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That date.. December 16th!

afiasalam by afiasalam
December 16, 2016
Home Stories History
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16th. December should be a date seared into the psyche of Pakistanis right? But is it? Twice this date has brought immeasurable grief to Pakistan.Grief, ignominy, shame, pain, loss, and a lingering question of why it happened and could it have been prevented.

I am of course referring to the two cataclysmic events in our history; events that led to the fall of Dhaka (Dacca as it was known as in those days) on 16th, December 1971, and the murder of our innocent school children and their brave teachers in the Peshawar Army Public School on the same date in 2014.

What do you remember about December 1971?  I was still in school, but old enough to remember the 1965 war, which just brushed by the Karachiites, so the sight of tracer bullets in the sky was something strange on that cold December night in 1971 when Karachi was attacked. Because of 1965 and the the belief that was fed to us post 1965, until Air Marshal Nur Khan busted the myth, we were sure that since  we had won the 1965 war, we would overcome the enemy in this one too.

After all, weren’t we holding out in East Pakistan despite great difficulty? Didn’t we just hear our President Yahya Khan say we would defeat the enemy? It was all over the newspapers too and of course the contrarian news on BBC was just plain lies and that Mark Tully was anti-Pakistan anyway!

Even when the entire city lit up due to the missile strike on the oil tanks at Karachi’s shoreline, where my father worked; even  the shaking of the ground due to the bombing by Indian Aircraft which led to loss of life in areas like Agra Taj colony, it didn’t really shake us out of the belief that ultimately we would prevail. Despite the immense sadness at loss of precious lives in the missile attack on our naval ship Khyber in which a dear neighbour went down, the enormity of the situation was lost on us because of the narrative we were consuming.

And on December 16, that sanitized narrative spoke of a ‘ceasefire agreement’  and laying down of the arms by ‘Tiger’ Niazi in Dhaka. We didn’t understand the ashen faces of our elders, many of whom wept like children. Fall of Dhaka was a term coined much later. The attention shifted from us schoolgirls going house to house collecting for the defence funds to collecting stuff to make packets for the POWs. That became part and parcel of the school activities which had resumed soon after.

Fast forward many years to when I was working with a leading channel of the country. I was responsible for the content of our morning show that was 180 degrees opposed to the kind of shows aired these days. It handled important subjects sensitively and intelligently through the @Ayeshah Alam and @Faisal Qureishi duo.

We did special programmes on special occasions. When I suggested that December 16 should be dedicated to this unfortunate chapter in our national history, there were raised eyebrows, but only because some in the team, the generation that grew up after 1971, were not aware of the significance of the day. They however readily agreed.

However the initial reaction had given me another idea.. to spur the discussion, we sent a reporter, @Huzaima Bukhari to an elite school to ask what the significance of that date was. The answers were too embarrassing to even narrate here. The reporter called back to say she had not been able to get one correct answer. We told her to go to the history teacher to ask why none of the children knew the answer and no marks for guessing what she said!

We, a nation of  ostriches, just buried our head in the sand, and moved on as if nothing happened from which lessons needed to be drawn. True to the saying that ‘we learn from history, that we never learn from history,’ we kept alienating our own, we kept on a path of discriminatory development, making the wrong friends, creating enemies right left and center, and nurturing snakes in the backyard.

Fast forward again to another 16th. December, in 2014, when these snakes hissed and bit us, at the Army Public School in Peshawar. The heart kept sinking lower and the entire atmosphere bore a pall of gloom as news of the attack trickled in. Not just Pakistan but everywhere those images of brutality against the innocent students and their brave teachers went, people recoiled in shock and horror. There was not a dry eye when the parents bid farewell to their beloved children. Toughest of journalists broke down when they went to APS.

The State seemed to suddenly wake from its slumber and resolved not to forgive, or forget. while offering the salve of ‘martydom’ of these children, who had been brutally murdered. It launched the Zarb e Azb. The shock and awe treatment was supposed to have wiped out these barbarians. The National Action Plan was supposed to ACT against all those elements who were perpetrators of horror against our soldiers, our children, the ordinary persons in the street going about their business in bazaars, the people in masjid, mandir, imambargahs and churches.

Today, two years after APS, we again remember those innocent souls and pray for the families who lost their loved ones. There are promises of never forgetting them. But in between there are many others who jostle for a place in our collective memories. Shirakpur reminds us that the NAP was perhaps napping, the large gatherings of the proscribed organizations, the threats hurled by sectarian organizations, the targeting of ‘minorities’ (the word I hate to use, because for me constitutionally, there are none); the glorification of killers like Mumtaz Qadri, the intransigence of Lal masjid mula Abdul Aziz, and the deep deep sorrow of the people of Quetta like the Hazaras, families of police cadets and its entire generation of young lawyers indicate inaction rather than any action or a plan.

After what recently happened in Chakwal to the Ahmadiyya community, can we really say that there is a NAP? Even after what Justice Qazi Faez Isa has put down in the Quetta Inquiry Commission Report?

Can we really claim that we will never forget December 16?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: APS PeshawarBangladeshDecember 16 1971December 16 2014East PakistanPOWsWar
afiasalam

afiasalam

  Resume Freelance journalist and Communications consultant A bridge connecting ideas to people & solutions   Name: Afia Salam DoB:  03021957 Nationality: Pakistani Experience: Journalism: I have been associated with the media in many capacities since 1978. ·   Started as Pakistan's first female cricket writer. ·   Worked at The Star, eveninger of the Dawn group of Newspapers. ·   Editor of an Aviation and Defense magazine (Wings) ·    Executive Editor of The Cricketer magazine in the 80's and 90's, ·   Editor of Pakistan’s first Energy publication in 2001(Energy Update). ·   Joined Dawnnews which was launched as Pakistan’s first English language channel. Worked as a senior copy editor, Head of Culture Desk and content in charge of its flagship morning show titled Daily Breakfast@Dawn. ·   Content head of SpeakforChange blog and its associated web channel 247online.tv where I hosted a show and co-hosted another. ·   Communications Consultant for Exponent Engineers on the charged parking component of the World Bank-Government of Sindh KNIP project ·   Project lead for #C4CC (Conversations for Climate Change) Media capacity building project of High Commission of Canada in Pakistan and UNESCO ·   Project Lead for UNESCO supported  #MIL (Media Information Literacy) for Climate Change Stories from Pakistan, a nationwide media support project I contribute articles as a freelancer to many media outlets eg: Dawn, Tribune, Newsline, Aurora, The News on Sunday, Thirdpole, Nayadaur, The Friday Times. GEO English and Pique magazine.   Advertising: Worked almost 15 years as Creative head and Director Special Projects of three different advertising agencies, Blazon, Argus, and Blitz. From 1991 to 2005.         Development Sector: ·       Headed IUCN-Pakistan (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Education, Communications and Outreach Unit, and also briefly headed their Business and BioDiversity portfolio to kick start engagement with the corporate sector and industries to promote sustainable practices. ·       Served as Sindh coordinator of the newly formed Imran Khan Foundation to provide relief, rehabilitation and resettlement to the victims of 2010 floods in Sindh and of 2011 Badin cloudburst.   Socio-Cultural/Education Sector: ·       Project Manager for Pakistan for Google Cultural Institute  2014-15 to showcase Pakistan’s cultural and historical assets through digital exhibits prepared according to the GCI template.  ·       Communications Lead at Badal Do, a school and education reform programme ·       Visiting faculty at IoBM, having taught courses on Media Law and Ethics, and Environmental Journalism. Training: I have been involved in media development through training of journalists in reporting on environment, climate change, gender, labor, digital security, election reporting, effective use of social media and media ethics. ·       These trainings were held across Pakistan on behalf of organizations such as Pakistan Press Foundation-UNESCO, Intermedia-ILO, IRADA, Civic Action Resource- Solidarity Center, Intermedia-Democracy Reporting International, IUCN Pakistan-Oxfam-GB, LEAD Pakistan-HBS, LEAD-WWF, Green Media Initiatives- GNMI, Pakistan Water Partnership, CEJ-IBA. ·       Have also been a conducted trainings of school teachers, college and university students, and Government officials on the subjects of Environment, Climate Change and Media matters on behalf of IUCN Pakistan,  LEAD Pakistan, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Greenwich University, Institute of Business Management, Heinrich Boll Stiftung, Islamic Relief Pakistan, , High Commission of Canada in Pakistan ·       Have held media management training for Marie Stopes Society , Unilever Pakistan, Uber- Pakistan and KElectric for their middle and top management.   Authored a commissioned researches on: ·       Needs Assessment for Promoting Ethics and Transparency in Pakistan Media  for Pakistan Press Foundation/Internews ·        Effect of Covid-19 on Journalism. commissioned by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung   Official Nominations: ·       Working Group on Climate Change and Security formed under the National Security Division and Strategic Policy Planning for the preparation of the National Security Policy ·       Member of the National Climate Change Council under the Federal Ministry of Climate Change ·       Multi-stakeholder National Coordinating Body of the Ministry of Climate Change, Government of Pakistan to set up Marine Protected Areas in Pakistan and am part of the team that saw through the declaration of Astola Island of Balochistan as Pakistan’s first MPA. ·       Curriculum Review Committee of Government of Sindh to assess gender balance and pluralism in primary school textbooks of 3 subjects ·       Review Committee to assess Climate Change content in Science and Geography Curriculum being developed under the Single National Curriculum ·       Consumer Protection Council announced by the Government of Sindh ·       Baaghban Core Group of Karachi Municipal Corporation’s Horticulture Department. ·       Focal Person and Communications lead for the unique “Art for Climate Change” initiative began under the aegis of Ministry of Climate that has broadened outreach of Climate Change through the art community by taking them on retreats and exhibiting their outputs. Was part of the retreat in 2018 to Naran, and to the Sindh Delta under Government of Sindh banner in 2020. ·       Member of the Gender Based Violence Sub Committee of the Sindh Commission for Human Rights ·       Member of Fact-Finding Committee for the archives verification at National Museum, Karachi ·       Was a member of the first ever rafting expedition on the river Indus which traversed from its entry point into Pakistan to where it drains into the Arabian Sea     I have moderated seminars, Panel discussions, Roundtables, Inception report launches etc for UNDP Small Grants Programme, UNDP Climate Finance in Bangkok, WWF Pakistan, IDRC/Kings College London/IBA Karachi, World Bank ‘Pakistan @100’ launch in Karachi to name a few.   Have ghost written, edited and translated several books and reports of some leading personalities and organizations.   Have also done third party qualitative assessment of projects.   Fellowships:   ·       Fellow of Lead Pakistan (Cohort 16) under its Leadership Development Programme on the subject of Green Economies and completed an additional Fellowship on Indus Basin Benefit Sharing. ·       GRID graduate, which is a leadership development course. ·       Completed a course from on Water from  LUMS Water In Technology School ·       Received scholarship by International Labor Organization for an online course on Gender from its ITC in Turin, Italy. ·       Am an IAF alumni, having completed a course on Liberalism, Environment & Property Rights. ·       Participated in a short course in Women in Executive Leadership at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia on a fellowship from Australia Awards. ·       Was an Journalists Exchange Programme participant of US Consulate on CVE (Countering Violent Extremism)   Memberships and Associations: ·       Advisor for National Forum for Environment & Health, Bolo Bhi, a digital rights research policy and advocacy organization ·       Member of  WWF Pakistan, IUCN Commission on Education and Communications, and IUCN CEESP Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy. ·       Core Group for Water Energy & Food Nexus for Sindh and Universities for Water Network created by the Hisaar Foundation ·       Think tank on Hoga Saaf Pakistan   Member Steering Committee: ·       Alliance on Diversity and Pluralism in Media, ·       Urban Forest Coalition Civil Society Organizations: Trustee and Chair of Board of Indus Earth Trust, a rural development organization Trustee of Helpline Trust, which focuses on consumer and civic rights Trustee of Saneeya Hussain Trust that assists in girls’ higher education, as a President Executive Committee of Baanhn Beli Founding Board member and Vice President Salman Sufi Foundation Member Advisory Committee of FFOP (Faith For Our Planet)     My website is being redone and will be accessible at www.afiasalam.com Some information of my work is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afia_Salam   I have traveled to Japan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, India, UAE, Kenya, Poland, Germany, Netherlands, France, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, UK, USA, and Australia in an official as well personal capacity.                                                                                                                                                                        

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Comments 1

  1. Imran Ahmed says:
    6 years ago

    Reblogged this on iagnikul and commented:
    Our new generations will learn nothing as our history keeps getting re-written. Misinformation is classed as patriotism and bigotry as virtue.

    Reply

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Afia salam

Media consultant and trainer, content developer/editor, documentary concept and script writer, presenter/producer.
Currently working as free lance journalist and media trainer, especially in the field of Environmental journalism.

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