It pains every patriotic Pakistani when media talks loud about the “no-go areas” in Karachi, but this term actually has a historic military origin and was first officially used in the context of the Rhodesian Bush War or the Zimbabwean War of Liberation, which was fought from July 1964 to December 1979.

A study of J.R.T. Wood’s 1995 book “Rhodesian Insurgency,” the New York Times’ edition of October 8, 1976, the “Time” magazine’s July 10, 1978 edition carrying an article “Rhodesia: Savagery and Terror” and a BBC report (Rhodesia reverts to British rule) of December 11, 1979 reveals that three forces—- the army of the predominantly white minority Rhodesian government, the military wing of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union and the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army—-were pitted against each other in this Bush War.

This civil war, as the above-cited references and sources clearly mention, traced its origins from the time this region was under colonial rule of the white settlers in the late 19th century and the ensuing dissent of black African nationalist leaders who had opposed the leaders at the helm of affairs.

The black African nationalist leaders remained infuriated for decades over the fact that while the Europeans owned most of the fertile land, the Africans were crowded on barren areas.

This inequality and apathy had then paved way for the Soviet Union and China to support rival factions that were not only pitched against each other, but were also simultaneously fighting against the white Rhodesian security forces.

Rhodesia, we all know, had comprised the region now known as Zimbabwe between 1965 and 1979, the year which had marked an end to the white minority rule in Rhodesia, which was consequently renamed Zimbabwe Rhodesia under a black majority government through an internal settlement.

The country returned temporarily to British control and new elections were held under the British and Commonwealth supervision in March 1980. A pact (the Lancaster House Agreement) in this context was earlier inked between the Zimbabwean War of Liberation and the British government at London’s Lancaster House in December 1979. Prior to this accord, the incumbent white Rhodesian government had enjoyed support of both South Africa and Portugal, which governed Mozambique.

The white Rhodesian regime was propagating that it was defending Western values, Christianity, the rule of law and democracy by fighting Communists, though it paid no heed to the social inequalities and the developing tumour.

By 1978 all white males up to the age of 60 were periodically called in to serve the state army. During this era, uprisings were also going on in Kenya, Angola, Mozambique and Congo.As the result of these Britain-supervised 1980 elections, Robert Mugabe became the first Prime Minister of Zimbabwe on April 18, 1980, when the country had achieved internationally-recognized independence.

The term “no go areas” was primarily used in the context of black power movement in South Africa also.At that time, South Africa too was haunted by these unsafe localities, though it had a much larger Army and massive white population to reduce the impact of the charged militants to some extent.

In South Africa, the term “no go areas” was used to describe localities that were perilous for white civilians, and where even the local police used to go in heavy contingents.

The South African cities of Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town are still notorious for their high crime rates, surging homicide incidents, mugging and robberies.

Major international travel sites and even Western governments often bar their citizens through advisories, from going to the unsafe areas in the three afore-mentioned South African cities.

Between 1969 and 1972, the term “no go areas” was also used officially in Northern Ireland to describe barricaded areas in Irish cities of Belfast and Derry etc. There were times when even the police and the British Army were prevented from entering these cities by their militant residents.

The areas had thus challenged the authority of the British government in Northern Ireland for many years, but on July 31, 1972, the Army had demolished the barricades and re-established control.

Remember, the day-to-day policing within these areas was generally controlled by paramilitary organisations, notably the Irish Republican Army throughout the 1990s—-something that should give a lot of inspiration to the ruling Nawaz Sharif government.

Research further reveals that nearly every major city in the developed and underdeveloped world has certain unsafe “no-go areas,” much like Karachi’s PIB Colony, Sohrab Goth, Kala Kot, Chakiwara, South Karachi and Pirabad etc, where drug peddlers, hard core criminals, kidnappers, extortionists and terrorists etc co-exist and live with each other’s support.

We all know about the “no go areas” of New York, Chicago, New Orleans, London, Rome, Amsterdam and Paris etc, but a peek into the histories and prevalent situations in these famous metropolitans shows that at certain odd hours of the day, they can be as unsafe as various Latin/Central America’s notoriously violent nations like Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras and Brazil etc.

Just a year or so ago, some senior British police officers had reacted with dismay after Professor Hamid Ghodse, President of the United Nation’s International Narcotics Control Board, had said that parts of Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool were “no-go areas” similar to various crime-ridden Latin America’s towns.

Professor Hamid Ghodse of the United Nations had asserted that communities across the world, including those in the UK, were locked in a “downward spiral” caused by growing poverty, crime, alienation and hopelessness.

He was on record to have viewed that many of those who had been “cut adrift” from mainstream society were being lured into criminal lifestyles while organised gangs and drug traffickers were able to gain levels of power that made it impossible for police and other authorities to control them.

We all know about the soaring gun and knife crime in London and a few of its unsafe areas.Name any famous city in the world and it has “no go areas,” but they do not hamper lives or pose serious challenges for the governments in charge.

http://e.thenews.com.pk/9-7-2013/page5.asp