterie that held the city and parts of the province terrain control through a highly regimented and coercive instrument of control i.e the sector and unit commanders. The conflation of the two impulses of greed and grievance produced one of the smartest power wielding entities in Karachi, the MQM ruling cabal.
Politics of agitation based upon lamentations of perceived and real Mohajir deprivations was the anchor of grievances that was used most adroitly by the MQM to wield the bludgeoning hammers of greed in the shape of extortion, land-grabbing, and target killings. The conclusion drawn by other influence wielders in the power equation was that of raising their own crime syndicates and militant wings to scavenge off the carcass of a dying city. While the PPP rode the bandwagon of Sindhi deprivations, the Pakhtun invoked politico-economic deprivation of their community to raise a loyal following of enraged party cadres ready to pander to the lure of the lucre. Hence the model provided by the largest urban political force in the city was copied by the junior partners. This was the lethal cocktail of greed and the grievance that was served to the masses of Karachi who wallowed helplessly in a welter of crime, extortion, and maladministration.
The Karachi conflict being the quintessential case of a greed-grievance symbiosis between political elites representing an eclectic mix of rural, urban, and sectarian entities is all about ‘elite capture of resources’ to the exclusion of the masses, who toil away their daily existence sans security, water or electricity. The surest antidote to this unholy alliance between greed and grievance is a no-holds-barred intelligence-based operation by law-enforcement as well as corruption-control agencies.
Like a Rubik’s Cube the Karachi conflict has become a wicked problem where crime, political patronage and terrorism are so intertwined that one cannot be dealt without tackling the other. The state’s incapacity to deal with this wicked problem is a consequence of a dysfunctional and corrupt provincial administration, a heavily politicised police, lack of political will and a militant cadre of the leading political force of the city that has perfected the art of extortion. It can safely be surmised that voluntary abdication of extractive power by a regimented mafia at the city level and a corrupt administration at the provincial level would be well nigh impossible.
So coming back to our original thesis, how then can this wanton ‘elite capture of resources’ by a colluding mafia masquerading as political leaders and spiritual ideologues be prevented? How do we limit greed and remove the fig leaf of grievances from the apologists of crime and lucre? The answer lies in a two-pronged strategy, with the first strand taking the shape of a state-sponsored and public-inspired counter-narrative that is strong enough to cut through the maze of political chicanery and extremists’ mendacity with equal ease.
It should be a counter-narrative that blows off the cover of the political as well as ideological purveyors of untruth in all its naked ignominy. It should be a veritable ‘whole-of-nation’ psychological warfare based upon a clear conception of the national anti-crime and anti-terror priorities. On its part, the state needs to come clean and take the citizenry into confidence with absolute clarity jettisoning the erstwhile running with the hare and hunting with the hounds strategy.
The second prong should target the greed part by attacking crime dens and terrorists cells along with their sources of financial sustenance. A dismantling of the militant infrastructure should accompany decriminalisation of the administration. The military and anti-terrorism courts should be optimally employed to mete out punishments to achieve real-time deterrence of crime and terror.
Breaking the collusion between greed and grievance by a resolute national narrative and a strong anti-crime punch is therefore the Holy Grail that the nation needs to follow in order to deliver the largest city of the country from the clutches of crime and terror.
The writer is a retired brigadier, and a PhD scholar in Peace and ConflictStudies at the National University of Science and Technology, Islamabad.