Kunduz Massacre And The Collective Death Of The Global Conscience

It has been over 24 hours since the news of Afghan air raid on a  children’s seminary in Afghanistan’s Kunduz province became known. According to various sources, including Al-Jazeera, close to 100 civilians were martyred in the air strike; most of the deceased were mere children.

However, in a world where Mike Pence’s pet rabbit is breaking news, it is astonishing that even the most liberal wings of western media are yet to report the colossal loss of innocent life in Kunduz.

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In this time and age, when citizen journalism on social media websites has itself become a source of news, a  blackout by leading international media houses serves no purpose at all. In the face of staggering visual evidence and eye-witness accounts, international media can certainly choose not to report the Kunduz massacre but it no longer holds the monopoly to actually prevent the news from being known.

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The Kunduz Massacre in a Nutshell 

A religious school or madrassah in the Dasht-e-Archi district of Kunduz province had organized a graduation ceremony to award the students who had memorized the Holy Quran. It is believed that close to 2000 people including students, their families, teachers and community members were part of the ceremony. The air attack began while the ceremony was underway.

Haji Ghulam, an witness told Aljazeera that he had been working in his farm when he heard the bombing. He described the site of the madrassah as a “disaster,” with blood and body parts scattered everywhere.

Eye witnesses have further shared that while it is true that militants are active in that area and the madrassah where the ceremony was taking place does have Taliban apologists in its ranks, the graduation ceremony was largely attended by children and their families.

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Afghan military has been on the offensive in the Taliban-held province of Kunduz for the last few months to reclaim territorial sovereignty.

The spokesperson for the Afghan Ministry of Defense said in a statement that the air strike was aimed at eliminating top tier of the Taliban leadership. He also claimed that 30 Taliban leaders including members of the elite Red Unit and Quetta Shura had been killed in the attack.

Despite these claims by the Afghan officials and silence on the part of the international media, Twitter is flooded with images of children martyred during the attack. Some of these children were as young as 11 or 12 years old.

Will the West Accept Responsibility?

The Kunduz Massacre is an ugly reminder of the fact that wars can never bring peace.

What adds to the frustration at this point in time is the fact that the developed world does not seem to have the basic courtesy of reporting the carnage, let alone admitting that a grave error of judgement was made when sanctioning the strike.

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It is this indifference to the plight of our children and citizens by the west that strengthens ridiculous worldviews propagated by the militants. Vulnerable people, devastated by years of discrimination and war often join extremist movements hoping to restore some sense of equity and justice to the world.

There cannot be two opinions about the fact that violent extremist ideologies need to be contended and rejected in totality. However, west’s inability to accept its own mistakes, to take corrective measures and acknowledge the civilian sacrifices of the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children across Asia and Middle East is only serving to strengthen extremist worldviews and making the job of peace-makers so much more difficult than it already is.

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There is absolutely no excuse for the carnage in Kunduz and unless the probe ordered by the UN into the civilian deaths does not result in punishments for those responsible there is little reason to hope that such a tragedy will not repeat itself.