Today marks 18 years since journalist Daniel Pearl was abducted by terrorists in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002. He was executed not long after.
Daniel Pearl (affectionately known as Danny to those close to him) was an internationalist, a description emphasised by the title of his book At Home in the World (a collection of Pearl’s writings). In it, his widow Marianne, a French journalist, describes this internationalism in the foreword for the book:
“As journalists, Danny and I travelled so much that we began to live without acknowledging borders. We were truly citizens of the globe. We were beyond cosmopolitan. Danny was Jewish; I am Buddhist. Danny was born in Princeton, New Jersey; I was born in Paris, France. Danny’s father was born in Israel, his mother in Baghdad, Iraq; my mother was born in Havana, Cuba, my father in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We last lived together in Bombay, India, and last travelled together in Pakistan.”
While I never knew him (I was 10 and living in Malta when Pearl’s abduction became a worldwide news item) it is reasonable to believe that, given that I also consider myself to be an internationalist, Pearl and I would have gravitated towards each other had we come across one another at the same time and place.
Given the description of him by his father Judea, a professor of computer science at UCLA, he was certainly someone who I would have been lucky to have called my friend.
Daniel Pearl’s life is a testament to the best of humanity
In an interview with MIT research scientist Lex Fridman, Judea Pearl described his son as follows:
“He saw the beauty in every person. He was not as emotional as I am, more looking at things in perspective. He really liked every person. He really grew up with the idea that a foreigner is reason for curiosity, not for fear.”
In the same interview, Judea Pearl then goes on to tell a story of a homeless man appearing out of a dark alley in Berkley and asking him and his son Daniel for a dime. Judea was startled and moved two steps back. His son Daniel, however, approached the homeless man, hugged him, gave him a dime and asked if he needed more money.
In At Home in the World, Marianne Pearl describes the type of journalist her late husband was:
“As a journalist and sojourner of the world, Danny held no prejudices about the people we interviewed and met. He first and foremost considered the human being in front of him, regardless of religion, race or social status.
“Very suspicious of groups and organisations, he had a natural tendency to trust individuals. Once he started to work on an article, he would literally throw himself at it, working days and nights, tracking facts for weeks and experiencing the pure delight when he found the littlest detail that would make the story livelier.
“Danny cherished truth more than anything. He called it his religion. He had undertaken a lifelong struggle against conventional wisdom. In all those respects, Danny was a hero – an ordinary hero.”
An example of how Daniel Pearl “cherished truth more than anything” would be when he reported on a 1998 US tomahawk missile strike in Sudan. The Clinton administration asserted that the target hit was a pharmaceutical factory that was producing chemical weapons for al-Qaeda.
Pearl travelled to Sudan on a fact-finding mission and discovered that the evidence for this was scant at best. His story went against the official line from the White House. This did not matter to Pearl. The only thing that mattered to him was finding out the truth. (His story can be found on page 132 of his book).
Daniel Pearl was killed because he was an American, but also because he was Jewish.
Sadly, the hatred that took his life is still among us, 18 years later.
Nevertheless, his life, not his death, is a testament to the best of humanity. We would do well to follow his example.
Mark Manduca has a Master’s Degree in Diplomatic Studies from the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies.