#PeshawarSchoolAttack - Wake Up Calls

The Peshawar attack on Dec. 16th proved to the country that little else can present cause for complete national paralysis as the violent targeting of schools. As parents of school going children battle with their fears every single day, the decision to see their children off each morning has become a matter of complex national debate. From wide-scale arrests to hoax text messages and unverified phone conversations circulating on the media, the parents of Pakistan are now engaging with the problem of extremism in a way they previously did not. There is a powerful connection to their concern, and with the lifting of the iron curtain that separated terrorists events that happened in some remote vacuum in Hangu, now, an event of such tragic scale in an urban power centre in Pakistan has shaken up the elite. In a way this can be seen as an unprincipled realisation.  The TTP has targeted schools for years, albeit in poorer areas especially in KPK, claiming that they follow an un-Islamic, “Western” agenda. Aitzaz Hasan, the school boy in Hangu who gave his life protecting 2,000 school children from a suicide bomber, was unable to shake the concerns of parents across the nation. Reportedly, there were a total of 838 terrorist attacks on schools during 2009-2012, and many proponents of female education have since then been ruthlessly killed. Malala Yousafzai, the nobel peace prize winner from Swat, was herself the target of a terrorist shooting in a school bus. And yet, it was not until the violence came to the urban doorstep, it was not until the violence was suddenly frighteningly relatable, that the power circles of the country stood up to listen. 
As the elite holds its children more dearly close than ever, on Thursday, at Bhatta Chowk Lahore, the Punjab police attacked school children for not vacating the school premises, injuring at least one. And yet, there is almost no news of this incident. If every child’s life- rich or poor- is not taken into careful account, the National Action Plan, or any agenda by this government to root out violence, corruption and extremism will fade into nothingness soon enough.