Wall Street Journalist Daniel Pearl: Creating a Better World

It is interesting I was with my friend in Albany, Western Australia only a week ago. I met her friend, an older lady who was a friend of her mother. I admired two posters, one was the Cree Indian quote “only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find money cannot be eaten”. She also gave me another poster which was about welcoming refugees. One is peace with nature and peace with other cultures. She gave me both posters. For some reason she decided, whilst I was there, to clear out her DVD collection. I was given a number of films, one was the film about Daniel Pearl. As soon as I saw it in that moment, I only saw ‘Wall Street Journalist’, I knew I had to see it. I felt strongly tonight to watch it. I had no idea it was a true story but felt it was as it started. Indeed it was. I see why I was drawn to it. It is about peace.

As I watched it I felt the suffering of humanity, those who were tortured on the Pakistani side and Mariane, the wife of Daniel and Daniel himself. I cried for the pain in people created from suffering. Those who choose violence believe their thoughts, yet they have no reality or concept of the pain they cause the person, their families and many others unrelated to their perceived cause. Daniel was brutally murdered by islamic extremists and it appears in retaliation for Pakistani’s tortured in Guantanamo Bay. He was also Jewish, so there appears to be a link to the harm done to Palestinians and the anger at Israel. I could see the links and ripple effects were far reaching based on perceptions of an enemy or ‘other’. The concept of pay back is a clear feature of this, the tit for tat that embroils so many innocent people.

I found it surprising to learn that Daniel was the journalist that reported the US had mistakenly bombed a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant. Moreover, he was reporting on the war on terror. He appears to have become embroiled in the politics of the time.

From the report below he was remembered as a humorous, joyful person who was very friendly. Looking at his photo you can see his natural warmth. I recall in the film his wife saying he never lied, a very important trait for a journalist. He also had said he wanted to make a better world. I think through his legacy he is achieving that. His parents set up the Daniel Pearl Foundation and it appears their aim is to bridge cultural differences and address hatred. I recently posted a blog on hate crimes as I saw this at the heart of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. I noted on the website an interest in Palestinian and Israeli dialogue, so this event links to that initiative. Moreover, there is a focus on youth, educating them for the future. Youth are given opportunities in journalism and a focus on understanding hatred, intiatives included: PEARL World Youth News, Daniel Pearl Editorial Fellowship, Daniel Pearl Journalism Fellowship, Crossing Borders (Dialogue) and Peace It Together uniting youth from opposite sides of conflict using dialogue and film making. One of the films I looked at was called ‘Grave Digging’ just shows two men digging graves. One is Jewish the other a Muslim. They are side by side digging. No dialogue they just dig. They then throw soil on the other grave, so you see the soil flying between the graves. They then stop, tiring of the digging. I saw a metaphor in that. Then the Jewish guy gets a cigarette the Muslim guy lights it. They both sit in the graves smoking thinking. Very powerful. Let’s hope the next films are planting flowers in soil as cousins. This is the Garden of Eden spoken of, it is not a real garden, it is the garden of our thoughts when positive, the good seeds flower and the world is seen as beautiful. It is a garden in your heart and it is the real world.

Daniel Pearl was killed January 23 2002, I thought back to what I was doing around his death. At the time, I was seriously considering what I wanted to dedicate my life too, I asked myself ‘what do I truly want.’ The only word that arose in my mind was peace. That would have been January 2002. I was to find I was 5 minutes from one of the few university level peace courses in the country. I studied Peace Studies at La Trobe University, Melbourne with a focus on Gandhi’s work amongst others. My teacher was an expert in Gandhi and I found myself very drawn to Gandhi, in particular his focus on love, truth and principled nonviolence. This was the year at university where I posted up peace poetry all over the campus, in toilets (place where people go for peace) and dressed as a clown. I asked people ‘is peace in yourself or in the world is there a connection? I wrote down their comments. I called my poetry ‘Peace Together’. It was that day I saw myself as a World Peace Clown. I felt humour and lightening up is central to peace. I share this to remind people we can all make a difference. So this came back to me when reading Daniel’s story. Best decision I made in my life was to go down the path of peace.

I recall in 2003 I started a peace program on radio called ‘Bridges to Peace’. I have a friend who is jewish and another who is muslim. I had them dialogue on radio. I believe this has to be the starting place, but it has to be in a conflict resolution context, not negotiations. To address the deeply held beliefs and perceptions and enable people to stand in each other’s shoes. Most people haven’t learned conflict resolution, they just learn hate and take on ideas from parents, friends, society or television. What is important is to ask questions. This is where journalism can be powerful, if they use it to put two sides of the story and then seek out a third way to mediate the dispute. I think this could be the evolution of journalism. Not just reporting but facilitating dialogue that resolves. Or at the very least ask those deeper questions.

Daniel Pearl’s biography is as follows.

http://www.danielpearl.org/about_us/danielpearl_bio.html

The world has come to know Daniel Pearl as the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002, just four months after 9/11. People around the world, along with his pregnant wife and family, prayed for his release. Since then, he has been remembered as a symbol of hope: a man who built bridges between diverse cultures — as a writer and a gifted musician.

Danny was born on October 10, 1963, in Princeton, New Jersey, and grew up in Los Angeles, where he displayed an insatiable curiosity for music, academics and sports.

Music turned out to be an essential form of expression for Danny and led him to become a fixture in several bands throughout the world, where he improvised on the electric violin, fiddle, or mandolin. Today, friends and colleagues still recall how quickly he would pick up an instrument when he sensed an occasion, such as writing a song for a pregnant friend past her due date, or the Christmas night when he entertained downhearted co-workers at his office.

Danny exuded compassion and joy wherever he went. As his best friend said, “Danny was the only one who didn’t know he was charismatic.” He endeared himself to others with an easy humor and appreciation for the absurd, always keeping an open mind to other perspectives, cultures, and backgrounds. He was humble, generous and loved life and people. World leaders and peasants, Rabbis and Mullahs, all considered him a friend.

A gifted writer from a very young age, Danny’s aptitude for journalism became apparent as a student at Stanford University where he co-founded the student newspaper Stanford Commentary. He graduated in 1985 with Phi Beta Kappa honors and then spent a summer as a Pulliam Fellow intern at the Indianapolis Star before joining the North Adams Transcript and the Berkshire Eagle. After a few years, he moved on to the San Francisco Business Times and within few weeks he joined the Wall Street Journal in 1990. Danny started in the Journal’s Atlanta bureau and moved successively to the Washington and London bureaus, serving as a Middle East correspondent. After he met Mariane in 1998, he moved to Paris where they were married a year later.

In October of 2000, they moved to Bombay, where Danny became the South Asia Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal. Danny’s skill as a foreign correspondent was apparent not only in his entertaining Page One “A-hed” pieces which shed light on other cultures, but also in investigative stories that uncovered the truth from the rubble of war and devastation. It was Danny who uncovered that the U.S. had mistakenly bombed a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant, believing it to be a weapons factory. Later, he broke the story of Al Qaeda’s money laundering through the Tanzanite gem market.

It was from Bombay that Danny covered the “war on terrorism,” occasionally venturing into Pakistan. He was retracing the steps of “shoe bomber” Richard Reid and hoped to meet with Sheik Gilani, a spiritual leader, when he was abducted in Karachi on January 23, 2002. For weeks, millions around the world — from heads of state, to religious leaders and ordinary people — rallied for Danny’s release. In Danny, the terrorists believed they abducted a media figure, an American, and a Jew. But they had much more — a true citizen of the world and an embodiment of civilized values, whose death, like his life, would inspire millions of people in the cause of decency and cultural understanding. Several weeks elapsed without word of his fate; his murder was confirmed on February 21, 2002. Four of the kidnappers were convicted on July 15, 2002, including mastermind Omar Saeed Sheik, although others believed to be involved are still at large.

Two days before his abduction, Danny learned that his wife Mariane was expecting a baby boy; he chose the name Adam for their son. In May, just three months after his murder, Mariane Pearl gave birth to Adam.

Following his murder, Danny’s family and friends established the Daniel Pearl Foundation to carry on his legacy, using music and words to address the root causes of the hatred that took his life. The book “At Home in the World” published in June 2002, features 50 of Danny’s best articles, illustrating his curiosity, humor, fairness and his love of humanity.

Danny’s spirit lives on in the hearts of those who knew him, and in the lives of the thousands of people who have been inspired and touched by him.

Cover of AT HOME IN THE WORLD At Home in the World features fifty of the best stories Danny wrote during his fifteen years as a domestic and international journalist. They illustrate his humor, curiousity, objectivity, fairness and love of humanity. The book is available at Amazon.com .

Read some of Danny’s Wall Street Journal stories.

Read tributes and other information about Daniel Pearl thanks to the South Asian Journalists Association.