When I read accounts of mass killings, like the attack on the military school in Peshwar on 16 December, I experience horror and disgust.
The accounts remind me of watching documentaries about England in the 17th century. I remember recently watching one of those dramatised documentaries in which a royal female (I forget who) had a man executed. In addition to the normal process of hanging, drawing and quartering, the poor victim had his testicles cut off and held before his eyes before they were thrown on a fire in front of him. Then we was hung by the neck, choking and struggling, but only for long enough to make him suffer. He was cut down before he could suffocate, as that would have been too merciful. Then he was disembowelled while still alive so he could see his entrails, before being beheaded and hacked to pieces.
When you watch documentaries on the Tudor period it is not unusual to listen to accounts like that. And however horrifying and disgusting we find the acts of some of the most extreme groups in the world today, it also gives me cause to reflect on how recently such practices were part of the accepted norms of behaviour in England.
My objection to this type of extreme sickening violence is not based on a feeling of moral indignation or superiority. Certainly the indignation and horror are there. There is a difference between the cruelty of killing over a hundred children in a single attack, snd killing hundreds of children in drone strikes and as collateral damage using conventional weapons like bombs and missiles. But the difference is not huge.
It strikes me that often the most atrocious acts are signs of desperation on the part of the perpetrators. In this case even the Afghan Taliban have distanced themselves from the actions of their Pakistani allies. But they are fighting different wars, on different territory. The Afghan Taliban see their long struggle coming to fruition with the “withdrawal” of active foreign troops from their country. Even the decision of Obama to retain 10,000 non-combatant military personnel after his self-imposed Dec 3 deadline has not dampened their hope of eventual victory.
In Pakistan the disparate groups that constitute the Taliban in north-eastern Pakistan face an onslaught by the Pakistani military. They resort to extreme measures to hit back. The fact that the school was run my the military, and a substantial proportioj of the children in the school are the children of Pakistani military personnel does not mitigate the horror of hearing of so many children being massacred.
I can only echo the words of Imran Khan: “Fight with men, not innocent children”.