December 16. A date that will forever be a grisly reminder in the history of Pakistan when innocent school children fell prey to a worse form of terror.
Those visuals are ingrained in my mind. Mothers running to the attacked school in despair, then running to the Lady Reading Hospital to check whether their child had escaped the terrorists’ bullets. It was a horrid day when the grief of those ill-fated parents, their innocent children, and those children’s hapless teachers was felt severely as I sat mum in front of the TV. Unevenly gasping and praying for God’s mercy and ease of the unfathomable pain that had been inflicted on all of them. Those moments of fright pierced their way through the insensitivity in me that had gradually developed with frequent acts of terror in our country. I am mentioning this as a confession that on December 16, I acknowledged the essence of these words: “thoughts and prayers”. The days that followed – as shocking stories of courage and trauma came in from the survivors and the martyrs’ homes – were cold and heavy. Yet, surely not as much onerous as it was for those who received bullets, survived that hell of terror while trying to save each other, and exceptionally those who were gathering the courage to live without their loved ones. Children lost their parents; parents had lost their children. Many lives, devastated forever. As I write this, and December 16 comes closer, I feel a familiar mixed feeling of sorrow and inner outrage returning.
This December while everyone commemorates – in their own various capacities – last year’s hell that broke loose collectively on us, a photo published in a mainstream newspaper on Dec 9 also caught my attention. The image featured a performance by elementary school children re-enacting the Army Public School Peshawar attack as homage to the martyrs and survivors. One tries to gauge the purpose of such an activity for school children. At another instance, as one had expected, news reporters and cameramen visiting schools again this year and inquiring those schoolchildren how they felt after a year has passed. But it does not end here. I came across the irresponsible hash tag trend on Twitter, #NanhaySipahiZindaHain. ‘Hashtaggers’ fail to understand that parents sent their children to school for learning, not for a battle. They were not soldiers, but students. And most significantly, the new video song of children singing again and pledging to take revenge by teaching the children of the enemy. Even if this is a morale building method or tactic, do we really want our children to be on the frontline?
Why are we expecting school children to never forget what happened to their age fellows when they went to school on December 16? Children who are too young to carry this weight of constant fear. Should it not fall only on the adults to never forget the APS attack, and on the state machinery and policymakers, to act for prevention from terror incidents in the future? Or, is it just aimed at sending a strong message to the terrorists – whoever and wherever they are – that our children have a tough resolve and will not be deterred? My persistent question is, why putting it on children when their elders should have a tough resolve instead, in the form of Zarb-e-Azb and thoroughly transparent implementation of the National Action Plan?
In my opinion, all the adults of Pakistan must pause for a moment and think upon this matter more responsibly. An evident intent of the APS massacre was to induce fear in the nation’s mind. Quite clearly, making schoolchildren recite poems, sing songs, write essays, do theatrical re-enactments of a horrendous day of this country’s history is only embedding it as scars into their memory.
School administrations ought to be strictly advised by all the provincial education departments to allow recreation like sports, science projects and other cheerful activities that help them leave behind – if not erase completely, at least diminish – the gloomy memories of the young survivors. They lost their friends at the age when friendship is at its purest form. It is a distasteful thought to expect children to recall tragedies that, in the first place, should have been kept discreet from them. Army Public School Peshawar massacre must always be remembered, never forgotten, but without zooming in its focus on the minors. This deserves to be treated as an increasingly sensitive matter. My heartfelt and sincerest prayers continuously go out to the parents and children whose burden of grief has not lessened even as a year has gone by, after they and many others like them lost their worlds in various terror attacks.
Dear Pakistan, #NeverForgetAPS is for us to remember, not for our children. Help them, and let them forget it.
tahreenstance 