EDITORIAL: 16 December 2014 was a day so dark that it even overshadowed the pain of losing half the country on the same date 43 years earlier.
Whatever pride we had left as a nation was completely erased when we, a nuclear-armed country with a formidable army and brave people, could do nothing as terrorists just waltzed into the Army Public School Peshawar and slaughtered our innocent little children.
Even the courage of the teachers that took the fall protecting the students and soldiers that went down killing those terrorists, which we salute, will never remove the stain from our collective conscience.
Yet the way we’ve conducted, and continue to conduct, ourselves as a nation since then means we must not only re-live that pain every Dec16, but also feel shame for learning no lessons at all from the darkest day in the country’s history.
For, once again the same enemy threatens us, is able to bring the same war to our homes, mercilessly kill more of our men, women and children.
Worse still, the highest office in the land and the military’s top leadership went so far as entertaining the idea of repatriating the same murderers of our children back into our society, even ridiculously dubbing anybody questioning them ‘enemies of the state’.
How come neither the humiliation of losing East Pakistan nor the 80,000 innocent souls lost to terrorism could teach us that a house divided is a house compromised? How could it be that our most popular leaders are ones who hurl the vilest abuses on their most hated rivals? When did the dream of a united, progressive Pakistan turn into a nightmare for its divided, miserable people? Is there still an outside chance of collecting all the pieces we have fragmented into and gluing them together into a proud people once again?
Perhaps the answers to all these questions can be found in the bitter, painful legacy of Dec16. If we can embrace the embittered and disgruntled among us, instead of forcing them to break away, and crush the enemies that kill our children instead of accommodating and nurturing them, then maybe we can rise once again. But even if we are able to somehow get on the road to the peace and progress we seek, it will be a very long journey before we get there. But before that, we have pressing existential problems to overcome.
Number one is the economy, of course. Because no manner of societal or political consolidation is possible if we default on our debt and face debilitating hyperinflation and unemployment. The country has the fifth largest population in the world, after all, and figures in the top-10 in terms of poverty and illiteracy.
Failure to hold the economy together will have a pronounced effect on the military’s ability to fight resurgent terrorism as well. And there’s no doubt that our financial and political troubles will only embolden the enemy to strike deeper inside the country.
Nine years since that dark day, the nation has realised that time does not heal all wounds. Yet this is one tragedy we must never forget, no matter how painful, nor forget. And we should never, ever allow our enemies back into our fold. Instead, as they raise their heads once again, we must make sure that we crush them completely this time.
We owe as much to the innocent children we put in early graves that December.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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