Years passed, but the festering wound remained and so they came back.

Eye for an eye. Body for a body.

This time it was us who buried our children.

I was still a school going student when the Taliban began blowing up schools.

In 2014, on the 16th of December the Taliban committed the world’s 5th deadliest school shooting. This time it was an army school, it was revenge for the army’s actions at the siege of Lal Masjid – Operation Sunrise.

I do not wish to go to school today. How would you feel if you sent me anyway and I died in an attack? Would you be able to live with the guilt?

Of course we blackmailed out parents, insensitive to the grief of the parents who had indeed lived this.

They went to school and never came back.

We lived our histories of grief in real time, we grew up with posters in the auditorium – all the children who never made it to graduation.

A mother waits outside Army Public School in Peshawar, its been months since her kids passed away and yet she comes every day to pick them from school.  

We didn’t have earthquake drills, we prepared to survive terrorists. 3 sirens evacuate the building we are under attack, 2 sirens hide on campus in the designated locations, 1 siren – turn off the lights, hide under your desks, its too late – and if the terrorists enter remember to be polite, do not enrage them, greet them and do as you’re told.

As if a smile and an “assalam o alaikum” will appease someone blinded with rage, as if smiling will make death avoidable, as if pandering to my killer’s last whims will spare me. Even at the age of ten we recognised that it was a ludicrous, laughable attempt at survival if all that stood between us and the terrorists was an Islamic greeting and a pretence of agreeability. 

Trauma and Resilience III / Zainab Abbas / Knowledge Integration and Project Planning: Education Futures (2023-24) by is licensed under a