THE CRITICAL ISSUE. Education became our battle

It’s the second day of the Islamabad Literature Festival. The first event on the schedule is a conversation with students of the Army Public School, Peshawar. Public memory is often short and I do not immediately register that this is the same school where the shootout took place that left 141 dead — including 132 students, and others like teachers and caretakers — in December 2014.

Instead, my mind is on a more recent shooting in Karachi — that of well-known and much loved activist Sabeen Mahmud, the founder of a creative and political space called T2F (short for ‘the second floor’). Mahmud was shot dead in her car while returning from an event she had organised on Baluchistan. Earlier slated to be held at the Lahore University of Management Studies this event was apparently cancelled due to government pressure.

The literature festival takes both of these things squarely on board: it opens with a moving tribute to Mahmud, and with the announcement that there will be a special session devoted to her, it then leads straight into the conversation with students.

On the stage are young people who were present during the shooting; including a math teacher who was in class, father of an injured student, and the head of an NGO that has been formed to bring together survivors — ‘not only for students but also for peons, sweepers and others for, after all, they too died or were injured.’

The conversation begins with a brief introduction, although no one in the packed-to-the brim hall needs to be reminded of what happened that day. Ameena Saiyid, director of the festival and publisher of Oxford University Press Pakistan, does this with grace. She then hands over to Ayesha Mian, a trained psychiatrist who reminds the audience of the need for sensitivity while talking to the students. “These young people have been through a traumatic time,” she says, and speaks about the courage it takes to be in a public forum. She suggests therefore that both the conversation and the questions need to focus not on the events of that day but on how the students have moved forward, and what has helped them arrive where they are at now.

“I never thought I would be able to return to school,” says Mohammed Amir, who was wounded in the attack, “the bullet hit my hand, and it’s the hand with which I write.” Despite the trauma, he — like many of his friends — went back to school the day it opened. “This was the best way for us to avenge ourselves, from that day on, education became our battle.”

When asked, “You have experienced terrorism, what can you tell us about how to prepare to face it?” Musha Ahmed says, “An experience like this teaches you that terrorism is a reality and you have to learn to face it.” He describes his experience: “I wanted to join the army, but this injury means I cannot do that now. But I will not let this defeat me, I will not let my morale down. I’ve decided if I can’t have the army, I will go in for aeronautical engineering.”

As story after story is recounted, the audience learns about what it takes for society to deal with such trauma, and how convinced the survivors are that the only answer to violence is education. The parents, we’re told, are equally traumatised. A mother who lost her son in the attack can no longer bear to live at home. “Every corner reminds me of him,” she says. On Fridays, most parents no longer send their children to school, fearing attacks.

But for most of them, the hardest thing is to reconcile the medical with the social and educational. Many parents still take their children to hospitals for treatment, and students are not yet ready to take on things like exams. But despite reassurances and guarantees, the educational system has been indifferent and does not make allowances for trauma, injuries and psychological damage. “And if this is the case with elite students,” Suleiman, the math teacher tells us, “then imagine what it is like for the poor, those whose children went to the same school, children who sold chips in the breaks to help pay for their education.”

These questions are critical to our society today. How can institutions be sensitised to the reality of a fractured society, of a society torn apart by violence? What is the role of the State? A speaker points out that “till today, the Prime Minister has not visited Peshawar to meet the children.” What will it take, he asks, for the State to understand both its power and its responsibilities towards its citizens?

The discussion is moving, mature, and strongly political. And it’s taking place at a literature festival.

As Suleiman, the teacher says, “I lost eight students, now the number of lost students is much higher. Every janaza — whether of one or 50 — is as painful. Please do something.”

Urvashi Butaliais an editor, publisher and director of Zubaan

blink@thehindu.co.in

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