In news rooms, board rooms and drawing rooms across Pakistan, a new conversation is finally underway. As the war on terror ceases to be a fringe phenomenon, restricted to the tribal areas and Swat Valley, the political is becoming disturbingly personal. Discussions about spreading militancy and the war on terror are no longer peppered with contentious acronyms — ISI, CIA, RAW, NATO, TTP — as conspiracy theories have been replaced with genuine concern.

Pakistanis are increasingly acknowledging that the war on terror is a war within, a war for us to fight, and a war that we might yet lose. Recent terrorist attacks have targeted Pakistanis on Pakistani soil, and with each assault, death tolls rise, the numbers of wounded soar, and the arbitrariness of the targets overwhelms. In Manawan, 13 were killed in an assault on a police academy. In Jamrud, a suicide bombing during Friday prayers killed 70 people and left 125 injured. In Dera Ismail Khan, an attack on a funeral procession killed 32 and left over 145 people injured. In Islamabad, what should have been the safest spot in the heart of the city — the barracks of the Diplomatic Protection Department — was targeted by a suicide bomber who left eight people dead. And in Chakwal, a formerly peaceful Punjabi district, a suicide attack at a Shia mosque killed 26 people and injured dozens — stoking sectarian tensions where previously there were none.

Not surprisingly, national morale is sinking by the day. When Pakistanis see Muslims at prayer and families in mourning being slaughtered by the dozen and wake up to realise that their protectors cannot protect themselves, how could it not? But let’s be honest: in trying times, people have the uncanny ability to become desensitised, and a fine line between intellectual anxiety and personal despair is somehow maintained. The Pakistani Taliban’s promise of two suicide attacks a week until drone attacks in the tribal areas cease has forced many to grit their teeth and reconfigure lives lost as collateral damage. Death tolls, after all, can be reduced to impersonal statistics.

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