Stories of children hiding under the corpses of their friends, watching their class fellows and teachers being shot indiscriminately and the sight of their parents wailing at having lost everything will not let us sleep at night. This act of violence has pierced us as a nation; it will forever remain a chimera in our history. However, our response to this will define whether such events will continue to plague our future or not. Let us not act as if we can relate to the pain of the victims and their families; our vigils and outbursts on social media are futile unless they are backed by tangible change. If such a tragedy is not able to strip us down to our basic humanity and allow us to mourn and act collectively, irrespective of any socio-ethnic difference, then the sacrifices of those children will surely be in vain. An act as heinous and inhumane as this should remove any possibility of us pushing aside the grave reality of our country like we have done in the past. We have repeatedly heard how a self-defeating national security policy, consistent political ineptness and a lack of political unity have allowed this menace to weave itself into our social fabric. However, we fail to acknowledge our lack of introspection and unwillingness to take responsibility at an individual level for the state of our country, which has come at tremendous costs. We must recognise that the fault lies with us, the masses, who have allowed ourselves to be so desensitised to acts of terror that it takes an event of satanic cruelty to cut through our thick exteriors. Becoming normalised to acts of violence and terror is a natural response for coping with such frequently occurring events but our continued efforts to distance ourselves from the reality of our country have created more space to be filled by disruptive forces. Even now, in the aftermath of this tragedy, news sources and social media have erupted with questions about responsibility, pointing towards the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for leaving an obvious governance void in favour of the countrywide protests, the armed forces for failing to deal with the terrorists more effectively and the government for not being wholehearted in its counterterrorism efforts, leaving a major stakeholder unmentioned: society. For years we have passed our nation’s troubles onto our rulers and their failures in governance. We have continued to hide behind political forces, aligning and realigning ourselves repeatedly in the hope of a messiah emerging who would blow our troubles away. Today, the country is vociferously calling for the army to launch an all-out offensive against the militants and for the government to hang those who have been apprehended. Irrespective of the effectiveness of these actions, we are still, once again, brushing the responsibility off ourselves and onto the state. Since these non-state actors have infiltrated our society at the grassroots level, no military offensive will be fully successful unless it is backed at a community level. And also, even if the army carpet bombs militant hideouts and eradicates their existence, will that be the end of our plethora of crises? No. Though security lies at the very heart of our problems, it is time we start seeing it for what it is: a symptom, not the cause. Years of hypocrisy, bigotry and cynicism have created an atmosphere of intolerance and divisions along social, ethnic, political and religious lines. It takes a national tragedy of some sort to provide a platform for momentary, collective grieving and exhibition of solidarity. The flicker of hope and optimism soon gives way to the resurgence of the status quo, waiting for the next crisis to occur. This unfortunate reality is the fundamental cause of the milieu of issues our nation currently faces. Terrorism may well be a thing of the past one day but that does not mean that sectarianism, corruption and other social troubles will go with it. The unruly mob behaviour at the recent PTI events has already proved that merely labelling a movement as naya (new) Pakistan does not make it one. Should it really have taken years of attacks on children, schools being blown up and incidents such as Malala and Aitzaz Hassan for such a social uprising? Are the horrific sufferings of religious and ethnic minorities not worthy of our sympathy? Exhibiting selective humanity must become a travesty of the past. If we want to work towards peace, we must feel the pain of the victims of all forms of violence, regardless of their political affiliation, social status and religious beliefs. Remaining blissfully ignorant towards the suffering of certain members of society has corrupted our morality and impeded the formulation of any form of national unity. Similar to how the government has finally announced an end to any distinction between the good and bad Taliban, we must put an end to differentiating between the various forms of violence and terror within our country. Society needs to follow suit, if not set the precedent for the state. The life of a child should have the same weightage, whether it be Baloch or Christian or of some other marginalised group. Until we reach this point, our façade of placing ourselves on a high moral pedestal will only perpetuate instability and violence. This tragedy, unlike ever before, has struck a chord so personal that December 16 will always be remembered as a day that the nation wept in unison. It could have been anyone’s child or sibling. The mere thought of the sheer trauma these children went through can break the resolve of even the strongest amongst us. Those who were martyred will always be remembered, but let us also not forget that there are those who survived. Children who lived through the trauma will forever live with the act of the barbarians entrenched in their minds. As important as we feel it is to commemorate the dead, it is more necessary for us to share in the pain of the living. They are the hope for our future, and it is up to us to ensure that the Pakistan they grow up in is not the same that made them witness the murder of 131 of their peers. To ensure we do not fail as a state, we must first not fail as a nation. The author is a pursuing a Bachelors degree in Foreign Service at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Qatar