It's always a different reaction with every new atrocity--approximately every ten days.
This time, outrage from the usual quarters (that are unfortunately mocked for being overtly 'sensationalist') was not quite coupled by the reptilian waffle and reactionary drivel that often emerges alongside the ire.
Give it time.
On social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, one actually felt a profound sense of shock even in some of the most animated sections, which, on normal days take the lead in immediately spinning up theories and narratives that obfuscate a tragedy ‐ any tragedy, even including the slaughter of men and women by the self-claimed warriors of faith.
They trade ideas on how to be atrocious. Boko Haram did something similar not thirty days ago.
But this sense of shock in such people was largely exhibited by a long, awkward silence. After all, many of them had been wagging their fingers at all and sundry for bringing upon Pakistain so much violence and bloodshed; blaming everyone from 'US imperialism' to 'liberal fascists' to drone attacks, to 'sold-out media houses' to even a group of teenage girls who were shot by
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
three years ago ‐ yes, everyone but those who, by and large, are actually committing the violence.
Zaid Hamid Syed Zaiduzzaman Hamid, better known as Zaid Hamid, is a Pakistani security consultant and political commentator.
Nevertheless, many of them were caught in no man's land when school children began to fall by the dozens to the bullets and bombs of
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
Just how could one justify, rationalise and obfuscate the mindless slaughter of school children and that too for an obscure, myopic and vindictive cause?
Who was the holy man who issued the fatwa saying it was okay under Islam to slit the throats of little kids? Guy who used to live in Britain? Religious authority for Algeria's GAI?
One just couldn't, and thus the silence.
One doesn't have to. Islam = Sadism.
One could easily taunt those who went suddenly quiet on that dreadful day. But the truth is that despite their penchant for tweeting and 'facebooking' arrogant spiels and convoluted rationales for reactionary shenanigans, their silence did prove that their minds were still mammalian in nature and hadn't entirely regressed to becoming reptilian.
The "peace" Islam brings is the peace of the grave.
One did see a few statements being quoted here and there about that ubiquitous (but always elusive) 'foreign hand', but such statements were overwhelmed by the anger and the grief that erupted across the country.
Short attention span syndrome is just around the corner.
It is correct to point out that politicising a tragedy of such a magnitude would be trivialising it. Yes, there are still mainstream political parties out there who remain frustratingly obscure and vague about their stand on the issue of terrorism and extremism in Pakistain.
As long as you've got religious parties you're ruled by holy men. As long as you've got blasphemy law you're ruled by holy men. The faithful turn out to riot a the least hint of blasphemy, but we never see them stringing up the nearest Taliban.
Yes, one of them just couldn't get itself to make a decision (about challenging this issue head-on) and was pushed into making one by the military; and yes, another party just refused to see beyond the nose of its rather contrived and naïve understanding of the same issue.
It's not only in Pakistain that tight turban doublethink is regarded as "naive," but it's ground zero.
Never mind the fact that I once saw two very popular rock stars (in a news report) actually suggesting that 'extremism was not an issue in Pakistain.'
Suffocation isn't an issue in a vacuum.
Never mind the fact that the proof is in the pudding and both the gentlemen kept repeating their brilliant insight even when the pudding was flowing from their mouths, nose and ears.
Never mind the apologists who only a few months ago (on TV) were describing civilian deaths in terror attacks as ' casualties of war', but then in the same breath insisted 'this is not our war.'
Yes, all this is true, but despite the cynical fear that this tragedy might soon be forgotten, I have never before seen so many distinct Paks behaving as if each one of them was now on the same boat.
The entirely meaningless and horrid deaths of all those school kids have well and truly shocked the nation like no other tragedy or act of terror. In each one of those fallen boys and girls, Paks across classes, ethnicities and political inclinations saw a child of their own ‐ a son, a daughter, a nephew, a grandchild ... It is unfortunate that a nation who considers itself to be proud, patriotic and passionate, had to wait right till the point where their children began to fall so tragically, so heartbreakingly to finally come to a state of a sombre and desperate unity.
This must not be forgotten. This must never be forgotten. This must be molded in the making of a brand new existential narrative for the besieged nation.
This point of unity achieved with the senseless deaths of over 50,000 Pak civilians, soldiers, politicians, cops and now over a hundred school children must be free of all politics and ideologies punctuated by false bravado, obfuscation, paranoid theories or cyclic navel-gazing.
Our military leaders, civilian representatives in the parliament (and even on the streets), our media, in fact each one of us must immediately strive to reach that long-awaited new consensus about exactly what kind of a Pakistain we want; how to achieve it and, more so, make sure that never again will we allow a madness that causes thousands of mothers and fathers cry over the still bodies of their children.