Daniel Pearl, a journalist working for The Wall Street Journal, was abducted by somebody who claims to be representing the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. This is apparently a group enraged by the recent events in Afghanistan in which Pakistan too assisted the United States. In the first e-mail message which had Pearl’s photographs his captors showed implacable hatred for the United States saying that they would give food to Pearl’s family, presumably after killing him, just as the U.S. government had rained down bombs mixed with food packages. Today, on 6 February, the news is that some arrests of suspects belonging to certain banned religious groups have been made. I hope that by the time this article appears Daniel Pearl has been released. However, some of the thoughts in this article are---or so I delude myself---relevant. The essential point is that the politics of terror, whether by small groups or by states, is counter productive. It was the politics of terror by the United States and Israel which led to the events of nine eleven. It was the enormity and injustice of this act of terror which led to the destruction of innocent people in Afghanistan. And now it is this destruction of innocent people which has led to the abduction of another innocent man---The Wall Street Journalist Daniel Pearl. So the vicious continues and leads to nothing but cruelty and more cruelty. The fallout of the killing of Daniel Pearl has been discussed in the press earlier.
It has been discussed by Robert Fisk, probably the bravest and the fairest reporter ever to have reported on Muslims, and Paul Steiger the editor of The Wall Street Journal. Robert Fisk’s article is remarkable because gives us a glimpse of Daniel and his wife in a room playing the host. Earlier, Rahimullah Yusufzai, one of our own most independent and respected journalists, had also written how the couple had met him for lunch. Both agree that they came forth as very decent human beings. Yusufzai concluded that he had no reason to doubt they really were journalists as they claimed and as everyone now agrees. Fisk dwells upon their love for each other. This is very moving especially because in a touching and very brave statement she declared a few days back that she was willing to die for her husband. This reminded me of the father of one of the captives of the Taliban who said he could take his daughter’s place. The Taliban did not release the girl whom they accused of having attempted to convert Afghans to Christianity. They chose not to be remembered as being kind or generous. Now Daniel Pearl’s captors have the chance of showing their generosity and kindness---will they take the chance or lose it?
Having made the couple human, Fisk tells us that if the captors release Daniel it will enable journalists to function in this part of the world. He says that in Lebanon some Islamic groups had started abducting journalists. This made the journalists flee Lebanon in terror. Those who were sympathetic to Muslims hardened against them after being held up in basement prisons. Thus a number of the atrocities of the Israelis went unreported. Fisk himself stuck it out and gave very sympathetic and fair reports about the events but people like Fisk are very rare indeed. After all, Fisk got beaten up by the Afghans on his way back to Pakistan but even in his agony he forgave them and understood their anger. Since then he has not hardened himself against Muslims. Indeed, he remains as fair and sympathetic and outspoken as ever. This man has made suffering Afghans visible. He has made them known. And his message is clear---if the captors really want that their suffering, their point of view, their hurt feelings should be known then they should release Daniel Pearl and assure all journalists that they will stay safe in the Muslim world.
In addition to Fisk a former Executive Editor of The Wall Street Journal, Kenneth Neil Cukier, has given a guideline to the captors about how they should proceed in this case. Among other things he has suggested that the group should take a million dollars and lay down conditions for the American government to follow. Personally I believe that offering money will encourage abduction for ransom and will not enhance the dignity of the group. As for the conditions, the hitch is that the U.S. government will not follow them leading to more anger and possibly more abductions.
If the group is really a political entity and not merely kidnappers-for-ransom then it will neither ask for ransom nor hold on to Pearl till the U.S. does the impossible. The reason is that if Pearl is killed the American government can claim, and most people will agree with it, that Muslim religious groups are irrational hate-crazed fanatics who are so sub-human that they need not be treated as human beings at all. This image is just what any rational Islamist group cannot afford and should not want. The main case advocated by hawks in the Western world against Islamists groups is not that they want an alternative system of life or want their genuine grievances redressed. No! the main case is that they are not fully human! This is not explicitly stated in so many words but it is implied in many ways. People believe in the irrational Muslim fanatic driven by hatred and vengeance ready to die and kill. Such a person appears as a threat to humanity and is not considered amenable to reason or pity. If this image is strengthened, as it will be by the death of Daniel Pearl, many of the sympathizers of Muslims will be embarrassed, shocked and silenced. Attitudes towards Muslims will harden. That is why such an event will serve the hawks of the United States and the Western world. It will harm the Muslims and weaken their demands for justice in the West Bank and so on.
Apart from all these rational and political reasons there is the emotional reason, the moral reason for releasing Daniel Pearl. After all, he is not the United States of America. He did not make any policy which killed innocent people anywhere. He is a journalist and is innocent. Indeed, even if he had been a combatant, or even a policy maker, it would have been morally wrong to kill him in cold blood. States are corporate bodies and their leaders, even if culpable, deserve fair trials in courts of law and not murder without trial by private individuals. This is not merely international law but also Islamic law and, of course, common decency. This is also the demand of Pakistan’s indigenous norms of hospitality because of which no journalist was killed or harmed by Pakistanis throughout the unsettling and highly controversial events after September 11 last year. If Daniel Pearl is released and goes back to his pregnant wife; if he lives to be a father to his unborn son; if he lives to write more---maybe he will forgive his captors one day. Maybe he will say Muslims are human like us; they have pity in their hearts; they are generous; they are not heartless! Indeed, they are better than some of us! And if this happens who will benefit the most---the Muslim world, of course! In short, ending the politics of terror unilaterally is more in the interest of the Muslim world now than it is of the West. This is the point which M.K. Gandhi understood very well when he used the concept of non-violence in his struggle against the British colonial government. This put Gandhi and the Indians on a moral pedestal which made many of the decent British people ashamed of their domination over India. This is the policy which Muslim groups to should follow rather than the useless and image-shattering politics of terror.
Dr.
Tariq Rahman