Protecting our children’s future

Decades of silence and acceptance of an extremist ideology that has given birth to a perverse, pervasive narrative has come at the cost of our children. In this barbarous war, the crevices are only widening.  The suicide attack at a school in Hangu — a region that has seen sectarian violence for over three decades —  has opened another front in this war, a more bloody and ruthless front.

In the many ‘firsts’ of the ongoing conflict in Pakistan, a school was directly targeted in a suicide bombing. This attack calls for another day of introspection. Perhaps, if there was less space for hate, if the country stood its ground against sectarian violence and had the courage to stop reasoning with militants and their sympathisers , then maybe today we would have not had to witness such an attack and 17-year-old Aitizaz Hassan would not have had to sacrifice his life to save his school.

Even an attempted attack at a school which has about 2,000 students should have made the country stand still, should have shaken both the federal and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa governments alike, but at least three days after the attack, there was only silence from both. Government functionaries had neither visited the family of the slain teenager nor his school in Ibrahimzai. This time, even cosmetic measures of condemnation statements and ‘compensation’ announcements were not made — perhaps because the number of dead was not high enough. But must our government always wait for more lives to be lost before it breaks its silence?  Is the death of one child not tragedy enough? And does his bravery not merit it recognition, indeed praise? If it was not for the media and public outcry, maybe Aitizaz would have only been an additional number to the civilian casualties of war. Indeed, Aitizaz will live as a hero forever, but it is a pity that our children have to fight this war and we can no longer let this continue. It is indeed high time we do all that is needed to protect our children. The state apparatus must be used to protect the future of our children, so they are not only fallen heroes but also living legends.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2014.

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