A Mighty Shame

On Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2002, I stood at the gate of myrented house in Karachi, watching my friend Danny Pearl juggle a notebook,cellphone and earpiece as he bounded over to a taxicab idling in the street. Hewas off to try to find the alleged al-Qaeda handler of "shoe bomber"Richard Reid in Pakistan. "Good luck, dude," I called, wavingcheerfully as he strode off, a lopsided grin on his face. His pregnant wife,Mariane, stood smiling and waving beside me as the taxi pulled away. A gaggle ofparrots swooped through the trees above, squawking in the late afternoon sun.

That was the last image I had of Danny until late last month, when a PRexecutive for Paramount Vantage pulled up to my house in Morgantown, W.Va., in ablack Lincoln Town Car. She was carrying a DVD of  A Mighty Heart,the just-released movie, based on the book by Mariane Pearl, about thestaggering events that unfolded after that innocuous moment in Pakistan: Danny'skidnapping and eventual beheading.

With my parents and a friend beside me, I pressed "play" on my DVDplayer and settled in to watch. Slowly, as the scenes ticked by, my heart sank.I could live with having been reduced from a colleague of Danny's to a"charming assistant" to Mariane, as one review put it, and even withhaving been cut out of the scene in front of my house in Pakistan. That's thecreative license Hollywood takes. What I couldn't accept was that Danny himselfhad been cut from his own story.

The character I saw on the screen was flat -- nerdy, bland and boring. He'snot at all like Danny, who wrote "ditties" about Osama bin Laden whilehe was investigating Pakistan's nuclear secrets and jihadist groups as areporter for the Wall Street Journal. On screen, he's warned three timesto meet with Sheik Mubarik Ali Gilani -- the man with whom he thought he had aninterview -- only in public. But off he goes, ignoring the warnings. Themessage: Reckless journalist.

That was nothing like the Danny I knew. As the credits rolled, I murmured tomy mother, "Danny had a cameo in his own murder."

For me, watching the movie was like having people entermy home, rearrange the furniture and reprogram my memory. I'd known it was agamble when I agreed to help with a Hollywood version of Danny's kidnapping, butI'd done it because I thought the movie had the potential to be meaningful. I'dhoped it could honor the man I'd worked alongside for nine years at the Journalby explaining why he was so passionate about his work as a reporter. I'd hopedthat it would tell the story of the unique team of law enforcement agents,government officials and journalists -- of varying religions, nationalities andcultures -- that had searched for him. And I hoped it could spark a search forthe truth behind Danny's death.

But the moviemakers and their PR machine seemed intent on two very differentand much shallower goals: creating a mega-star vehicle for Angelina Jolie, whoplays Mariane, and promoting the glib and clichéd idea that both Danny andMariane were "ordinary heroes."

I think Danny would have rolled his eyes at that.

In the prologue to her book, Mariane wrote to her son: "I write thisbook for you, Adam, so you know that your father was not a hero but an ordinaryman." In a movie voiceover, that dedication becomes: "This film is forour son so he knows that his father was an ordinary man. An ordinary hero."

But there weren't any real heroes in the story of Danny's tragedy. Dannywould have said he was just doing his job. When he went off that day in Karachi,he didn't give any impression that he thought what he was doing was especiallydangerous. He just had a story he wanted to pursue and an interview he thoughtwould help him. After he vanished, I don't think any of us, not even Mariane,did anything particularly courageous, either. We each had a duty to try to findhim -- either as professionals or because of the bonds of friendship or family.

I know that movies need a dramatic arc and that there has to be room forartistic license in the telling of a true story, because reality is often sochaotic. I know that it's natural to search for a compelling narrative structureto make sense of tragedy and pointlessness. And I do believe that Danny's lastmoments, as he declared his Jewishness for his kidnappers' video camera, showedhis strength of character.

But recasting a story just so we can tell ourselves that we've found a herois too easy. It's the quickest way to convince ourselves that what happenedwasn't such a bad thing, that it had redeeming value, that we can close the bookon it and move on with our lives. We do it too often -- with television showsabout ordinary people with extraordinary powers, with magazine features thatextol the "heroes among us" and with our impulse to elevate everystory -- think Jessica Lynch, ambushed and wounded in Iraq -- to one of heroism.

For me, A Mighty Heart and all the hypesurrounding it have only underscored how cheap and manufactured our quest forheroism has become. Paramount even launched an "ordinary hero" contestto promote the movie. "Nominate the most inspiring ordinary hero," itsWeb site shouts. "Win a trip to the Bahamas!"

Lost in the PR machine and the heroism hoopla is Danny, whose death is at thecenter of the story. After all, as one person involved in the productioncandidly told me: Danny can't do interviews. So in the Associated Pressreview, he amounts to nothing more than a parenthetical phrase.

But Danny was not parenthetical. He deserves to be remembered fully. He wascharming and charismatic. He was an outstanding investigative reporter with anirreverent streak. The year before he died, I'd taken a leave from the Journalto work on a book, and he faxed me an article from an Indian magazine that hethought would help with my research. "From your assistant, Danny," hescrawled across the cover sheet, in his self-deprecating style.

He observed the media machine with a contrarian, skeptical eye. In November2001, after the war in Afghanistan had begun, he wrote to me: "I'm gettingto Pakistan just in time for the lull between 'well, more bombings, more deaths-- who cares now?' and 'shit, it's December, we have to round out our prizepackages' " with big articles for awards such as the Pulitzers. "Okay,no more cynicism from here," he signed off. "I'm going to be a fatherand must maintain an idyllic view of the world."

Danny had me teach him how to say "Do I look like a fool?" in Urduso he could tell off Mumbai taxi drivers who tried to overcharge him. Once,shortly after arriving in Peshawar on an assignment, he wrote me: "I'm atthe Pearl Continental, wasn't able to get a free room despite my argument that Iwas the owner."

Don't look for that personality in the movie. You won't find it.

I know I'm guilty of assisting in Hollywood'smythmaking. In the fall of 2003, I went with Mariane to the Los Angeles home ofBrad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, where we ate bagels and drank coffee by the poolwhile listening to their pitch for buying the movie rights to her book. WhenMariane decided to sell, Warner Bros. Pictures sought my "liferights," too. I agreed to sell them, even though a friend told me thatmaking a movie about Danny's death seemed exploitative.

A year passed. Pitt and Aniston got a divorce. Pitt and Jolie got together.The movie rights passed to Paramount Vantage. Paramount hired British directorMichael Winterbottom. And a script emerged.

When I read it last summer, I felt as though I'd been punched in the gut. Isat across from British actress Archie Panjabi, who had been dispatched to myhome in Morgantown to learn to play me. I lamented that none of the characterswere fully developed, least of all Danny.

When I watched the movie last month, I was relieved that I wasn't a servantgirl, as I felt an early script had it. So I wrote to a producer, "Thumbsup okay on my end." But I wasn't being true to myself. I was reacting tothe power and seduction of Hollywood.

A few days later, when I saw the photos of stars in evening gowns and tuxedosfloating down the red carpet for the Cannes premiere of A Mighty Heart,Danny's not-quite-5-year-old son among them, I had that sinking feeling again.Other friends of Danny's said they did, too. It was so not Danny.

Worst of all, the pomp came at the same time as a chilling reminder of hisdeath. On the night of the Cannes premiere, the Daily Times, a Pakistaninewspaper, ran a photo of an emaciated man said to have been the owner of theplot of land where Danny had been held and where his remains had been buried.The accompanying story alleged that the man had been held in the U.S. navalprison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, then released to Pakistani intelligenceauthorities, who had recently dumped him at his family's home. The headline:"Most wanted man in Daniel Pearl case: Saud Memon dies."

On the eve of the movie's New York premiere earlier this month, I was inPhoenix at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference. I was there toannounce the establishment of the PearlProject, a joint faculty-student investigative reporting project atGeorgetown University that will aim to find out who really killed Danny and why.It's my own way of honouring him. His story isn't over for me. I set up theproject because -- despite a confession from Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, thealleged mastermind of 9/11 and of Richard Reid's failed shoe-bombing, that hekilled Danny -- I believe we still don't know the real truth behind whathappened to him.

After the conference, I had to decide whether to go to New York for thepremiere or head back home. I went home. In my home office, I stood in front ofa copy of the chart I had started in Karachi to make sense of everything thathappened after that January day in 2002. At the center is a single name: Danny.

Asra Q. Nomani isthe author of Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul ofIslam (HarperSanFrancisco). and a co-founder of Muslimsforpeace.net.She teaches journalism in Georgetown University's School of ContinuingStudies.