Journal Article

Remembering Daniel Pearl, or West vs. West

Nort, Andrea Trocha-Van

2012

Overview

The same thick, cement-brick walls, a badly washed brown blood stain on one of them; a handful of hair; a transom facing the road and closed by a metal shutter that was then boarded over; a wooden door without keyhole or handle, barred with a beam slid through padlocked iron rings; construction material in a corner; fishing nets; clumps of straw mixed with mud; mattress stuffing with spider webs; old clay pots thrown in a corner under the transom; colonies of red ants; cockroaches; two discarded spoons and a plate; a candy-pink alarm clock with just one hand; crumpled cigrette packs; a cold brazier; a bed made of cords. [...]his odyssey walks him through the same impasses we travel today. What follows supports the State Department's understanding of the abductors' aims, their desire for \"exposure and to make a point\": We Americans cannot continue to bear the consequences of our government's actions...Such as the unconditional support given to the state of Israel...Twenty-four abuses of the veto power to justify the massacre of children...And the support for the dictatorial regimes in the Arab and Muslim world...And also the continued American military presence in Afghanistan. In a final chapter, Lévy speculates on the startling possibilities of Pearl's knowledge of nuclear weapon exchanges with al-Qaida, but also the author underlines the journalist's more general quest for a \"gentle Islam\"; Lévy wonders, Who will prevail: the heirs of this ancient commerce of men and cultures that stretches from Avicenne to Mahfouz by way of the sages of Cordoba-or the madmen of the Peshawar camps who call for jihad and, belly strapped with explosives, aspire to die as martyrs? (454) We remember Pearl's expectant smile in captivity, the enigmatic smile of a man observing those he most wanted to understand.

• Publisher: War, Literature, & the Arts
• Subject: Mohammed, Khalid Shaikh / Pearl, Daniel