The Last Blog: Acknowledging Atrocities of the Past

The subject which I’ll talk about in my last blog post is the need to acknowledge atrocities of the past, no matter how hard it may seem. The mass genocide in Bangladesh, committed by the Pakistani army, is a matter which has also been emphasized in other courses I have this semester. The first time it was mulled over was in my Pakistan Studies class, and needless to say, it was something  I found extremely hard to wrap my head around. The words of Beauty’s mother were even read out in that class, and it was appalling to learn the extent of deception exercised in order to hide these facts from the people of Pakistan.

What’s essential to learn from this is that one can never feel satisfied at the extent to which one has learnt the truth. History is seldom ever provided to us in an unbiased manner.  So the most we can do is not give up our attempts at learning, and not restrict ourselves to the perspectives of a given end. Also important is the fact that though we can’t be expected to remain deeply saddened about the fact that atrocities have been committed by various people, we need to acknowledge them, analyze why exactly they do occur, and also understand the measures required to never repeat them. The people of Bangladesh have clearly never received an apology from our end, and it’s is just this which represents a manner of thinking that still needs help. I feel like the concept of nationalism would help one to understand why it is that this information is hardly ever shown to us. When we want to comment on the atrocities committed by the Indians during partition, we never fail to go on a rant, but the atrocities committed by our very people, are matters we can’t deem important enough to talk about.