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Dear Quetta,

It has almost been a week since the attack on the police academy took place and we have already forgotten about it, again. I am sorry, I mean, I wish I could say more, but the stark reality is that we don’t care about you. You and Balochistan are like that neglected stepchild that nobody cares about. You are such a beautiful city, filled with some amazing people. I have never had the chance to enjoy your famed beauty but maybe one day I will have the chance to roam around on your streets. One day. Until then, all I can do is weep from afar and hope sanity prevails. As the poem goes:

“Ashes everywhere

Bitterness and silence in all corners

Air filled with boisterous laughter of vultures

Disgraced hands of darkness open fire

A thousand budding souls perish

Blood and ash fill our cursed city”

I know, it sounds harsh, but it is the truth. I love you, care about you, and stand with you in your moments of grief but like every other Pakistani, I have the superpower of being able to forget everything. I mean, we forgot about APS, we wept for the innocent children of Kasur but we forgot about them, attack on Bacha Khan University almost went unnoticed, Lahore did linger on because Lahore Lahore aey (Lahore is Lahore), the blast that wiped out a whole generation of lawyers did make us pause for a second but life continued, Edhi Saab was buried with so much fanfare and promises but we forgot, Qandeel Baloch and Amjad Sabri were killed but, like everything else, it was soon left in the wind.

Last week was no different. The attack happened, but we didn’t care. We all turned on the news and, soon after, went to sleep. The next day, everything was back to normal. It is almost like the province of Balochistan is only remembered when we talk about Kashmir, or when Independence Day comes around, or when someone tries to break you away from us. The same can be said for the Shia Genocide going on in this country: we only remember it when the Muslim unity is in danger but other than that, the incidents like the Alamdar road sit-in, the recent shooting of four Hazaras, and the recent killings in Karachi fall on deaf ears. By the looks of it, we only care when things upset the natural order in the country. Apart from that, why should we bother?

There are people who care about you but they are always drowned out by the people who don’t want to admit that something is wrong in this relationship. I get it, it takes a lot of courage to admit when somebody is wrong, and that courage seems to be lacking in us. We don’t want to ask the hard questions, because asking them would mean that there is something wrong and doing that will result in shattering our almost perfect picture of this country. We will have to admit that we are wrong but who wants to admit that?

I wish we could bring ourselves to care and ask those questions, but I think we lost our humanity a long time ago; we just want to not care anymore and just want to live out our lives in whatever peace we can find. It reminds me of that poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller, “They came for the Jews and I did not speak out. Because I was not a Jew” fits perfectly in our case, doesn’t it? As long as it doesn’t affect us, we just want to get on with our lives. As Khalil Gibran said,

“Dead are my people

Gone are my people, but I exist yet,

Lamenting them in my solitude...

Dead are my friends, and in their Death my life is naught but great

Disaster.

The knolls of my country are submerged

By tears and blood, for my people and

My beloved are gone, and I am here

Living as I did when my people and my

Beloved were enjoying life and the

Bounty of life, and when the hills of

My country were blessed and engulfed

By the light of the sun.”

Quetta, these words are that I have to offer you. These are all I have, but I wish I could say more. But maybe the sad reality is that, soon, like the rest of them, I will stop caring too.