16th December 2014 was a watershed moment in Pakistan’s history. 141 people, including 132 schoolchildren at the Army Public School in Peshawar were mercilessly killed in cold blood by 7 gunmen affiliated with Tehrik-e-Taliban. The incident has been stated as the deadliest of its kind in Pakistan, as far as the number of casualties go.
Ever since the incident took place, the social media has gone into an overdrive with people posting, sharing, tagging, and forwarding remembrance pictures, images, quotations, and prayers. Profile pictures of various hues with quotations have sprung up. A black background has become quite popular too. Poems have been copied and pasted. Pictures of the children have gone viral and the news channels are busy finding the few lucky ones who got away so that they have enough material for prime time slots. They know we are an emotional and myopic bunch.
Has all this effort brought any real value to finding the reason behind the barbaric act? Or have the deceased and their families benefitted from our rant in any way? “We have not forgotten you”, some of these posts say. Another question: so what? We not forgetting them is of no real value if we don’t take a deeper look inside. I am not going to discuss the geopolitical issues here as it is not the subject of this piece. Instead, I would like to draw your attention to the fight that we should fight with ourselves first.
Decades of oppression have made us weak and accustomed to accepting the oppressor’s aggression. In a nutshell, an oppressor usually identifies an opportunity to benefit from, exploits the situation, goes for the jugular, and hopes that the tactic would work. It usually does, especially in today’s times where any kind of oppression is rarely challenged. We see this all the time, be it at the workplace or within our families. We hardly witness anyone standing up against oppression. We are becoming devoid of courage to stand up against any sort of oppression and losing the gumption to understand the repercussions of our actions.
Challenging oppression however does not have to be in equal measure or of the same type of that of the original oppression. It should have a multifaceted approach. The oppression being inflicted by the Taliban for instance cannot be solely challenged by the use of force. They have their own narrative which has to be ultimately defeated by a counter narrative. So here is another question, what and where is that counter narrative?
Without starting to moan and groan about the responsibility of our political leadership, or the lack of it, the answer starts from analyzing our ‘selfs’ first. We as individuals must stand up to our own inner demons that harbor cowardice and hate. We gather around street fights and public beatings, love to gossip when family, relatives, and work colleagues are facing oppression, and feel ourselves lucky not to be in their situation. Once the oppression has materialized, we then start chanting slogans that we will not forget, etc., but what we are forgetting in reality is that staying silent while witnessing an act of oppression is also equivalent to oppression. The slogans that should rather beat in our own hearts and souls, should be that we will fight and defeat these inner demons, that we shall stand upright and with the truth, not being afraid of mortals, and have faith in Allah, the best Munsif, always. Start with yourself and teach our children to be tolerant of other views but to always raise their voice against oppression because we can never build a counter narrative if our own home adores the status quo. Moses (AS) and Muhammed (PBUH) were instructed to look at the oppressor in the eye and draw the lines in stone. They did not have huge armies and firepower to blow their enemies away. Instead, they were asked to prepare themselves by working on their fears and inhibitions first and then making their counter narrative public.
It takes determination and self-catharsis to know the enemy within, only then the enemy outside can be defeated. Until we start standing up amongst all those who are sitting down, we will remain terrorist ourselves. Stand up, make a difference.
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