Time to confront the Taliban apologists in our midst
Maria Amir
Civil society members take part in a candle light vigil for the victims of the Army Public School in Peshawar. —AP
There is so much already said and that will be said about the
attack in Peshawar on the Army Public school this week. And yet, one cannot underestimate the need to keep speaking about it.
Like most people I know, I monitored my social media feeds and consumed this, worst of news cycles as it played out on December 16. I tried to keep my wits about me, alternating between journalistic rage at the insensitivity of jamming microphones in the faces of grieving parents, to the ethical implications of running pictures of dead children.
I deliberated the ramifications of turning my profile picture black on Facebook, in solidarity but also in apology for the fact that there was nothing more I could do and this helped me assuage my conscience a little.
I drew my fair share of analogies about the tragic significance of December 16th as our benchmark for massacres.
I did all of that.
I tried to say eloquent things; make meaning out of chaos, which is what we do in these situations, isn’t it?
There was only one marked difference.
I cried.
I have cried for days. It has been years since I have cried at watching the news. I covered it a few years ago, a daily deluge of rape cases and acid victim stories pouring in from Southern Punjab’s districts and there came a point where I stopped crying on my way home. A point where I treated it as ‘news’ that happened to ‘other people’.
A point where I actively separated myself as a journalist and not just a person.
It helped, and I am glad that it is no longer doing so. I am glad for the ability to still shed tears for someone other than myself. I must hold on to that. We all must. It has become a preciously rare commodity in our present Pakistan – simply to feel for anyone but ourselves.
After running through the traditional gamut of emotions: shock, rage, grief – it took me a while to recognise that the entire point ought to be that this isn’t just another one of ‘those situations’.
Pakistan has had more than its share of ‘wake-up calls’ and every time we see and hear ourselves resolving – for a day or two – to change.
We talk about ‘what needs to be done’ and ‘who needs to do it’, we lay blame wherever and at whoever it can be directed.