Ghin

It takes a special breed of people to attack a place of worship. Special in more ways that one, of course.

These people are given special attention by the government. Invited for special unconditional ‘peace’ talks. Specially never named by the powers that be, lest they come after them once they’ve come for those of us that are most vulnerable. Invited by anchors on their television shows, specially to take credit for their attacks; only for those anchors to then wonder who could possibly be behind the carnage they’ve just specially attributed to themselves.

But truly special are we. As indication after indication rains down on us in the form of bloodied children’s clothes, wailing mothers, and destitute communities, we refuse to look the truth straight in the eye. As though absolving them of sin will absolve us of our collective omission.

Sportsmen turned politicians hector us on our need to listen to their plea for peace with those who wish for none of it. Have we paused to think what the Taliban stand to gain from talks? Violence is their currency, and violence widens their sphere of influence. With every additional church destroyed, they find a nation more willing to acquiesce to them. Silent mice scurrying trying to evade a big bad cat.

We can continue to wish for talks with them all we want; and they’ll continue to play pretend. We’ve somehow convinced ourselves that people with no compunction in killing children are somehow above lying. “Oh no, but it can’t be them! They said so themselves!” we exclaim time after time. “No, this is just a ploy to sabotage peace talks!” we say after militant groups even claim credit for the attack. They see wide public disapproval and then distance themselves from it. Sort of like the school kid who’s recently been inducted into the cool kids group needing to distance himself from the nerd he’s been childhood friends with. And here we stand, buying every drop of it. Trending it on Twitter. Listening to men that have killed more than 30,000 of us over ten years. Believing them over ourselves.

But on top of it all; we have to resort to disgusting obfuscation. An elimination of the truth from an event; so that we can put forth a kinder, gentler explanation for it all.

“Please don’t call it a Shia Genocide. Call it a Pakistani Genocide!”

“Why do we refer to them as CHRISTIANS? Shouldn’t we be saying that PAKISTANIS are being killed?”

And, really, no one even wants to call Ahmedis Pakistanis at all, so they don’t even get the decency of obfuscation.

I refuse to deem it a conspiracy, because conspiracies imply a necessity for planning and forethought. This is simple denial. Denial of what’s actually happening around us so that we can go to bed feeling better about ourselves. Alright then, let’s take a ride down denial all the way to these mythical peace talks.

Let’s talk.

But tell me what we want from these talks. And who are we talking to?

Are we talking to the CIA agents that are apparently running these terror networks in Pakistan? Or are we talking to the people that got turned into terrorists by the CIA drone attacks? Or since terror is all manufactured by the United States and India, are we just wasting our time by talking to a peaceful entity in the TTP?

And what do we want from these talks? What’s our goal? To everyone that says there’s no point in fighting for the sake of fighting; I agree with you wholeheartedly. Because there’s no point in talking for the sake of talking either. You know what that’s called, right?

Bullshit.