A Mighty Heart, Mariane Pearl
A Mighty Heart: the brave life and death of my husband Daniel Pearl
Journalist Mariane van Neyenhoff Pearl was seven months pregnant when, on January 23, 2002, her husband Daniel Pearl, also a journalist, was kidnapped and brutally murdered. Daniel, then 38, worked at the Wall Street Journal in India and had a scheduled interview with the Islamist fundamentalist leader Mubarak Gilani in Pakistan. But the interview was a trap.
A week later, despite all the efforts of Mariane and the US and Pakistani police intelligence teams, Daniel was cowardly decapitated and his death was spread through the internet in a video that the terrorists made sure to send the American consulate.
The case shocked people around the world for its cruelty and raised the issue of the threat to press freedom brought by terrorism. Over the years, reporters have become targets of terrorist groups and kidnappings, attacks and murders have become increasingly common.
One of the hypotheses that try to explain the attack indicates that Daniel was chosen for being, besides journalist, a Jew. Seen in this light, the attack was just another sad and long history of religious intolerance that exists worldwide, but especially in the Middle East.
Against all this and in order to stimulate dialogue among journalists from around the world, Daniel’s family created the Daniel Pearl Foundation, of which Mariane is part of the honorary directors’ board and intends, through music and journalism, two of the greatest passions of Daniel, to promote tolerance and dialogue between different cultures and religions.
After the birth of her son, Adam Daniel Pearl, Mariane published the book titled “A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Daniel Pearl” which in addition to telling the story of the tragic death of Daniel reveals through episodes of the couple´s life the Ideals of understanding and dialogue advocated by Mariane and Daniel and which led him to risk so much. The book inspired the film “A Mighty Heart” starring Angelina Jolie in the role of Mariane.
In her book, Mariane reveals that Pakistani police did little to help her and her husband, not revealing for a week that they had in custody the main suspect in organizing the kidnapping. She also talks about the flaws committed by Wall Street Journal support staff and US officials at the site when formulating a predictable rescue plan that could do little more than attempt to communicate.
For her strength in facing all this horror, her efforts to find her husband despite everything, Mariane is considered a model of determination and courage around the world.
In Search of Hope
In Search of Hope
Mariane found the answer in hope – not in the abstract and conceptual, but in reality, portrayed by stories of 12 women who are trying to change the reality of their countries by fighting against corruption, prejudice or disease. The book In Search of Hope: The Global Diaries of Mariane Pearl, is a collection of the columns that the journalist wrote for the magazine Glamour.
The first chapter is dedicated to Cambodian Somali Mam, who as a child was sold into prostitution, and now dedicates her life to saving other children who are kept as sex slaves. The following are the ladies in white, from Cuba: mothers, women, sisters, daughters of 75 political prisoners. There is Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho who denounced the linkage of local power to pedophilia in Cancun, Mexico, the most dangerous country for journalists in the Northern Hemisphere. We get to know a Moroccan maid in Paris, who wrote Prière à La Lune – the moon is your companion, to whom she describes the difficulties of trying to assimilate French society, remaining true to her cultural heritage, sailing between two worlds. In total there are 12 women portrayed. If we include the author, who reveals some aspects of her biography, there are 13 exceptional women gathered in the report of this geographic and spiritual journey of Mariane Pearl.
Mariane believes that her personal drama brought her closer to the women she interviewed. “They knew what I had been through. So I was an element of trust. They opened their hearts to me”, she says. In some of the trips, Adam accompanied her. In others, she stayed in Paris, where mother and son currently live.
The journalist will continue writing for Glamour, with columns published every two months – Senegal, Brazil and Iran are among her travel plans. Glamour has made available on its website a link to the purchase of Mariane’s book, and it will donate the profits made there to charities chosen by the women portrayed in the publication.
With this work, Mariane wanted to show that there is hope. Her belief in a better world results from the actions of these women. It was a professional and personal search, because her goal is to give hope to her child. “I really had to answer the question: can we spread hope in the same way that others spread fear? What means do we have to do this? For me, it’s these people”, she told Newsweek on 12 November 2007.
In Search of Hope is a beautiful book: with good photographs and good graphics. But the best is the text and its comforting message!
Sources: Mulheres Excepcionais, Observatório da Imprensa, InfoEscola.
