In a tragedy so grim it would make even the most hardened gin-sodden hack pause mid-swig, a roof has collapsed on a tuition centre in Pakistan, crushing 14 children beneath the debris of their own aspirations. The building, a squat concrete affair in the city of Lahore, apparently decided that the weight of future doctors, engineers, and poets was too much to bear, and so it gave way with the grace of a punch-drunk heavyweight. British aid agencies, those ever-vigilant guardians of the world’s conscience, have been mobilised. They are expected to arrive any day now, clutching emergency supplies of tepid tea and laminated fact sheets, ready to express their deepest sympathies and then harangue you for a direct debit.
Details are, as ever, sketchy. The tuition centre, one of thousands that dot the Pakistani educational landscape like acne on a teenager’s face, was crammed with children seeking to better themselves through the noble pursuit of mathematics and English. They were, presumably, conjugating verbs or solving quadratic equations when the heavens (or rather, the ceiling) intervened. The roof collapsed, and with it, the dreams of a dozen families who now find themselves sifting through rubble for fragments of a life barely begun.
British aid agencies, never ones to miss a photo opportunity, have swung into action. The Disasters Emergency Committee has already convened an emergency meeting, possibly over a table groaning with Hobnobs and instant coffee. Spokespersons have been dispatched to the foyer of Broadcasting House, where they will intone solemnly about the need for “shelter, water, and psychological support”. Because what these freshly bereaved parents need, more than anything, is a well-meaning woman from Surrey telling them how to process their grief through colouring books and stress balls.
But let us not be too churlish. The British public, ever generous, will undoubtedly open their wallets. We shall see the usual flurry of JustGiving pages, sponsored silences, and charity galas where minor celebrities wear tasteful black and explain how they’ve just returned from the “field”. The field, in this case, being a toxic pile of concrete and bone, but that’s a detail best glossed over for the sake of the canapés.
Meanwhile, back in Lahore, the search for survivors continues. Rescue workers, men whose real expertise lies in digging through earthquake rubble, have been hampered by the sheer density of the debris. They work with their hands, their shovels, and the occasional JCB, while the waiting crowds offer prayers and curses in equal measure. The government has promised a full inquiry, which is bureaucratese for “we will find a scapegoat and then do nothing until the next tragedy”.
And so we are left with the hollow feeling that accompanies any such event. A feeling that the world, with all its nauseating inequalities and lethal inadequacies, has once again demonstrated its profound indifference to the poor. The children who died were not the sons and daughters of ministers or businessmen. They were the children of shopkeepers, rickshaw drivers, and welders. Children whose only crime was to seek an education in a building that was never meant to hold them. A building that, like the system it served, was built on quicksand and hope.
British aid agencies, then, are mobilising. Let us hope they bring more than tea and platitudes. But let us not hold our breath. The roof is gone, the children are gone, and all that remains is the familiar, cloying smell of sanctimony. Pass the gin.
