Arriving in Karachi and off to the Fisherfolk

I begin with an informal political briefing from Kutty, PILER’s (Pakistan Institute of Labour Education & Research) most senior member who is now working on the final draft of his memoirs covering all sixty two years since independence.

The situation is unsustainable, chaotic and sometimes extremely grim with the frequent bombings in Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province and other big cities in the Punjab including the capital, Islamabad. There is a palpable sense of crisis. Not for the first time but now with suicide bombs, a military offensive in South Waziristan, huge pressure from the US for Pakistan to be a “front-line” ally in what was called “the war of terror”, a low intensity war in Balochistan, Pakistan’s biggest province, food prices rocketing, a return to the clutches of the IMF, poverty and corruption, it looks worse than ever. A couple of months ago there was a national alert and Pakistan’s entire education system shut down for a week but, for the moment, life is as normal here as it gets. Karachi, despite it’s at some times hideous history of ethnic strife, is peaceful. The main political parties here have agreed they have too much to lose if they carry on in the old way of violent turf wars. Nevertheless there is real fear the violence in NWFP and elsewhere will spread here.

Mid afternoon, with Zulfiqar Shah, PILER joint director, and others, half a dozen of us set off in a minibus across Karachi to Ibrahim Hydari on the coast where we join the Pakistan Fisher Folk’s (PFF) celebration of International Fisheries Day. On the way we stop for twenty minutes to meet a couple of hundred marchers from the Sindhi People’s Movement, Awami Tehrik. They are sitting on the well watered lawn outside the elegant Aga Khan Hospital about to have lunch. They’ve been marching over six weeks across the province of Sindh, something like 700km. Everyone looks cheerful and not at all worn out by the trek. We are introduced to the men; some are old with leathery skins from life time working in the fields. Many are wearing the Sindhi shawl with intricate claret, white and black designs and the distinctive cap the topi. Walking 50 yards, we say hello to about eighty women also part of the march, sitting with their biryani lunch.

Another half hour and we get to Ibrahim Hydari, a fishing port - the smell gives it away. Well over a thousand are in a giant, carpeted, tent, sitting cross legged for three hours listening to speeches with occasional singing or dancing, a very loyal and disciplined audience, especially towards the end as various big wig politicians who we can see take the Fisher Folk seriously, speak at length. The PFF is a mass organisation with tens of thousands of members and a track record of mobilising in defence of the fishing communities, including mass sit downs to force the Rangers, paramilitary police, to stop stealing traditional fishing rights.