Migrants and Militants: Fun and Urban Violence in PakistanBeing part of a violent community in revolt can be addictive--it can be fun. This book offers a fascinating inside look at present-day political violence in Pakistan through a historical ethnography of the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), one of the most remarkable and successful religious nationalist movements in postcolonial South Asia. The MQM has mobilized much of the "migrant" (Muhajir) population in Karachi and other urban centers in southern Pakistan and has fomented large-scale ethnic-religious violence. Oskar Verkaaik argues that urban youth see it as an irresistible opportunity for "fun." Drawing on both anthropological fieldwork, including participatory observation among political militants, and historical analyses of state formation, nation-building, and the ethnicization of Islam since 1947, he provides an absorbing and important contribution to theoretical debates about political--religious and nationalist--violence. |
From inside the book
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... opposition to democratic politics . As I will argue in later chapters , the MQM's electoral success was as much the result of the non - elitist political style of its leaders during election campaigns as of the party's involvement in ...
... opposition to exclusion from mainstream society . " It is " not a coherent , conscious universe of political opposition but , rather , a spontaneous set of rebellious practices that in the long term have emerged as an oppositional style ...
... opposition be- tween a fragmenting , corrupt state and the nation calling for the rule of law helps explain the public support for a " politics beyond politics , " be it in the form of ethnic purity , an Islamic revolution , or even ...
... opposition to the state and other ethnic groups . The Argument And The Presentation Of The Data My analysis of the Muhajir nationalist movement differs from most studies about this phenomenon . Even though Pakistan — urban Sindh in ...
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