6/8/2019

                           THE PRICE OF CONFLICT

Lives are ruined, dreams are crushed, countless stories ultimately forgotten and people endure. In the past two decades, war either due to regional disturbances or religion has badly affected humanity across the world,

The current hostility unfolding at Kashmir shocked me. I was scrolling down my Instagram feed and saw this post, " our normal has returned. Look around " It was the ultimate wake up call. After decade of conflict, we never really bother ourselves with the question how has it affected the people? The people living there? Selling tea and children going to schools ? We saw the mass oppression of people but never consider the effects on individual's life. How a mother explains 'curfew' to a 5 year old child, who just wants to play in the street with his friends ? How a teacher explains, why the school was again closed for 2 weeks ? What do the young boys and girls discuss when they all sit together ? What is freedom for them, same as ours or different ? After years of condemning the atrocities in Kashmir, why are fathers still missing ?

War creates crisis on a very human level. From the lack of education to absence of medical facilities. Problems are created which require immediate attention and logical tackling, which never really happens! The price of conflict is payed by children in the shape of losing parents, by helpless mothers who are forced to sell their daughters, by sons who take up arms and never return home, by fathers who can't find graves of their loved ones!

You ask what price Afghanistan paid ? After two decades of heavy war and 3,062 children dead, heritage lost, culture saturated with terror and cities ruined. What more can it pay ? You ask what price Pakistan paid ? A war came knocking at Peshawar's and F.A.T.A's door which was never ours. And still each and everyone of us paid the price and we paid heavily. Look around yourself, there are countless examples, both in past and present, declaring war 'never an option to resolve anything'. That's not the path anyone should take! Because it's always the weak paying the price of wars generating millions of dollars. It's always people too helpless to fight back who are crushed by the violence generated due to differences in ideologies. It's always normal people, living their simple lives who are most affected by brutal crimes. But they are the needle in haystack in front of the screaming warlords, huge banners, driven people and a lot of ammunition! 

Man was cruel enough to invent weapon of mass destruction and impudent enough to use them. We failed back when humans were labelled as ' collateral damage ', and we are still miserably failing. The mass exodus due to instability, health related problems arising due to it, genocides,in the name of religion/ jingoism and many unspeakable crimes are the result of crisis. But conflict takes away more than just peace! It takes away the feeling of security in one's own house. It's the fear of losing your loved ones that has been deeply inculcated! You ask what it cost us ?  Our smiles!

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