SCN: The Public Life of a Private Struggle

[patrick fisher]

There was an excellent article in the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times last week. I
found it online 
at NYTimes.com and here it is, along with a letter to the editor about the article.
The article written by 
Mariane Pearl, the widow of Daniel Pearl, the journalist who was kidnapped and
killed in Pakistan a 
month or two ago. The article gives a lot of insight into a world we only see from
what the media dishes 
out to us. It's just a wonderful article.


The Public Life of Private Struggles

April 19, 2002 

By MARIANE PEARL

PARIS 


I first learned about Pakistan's silent majority at a time
when most of the world found itself stunned and speechless
at the killing of thousands on Sept. 11. 

My husband, Danny, and I had arrived in Pakistan just after
the attacks. Pakistan was part of his beat as South Asia
bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal. We had no
apprehensions about being in a Muslim country. We had both
traveled throughout the Muslim world. Danny had just spent
five years covering the Middle East. As a girl, I had spent
my holidays with a friend in Algeria, and Islam, the
second-largest religion in France, was very much a part of
my childhood at home in Paris. 

Danny and I both wished we had been visiting Pakistan in a
quieter time. But there we were. At our first meeting we
heard from a group of women who advised the city of
Karachi. They expressed anger at Western reporters for
blaming the attacks on Muslim fundamentalists and Osama bin
Laden without proof. They asked us to think carefully about
our responsibilities as Westerners and as journalists. They
said they were lovers of peace and were deeply offended by
what they perceived as the West's attack on Islam. 

Next we traveled to Islamabad. At the Marriott hotel, you
could find every news outlet, from CNN to Serbian radio.
The journalists were there to cover a war they could not,
as yet, actually see. They speculated on the possibility of
a coup. Members of fundamentalist Muslim groups
demonstrated before the Marriott to display their anger.
You could take a close shot of the protesters as they
shouted against America and tell the public back home that
Pakistan was on the verge of a civil war. Or you could hunt
for another opinion, that of the moderates who were said to
be the democratic majority. 

Danny and I were told that most people did not share the
opinions of fundamentalists. But this reassuring voice of
the moderate majority was nowhere to be seen or heard. 

Danny and I kept talking with all sorts of people in
Pakistan. These conversations were honest and sincere; our
interlocutors talked about what they really felt. Some
blamed their country's troubles on corruption and previous
regimes. Others blamed India or the West, and sometimes
both. All expressed shame and anger at how terrorists and
their supporters had stolen Islam for their own purposes by
promoting hatred and violence. I, too, felt this sorrow for
Islam, though as a non-Muslim, and so did Danny. 

During the months that Danny and I spent in Pakistan, from
Peshawar to Islamabad and then Karachi, I became convinced
that all of us have to take responsibility for what is
happening in the world if we want to eradicate the causes
of terrorism, fascism and similar ideologies. Something new
has to happen, and everyday people have to be part of the
process. 

Both Danny and I knew better than to believe what the
fundamentalists were telling us about jihad. Jihad is the
name of a process that can be undertaken successfully only
by a courageous person. A jihadi fights with himself or
herself in what I, as a Buddhist, think of as a personal
revolution. It doesn't involve demonstrating in front of TV
cameras or murdering innocent people. It is a slow and
difficult process in which one seeks to overcome fears,
prejudices and limitations to defend justice and do
something that we call épanouir in French - allowing our
personalities to expand and blossom so that we can fully
contribute to society at large. 

I came to believe that only through such struggle - a true
jihad - could Pakistan address the core issues that the
fundamentalists use to manipulate people and exploit
ignorance. Education, freedom of expression and the
alleviation of poverty could no longer be considered a
government responsibility alone. Citizens had to find ways
to claim and defend their own rights. It was for the people
of Pakistan to decide where their country stands in the
global arena, and it was for the people of Pakistan to
shake off submissiveness and restore their country's
dignity. 

Then Danny was kidnapped. 

Neighbors shut their windows and front doors to me during
this crisis. I cannot really say of what they were afraid.
Was it the police? Gossip? Was it some earlier trauma? Was
it Pakistan's intelligence agencies? The terrorists?
Themselves? 

I prayed that the majority would not remain silent or
paralyzed by fears. I prayed that people would come out and
defend their faith and country - and defend their own
dignity by voicing their rejection of criminals determined
to destroy the future of Pakistan and the hope of its
citizens to live in peace. 

My prayers were realized in part. During this ordeal, I was
surrounded by individual Pakistanis and Muslims as
courageous and beautiful as those terrorists appeared ugly
and without souls. I can never be grateful enough for their
graciousness, a ray of hope in the midst of darkness. 

In the five weeks when I waited in Karachi for Danny to
come back to me and our unborn son, the Pakistani police
reported at least 11 killings of Shiite Muslims in Karachi
alone. Those slain were mostly doctors and professionals.
Sectarian terrorists were pursuing their work of
destruction. They were planting even deeper the seeds of
fear in the hearts of people, making the silence of the
majority even more painful to hear. Such fear and terror
can destroy a society. 

When I finally had to acknowledge Danny's bloody murder, I
decided not to leave Pakistan right away. I wanted to show
defiance against fear. In those days, absorbing the murder
of my husband, I received the most heartfelt letters of
support from all over the world. And finally I heard from
the majority in Pakistan as it abandoned silence. 

  
Pakistani people wrote to me about their feelings. "May God
give you strength. Danny's murderers are not Muslim and
should be brought to justice." They shared their shame with
me: "I am really saddened by the news and astonished that a
Pakistani brother can do this." There were beautiful
letters printed in Karachi's English-language weekly, The
Friday Times. "Danny Pearl is not just a dead American
journalist," a writer stated. "His suffering in our midst
has made him a martyr to the Pakistani people. He died
because Pakistan's enemies could not bear to see the
country retake the course of tolerance and moderation that
its founding father envisaged." 

Then I heard about a Web site in which Pakistanis bravely
signed their names to a letter of condolence. They wrote:
"We unequivocally condemn the perpetrators of this
enormity: they are a plague to Pakistan, and the majority
of her citizens would prefer to see their kind destroyed."
At last count, the signatories numbered 3,767. 

Pakistani letter writers had left aside prejudices and
appreciated my husband as an individual. One writer
commented, "Your husband had a great smile - a happy
mixture of Pope Paul and Dean Martin." 

Most captured the sentiments of a writer who called Danny's
murder "a crime against the people of Pakistan." These
voices give me the strength to believe that the hope of a
modern, strong Pakistan still lives and that the people of
Pakistan will help me see that justice is done. I'm told
there is a hadith, a saying of the Prophet Muhammad, that
tells Muslims that if they see an evil they should act to
remove the evil. If they cannot do that, they should speak
against the evil. If not that, then they must condemn the
evil in their hearts. 

The strongest expression, however, is to act against evil.


In memory of Danny and for the future of our son, who is
almost here, I also want to ask the people of Pakistan to
act upon the sentiments they have expressed and build a
memorial for Danny in Karachi. I will bring our son to this
memorial and tell him this is the land where his father
died, but that the people here stood by us so that his
death would not be in vain. 


Mariane Pearl, a freelance journalist, is writing a book
about her husband, Daniel Pearl.

----
Here is the response to her article:

To the Editor: 

Mariane Pearl ("Why Good Hearts Must Go Public," Op-Ed,
April 19) writes with an admirable sense of compassion and
understanding for the Pakistani people, despite the tragedy
that she has faced. 

She rightly asserts that there is a silent majority in
Pakistan that needs to speak up to steer the country on the
right path. Many other people in her situation would hate
all Pakistanis or Muslims. She, in essence, is extending an
arm out to the silent majority in Pakistan, which abhors
the actions of extremists. She has done much for the
Pakistani people by creating a precedent of choosing to
hear all the voices and not simply the few extremists. 

As a Pakistani-American, I read her words with awe, and I
hope to see her wishes for a Daniel Pearl memorial in
Karachi granted. 
AMINA RAFIQ 
Greenvale, N.Y., April 19, 2002






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