SCN: Re: The Public Life of a Private Struggle

[emailer1]

An excellent letter.  Thanks for sharing it with us.


----- Original Message -----
From: patrick fisher <clariun at yahoo.com>
To: <scn at scn.org>
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 9:00 AM
Subject: SCN: The Public Life of a Private Struggle


> 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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> Seattle Community Network
> http://www.scn.org
> "Powering our communities with technology"
>
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