By: Hamayoon Shah
As the famous German poet Heinrich Heine once said, "Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people." The children of Parachinar watched in horror as their new schoolbooks, meant for this academic year, were set ablaze while being transported in a convoy. Though these innocent souls may not be physically burned, their dreams are being reduced to ashes, stolen from them before they can bear fruit.
Upper Kurram, Parachinar, has been besieged for the past six months, inflicting unimaginable trauma on its half-a-million residents. With severe shortages of food, medicine, and fuel and recurring episodes of harsh violence, survival itself has become a struggle. Now, the blockade of fuel and the unavailability of books have not only deepened the suffering but have also led to the complete collapse of the education sector.
In the besieged area, a total of 374 schools, including 318 government and 56 private schools, 4 degree colleges, and one medical university are located. Among them, over 64,000 students are enrolled, with a decent portion being girls. It has already been a month since the new academic year began, but not a single book has been transported as trucks carrying books were intercepted and burned. Those lucky enough to receive books from their seniors are also confined to their homes due to the unavailability of fuel in the district, preventing both students and teachers from reaching schools.
Already, educational apartheid is unfolding across the country with a staggering 26 million children out of school, while Erstwhile FATA fares even worse in education indicators compared to urban and relatively settled regions. Girls' education has always been a neglected subject with very low gender parity in the region. Now, this unending prolonged siege threatens to shatter girls' dreams even further, as with no fuel in the district, the transportation from far-flung villages to semi-urban Parachinar has become even more difficult. This is extremely harsh on girls, who are confined to their homes in a region where children, with few entertainment options, see schools as their only place to laugh and play.
The traumatized, besieged people are already hopeless and feel abandoned, and now, seeing their children's future drifting into darkness is unbearable for them. It feels as if they are not only suffocated in the present, but their future is also at stake. In this chaotic environment, parents worried about their children's future cannot get reliable answers from the authorities. The district administration has no response on when the siege will be lifted, nor can they assure if their children will receive books or if fuel will be supplied to revive the collapsing education system. The federal and provincial governments also remain at loggerheads over insignificant matters while shifting responsibility for Kurram onto each other, leaving the region at the mercy of a handful of terrorists who have blockaded a vast population.
(The writer is a Parachinar resident, a former GIZ Education Project employee, and a PhD scholar at LUMS.)