'Danny's Spirit Is Still Alive'

One year ago, journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Pakistan, his brutal murder videotaped by his killers. His father, Dr. Judea Pearl, spoke with Beliefnet about Daniel, the wife and son he left behind, his message of tolerance, and plans marking the first anniversary of his death.

How did you and your wife as parents handle the inevitable bitterness, grief, and desire for revenge following your son's death? How did you manage to turn your grief into something productive and positive?

Revenge is a very natural and useful reaction that evolution has bestowed upon us, because eliminating the source of one's pain usually eliminates the threats of future dangers. With this perspective of mind, we do not resist revenge-we join it. But we view the source of our pain and the threat of future dangers to be, not the killers themselves, but the hatred that drove them into committing this horrific crime, the kind of demonizing hatred that Bin Laden and his ideological supporters have been spreading in the past two decades, be it explicitly or implicitly. Hatred killed our son, and hatred we will fight for the rest of our lives, with vengeance and tenacity.

In my letter to the people of Pakistan (published in Karachi, July 16, 2002) I wrote: "The loss of Danny will forever tear my heart, but I cannot think of a greater consolation than seeing your children [in Pakistan] pointing at Danny's picture one day and saying: `This is the kind of person I want to be. Like him, I want to be truthful, and friendly, and open-minded.'"

This is our vision of fighting hatred. And the Daniel Pearl Foundation was created to support this vision.

On Beliefnet's Memorial page for Daniel, there were prayers from people of all faiths, including Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Hindus. Why do you think Daniel's fate united people of different faiths?

One unifying element was people's recognition that Daniel's fate represents an unprecedented turning point in the history of cruelty, and a painful setback in human evolution. The murder weapon in Danny's case was aimed not at a faceless enemy but at a gentle human being, the face of whom became familiar to millions of people around the world. Danny's killers spent a whole week with him, they fed him, talked to him, and watched him 24 hours a day-they must have seen his gentleness and boundless humanity. Killing him so brutally, and before a video camera, marks a new apex in man's inhumanity to man.

Many people were thus shocked to realize that certain ideologies of hate are capable of destroying, overnight, all the safeguards of humanity that our religions and institutions have labored to cultivate through centuries of civilization.

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