Attendee Perspective: Keynoter Mariane Pearl

The room was abuzz with excitement with anticipation of Mariane Pearl’s arrival. Mariane, journalist/author of A Mighty Heart gave a compelling account of her husband, Daniel Peal’s life and work. She talked about her diverse background growing up as Afro/Cuban/Dutch roots. Mariane learned to appreciate diversity at a young age having been influenced by her poor black Cuban grandparents and her affluent white grandparents in Holland. She developed an ability to navigate between these vastly different worlds. She and Daniel were journalists. She was immediately attracted to him when she entered his office at work and he had a beach ball and a picture of Ayatollah Khomeini in his cube. Daniel, like Mariane was interested in world events, traveling and expanding knowledge without making judgments of others.

Mariane talked about the responsibility of being a journalist and the fact it allows you to enter another person’s perspective. She also noted the way in which they convey the world is essential. With this responsibility, you must go where the people are which is the reason Mariane and Daniel moved to India. They were forced to assimilate into a culture with which they had no experience. Mariane and Daniel faced this experience as a couple which strengthened their relationship. When you explore and understand the world you become more powerful. She often tells young people they cannot relate to the world by what they see on television. Diversity must be tied in with curiosity and an appetite for the world.

Daniel and Mariane moved to Pakistan to investigate Al-Qaeda and the spiritual leader for Richard Reid (the shoe bomber). At this time there was a great deal of fear in the United States. While staying in Islamabad in a hotel with other journalists, Mariane noted there was not enough self- reflection among her fellow journalists. Mariane stated: “It doesn’t matter who gets the story first. The only thing that matters is who get’s the story right.” She recapped the events of Daniel’s capture in Karachi. Being a Jewish American journalist the need for concern was justified. At this difficult time, Mariane called in all forces to help search for Daniel. Race, color or religion did not matter at this time. What Mariane needed was strong individuals. She went on instinct and assembled a team of people, which included Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and Christians. Everyone worked together to overcome the boundaries. The FBI and ISI, Pakistan intelligence agency, agreed to work together, while journalists joined forces with police officers, and men worked with women as a team.

Shortly thereafter Mariane learned of Daniels death. She stated: “It’s easy to kill enemies you hate. Spreading tolerance and respect is the best force against terrorism." Mariane wrote A Mighty Heart to tell her story at a human level. Mariane summed it up best when she stated: “It doesn’t matter what religion you are. What matters is what kind of human being you are. Human behavior is what’s important." In my opinion this statement translates well to the theme of this conference – Leadership 2.0 “we should look beyond our differences and look at the quality of the human being when developing our leaders, workforce, and programming.”

-Janet Uthman