Schools across Pakistan reopened on 12th January 2015 following the horrors of the Peshawar carnage that was unleashed on 16th December 2014, on the innocent school children at the Peshawar Army Public School (APS). Parents and teachers along with the Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Shareef attended the sombre morning assembly where the surviving students vowed resilience in the face of adversaries and militancy. The policy makers once again failed to come up with a concrete and full-proof security plan for the school children. The whimsical measures suggested by the government include banning the use of mobile phones by teachers, staff and children, asking the school administration to carry licensed arms and even asking parents to perform security duties outside the school premises. A government official said that eight-foot high walls will be built around all public schools in Peshawar as part of enhanced security, with hundreds of residents volunteering to protect schools.
Many students at the APS Peshawar greeted each other with the words, ‘You’re alive?’ They were taking their parents to different spots and explaining to them where they were, during the time of the attack and showing them how the horror unfolded on that day. The bloodbath that ensued has made these children wiser beyond their age. It was too painful for the mothers to wake their sons up in the morning and to have them ready for school. Many parents whose children have died in the carnage feared for the other children, some not wanting them to continue their schooling. This was a national tragedy seen never before; we vowed revenge, we blanked out our face book profile pictures to show solidarity with the victims, held candle light vigils, but that was all. No national debate on how to root out the extremism, ever too place and the gap on the issue, between the mullah and the civil society widened. The former refused to condemn the act while the later was decrying it as an act of barbarism. The entire civil society came out, in condemning the act of terrorism. Following this A lawyer and activist Jibran Nasir, one of the main organizers behind the Lal Masjid protests in Islamabad, received a threatening phone call from an individual claiming to be Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan Jamaatul Ahrar’s spokesman.
In these sad circumstances one cannot help but wonder if our children will be able to achieve a bright future that we have envisioned for them; whether our tomorrows will be better than today? Only time, will tell.
Malala the songbird that refused to be silenced.
In the land of the pure
Where darkness now looms
No songbird sings no flowers bloom
The wounded silence of pain that has no cure
Sings the songs of resilience
The songbird of the paradise lost
Warming the hearts that yearn to see once again
The spring of eternal hope
The mountains long for the echo of laughter
Of the kids on their way to school
Of their beautiful smiles
That melted the winter frost
Rising from the snow covered land
No bud dare
The new masters have forbidden
No schools will be there
Forget not the songs
Of love and hope my people
No one can forbid spring
Hope cannot be despaired
For dreams cannot be taken away
Hope cannot be torn asunder
Speak up, come forward
Hold my hand, let us together wonder
Of a tomorrow unlike today
Where children wake up to new day
No fear gripping their young hearts
No worries cloud their mind.
Yes that day will dawn
Yes the end of night is near
The songbird shall forever sing
The songs of hope, that cannot be silenced.
Javeria Younes
Advocate Javeria Younes: a social activist and legal researcher who endeavors for an egalitarian society free from torture. She can be reached at javeria.younes@live.com
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