#NeverForget. That is what my Facebook newsfeed is full of. It makes sense on the surface. One year ago last Wednesday the nation witnessed the most brutal terrorist attack in our history.

But upon closer reflection, it seems to be quite senseless. Who are we addressing this hashtag to? Who are we telling to not forget the APS massacre? The Taliban? They aren’t likely to forget. We’ve bombed it into their memory, as well as that of thousands of others in Waziristan. The outside world? It’s interesting, if not outright hypocritical, to expect them to remember. We’ve already forgotten 9/11, Madrid, 7/7 and Paris. We still make various excuses-that-are-not excuses for them. We’ve even forgotten the Hazara bombings of 2013, and they weren’t even in a foreign country.

Maybe, then, we’re reminding ourselves? Do we have so little faith in our commitment to oppose terrorism that we need to remind ourselves and those around us annually that terrorism is wrong? Actually, that makes sense. After all, we don’t have a good track record of opposing terrorism.

In the wake of the APS attack none of us made commitments to religious freedom, just to sacrilegious revenge.

We don’t care about fighting terrorism as a societal problem. We just care about feeling safe in our homes; and when December 16th rolls around, we are reminded that we could be next. Therefore, we should do something about it. That is why we were not collectively outraged on November 13, 2015; we aren’t French or Christian. That is why we were not collectively outraged on January 10, 2013: we aren’t a Shia nation. That is why we were completely comfortable restarting executions and carpet-bombing Waziristan into oblivion. Because all those people are not us.

But let us set all of that aside. Let us give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. Let us believe that our nation’s intentions are pure. We don’t give this same benefit to America, or India, or even Facebook, but hey, why not? Even if the #NeverForget hashtags aren’t insultingly hypocritical, what is our justification for going one, or really, ten steps further?

As one gentleman posted on social media: "We will not forget. We will not forgive." With all due respect, who do you think you are? Who died and made you king, judge, jury, executioner and herald? The APS massacre victims? Because I’m quite sure you’re not the one who got shot. May it please you to know, we live in a democracy (or so we say), and your sense of security cannot, and should not, come at the cost of someone else’s sense of, or actual, security. So please, if you have no respect for human life other than yours and that of people like you, then at least stop appropriating the pain and grief of those bereaved families.

You see, that is a distinction we fail to make. APS is a national tragedy. It represents a failure of state services, a lack of unbigoted coherent national ideals and an inability to correct ourselves through self-reflection. But those 144 deaths, those are not a national tragedy. Those are deeply personal losses for hundreds of families. The grief and pain they experience is not for us to experience, but for us to empathise with (something we have little practice at) and prevent. It is not for us to shed tears of blood like we have lost family, but it is for us to let those who have lost their children have the room to mourn. And every time we talk of revenge and forgiveness like we are the final and supreme authority on those things, we’re taking that away. We’re turning someone’s child into a battle cry without giving a thought to that person.

In the end, the message is simple. Let’s learn from the mistakes that we made that led to the APS carnage instead of crying as if the deep wounds inflicted on those families were inflicted on us.