Bernard-Henri Lévy

It looked one of those many calls you usually do not remember in the beginning. However, this one made a huge difference in my life. A journalist friend from La Liberation was on the line. After exchanging a few pleasantries, he told me he had given my contact info to a philosopher friend who wanted to meet me or perhaps interview me. “I hope you do not mind that? Do you?” he asked me hesitatingly. “You did the right thing,” I assured him and asked who that philosopher friend was. “Bernard-Henri Lévy? Do you recognize the name?” “Yes, I do. But I do not understand why he should wish to meet me? Anyway, I will meet him when he is here.” The conversation on the subject stopped there and we talked about other things. The call later proved to be unforgettable. I have been reminded of the call over and over again whenever the subject of Daniel Pearl came up.

A few days later, I received a call from Bernard-Henri Lévy who was already in Islamabad, where I was living then, and wanted to see me. We agreed to meet at the Marriott in the afternoon. I had several meetings and interviews in the same Marriott one after the other on that day. At the appointed time, I looked around to see if Bernard-Henri Lévy was already there. I had not met him before. So I looked for someone who was looking for somebody. There were several Westerners who were looking for someone in the lobby. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Islamabad had been inundated by foreigners, nearly 800 of them were journalists. Suddenly, I saw a handsome European man pulling out his blackberry from his pocket and dialing. As he pressed the button, my cellphone started ringing. I opened it and said, “Hello.” The man in front closed his black berry and said, “I am Bernard-Henri Lévy.” I am “Arif Jamal,” I replied.

This was my first encounter with somebody whose friendship I have cherished since. He was wearing an elegant black suit and white shirt. My first impression was he loved that kind of dress or cared little about dresses, a trait not uncommon among intellectuals the world over. I was not sure. As we started speaking, a couple of cameras clicked. Both of us conveniently ignored that. Pakistani secret services are not discreet. Or, instead of gathering intelligence, they are more interested in intimidating their political opponents. Very often they gather details on their personal lives, what goes as intelligence for them. On that day, I was not sure who they were interested in; in me, in Bernard-Henri Lévy or both. Probably both. It hardly mattered. Although we had planned to meet only once, we decided to meet almost every day he spent in Islamabad during that visit to Pakistan. Both of us enjoyed each other’s company. Every time, we met at the Marriott.
We were not-so-secretly photographed every time we met. If the objective was to intimidate Bernard-Henri Lévy from going ahead with his research, they failed.

Over the next few days, we mostly talked about the roots of Islamism and jihadism. We also discussed different theories about the murder of Daniel Pearl and agreed that he was really working as an honest journalist for which he paid the price. We talked about Islamism and jihadism and how they were shaping the world. We agreed that the Pakistani state was still behind the jihadists and yet to realize the danger they posed, most of all to the state of Pakistan. Levy had deep knowledge and interest in these subjects. Till then, I felt alone in thinking so. The West in general and the United States in particular were completely enamored of General Musharraf and the jihadists had not turned their guns on the Pakistani state as yet.

It was probably early spring 2003 when I received another call from Bernard-Henri Lévy. He was calling from Paris with a request that both surprised and made me happy. The manuscript of the book was ready and he wanted me to read it before he sent it to the publisher. This was an honor I could not refuse. Unfortunately, I had not read any of his major works, particularly Les Indes Rouges, till then in spite of his great status in the literary and philosophical world. I was not sure the kind of book “Who killed Daniel pearl” would be. There were several reasons for my thinking so. The foremost reason for my thinking was that the Western leaders and press were very uncritical of the military regime in Pakistan. General Pervez Musharraf had emerged as a hero after the January 12, 2002 speech of Musharraf in which he had denounced the Islamist extremists. The important reason was that few intellectuals outside the English speaking world had shown interest in Pakistan.

Those were busy days. I planned to read the manuscript over the next few days. As I started reading it, I realized that I had underestimated Levy. It was a well-researched, non-conformist account. The book completely gripped my attention. After I started reading the manuscript, I could not read or write anything else till I finished the manuscript. There were few suggestions I made. All were accepted. It was only later that I learnt that he had spent almost one full year in investigating Daniel Pearl affair. During that year he made five visits to Pakistan, each time for a week or more. Although we met only during one of the visits, I kept hearing about his later visits. His research of the subject was meticulous. He was the first, and probably the only Westerner who dared and managed to enter the crime scene. He was the first Westerner to have dared the Binori Town mosque madrassa. The Deobandi madrassa in the Binori Town in Karachi has been an important nerve center of the Deobandi movement both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. For years it defined and shaped Islamism and jihadism. One needed more courage to enter Binori town madrassa than one needed to enter the lair of a lion.

A few years after the publication of “Who killed Daniel Pearl”, I learnt that, in February 2002, Levy learnt about the murder of the Wall Street Journalist in the office of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul. The name of Daniel Pearl was unknown in France, or for that matter, outside the small community of journalists at that time. Still Levy decided to write a book on him. The reason was that he instinctively understood the importance of the tragedy. Bernard-Henri Lévy was not unfamiliar with South and Central Asia. His knowledge of the region was not based on his readings alone. I later discovered that he had started his literary and philosophical career in 1971 by practically taking part in Bangladesh’s War of Independence and writing his first book, Les Indes Rouges, the best account of the years by a Westerner at that time. Since then, he had kept a special eye on the region. Being a philosopher with commitment, he had returned to the region (Peshawar) with radio transmitters to help set up Radio free Kabul in 1982. He was the right person to write this book. Actually, only he could write such a book.

Coming back to the book, Bernard-Henri Lévy described “Who killed Daniel Pearl?” as a “roman-enquete. However, for me, as a scholar of jihadism, the book also has scholarly value. The book describes some of the perpetuators of the crime such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammad for the first time. Again, for the first time, Levy gives a pen-portrait and biographical description of Omar Saeed Shaikh. His chapter on Omar Saeed Shaikh is so precise that he admitted later tacitly admitted that Levy had been quite honest with his biographical details. In an interview given from prison to Massoud Ansari of Pakistan’s prestigious Newsline (April 2005), Shaikh paid a paradoxical homage to Levy when he said, “You can obtain details of my background from the book Who killed Daniel Pearl? by Bernard Henri Levy. In this book Levy traces my entire life story; the references are usually negative, but he has done a lot of research.” Instead of relying on secondarysources, Levy had travelled to United Kingdom to discover Omar Saeed Shaikh.

For the first time, Levy also exposed the fact that Islamism, jihadism and nuclear black market are inter-connected. One of the motives of the killers of Daniel Pearl was that they had come to know or believe that Daniel Pearl was on the verge of exposing the Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan’s nuclear network active in the rogue states and the al-Qaida network. The book basically takes the story of Dr Khan’s network further from where Daniel Pearl had left it. Again those were the days when the West in general was very uncritical of Pakistan and was not interested in deal with the ‘Pakistan’ question. Unfortunately, the West learnt this fact rather slowly.

Who killed Daniel Pearl? is not just the story of Daniel Pearl. It is the story of real al-Qaida; the al-Qaida the West refused to recognize at that time. When the 9/11 happened, the Americans failed to correctly define the al-Qaida. As they came under the influence of General Musharraf’s charisma, they excluded the Pakistani chapters of al-Qaida such as the Harakatul Mujahideen, Jaish-i-Mohammad, Harakatul Jihad al-Islami, Sipah-i-Sahaba, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, etc. from the definition of al-Qaida. These groups and their offshoots later merged in the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. At that time, the West also did not see the danger groups such as the Lashkar-i-Taiba posed to the global security. Consequently, all these groups functioned in the open. In this book, Levy happened to be the first in West to see the dangers these groups posed. If the West had given attention to what Levy said, we could have avoided the looming defeat in Afghanistan…

However, in my view, another most important achievement of the “Who killed Daniel Pearl?” was how it dealt with the ‘Pakistan’ question. At a time, when the West was focused on Afghanistan and al-Qaida, Levy focused on Pakistan. Pakistan or the rogue elements in the Pakistani state were really the lifeline of terrorists. The international terrorism could not be suppressed without choking its lifeline. Unfortunately, it was only around 2005 that the West started discovering the grave mistake. It was too late by then. The West had run out of options then. Even after the nine-year long war on terror and spending tens of billions of dollars and losing thousands of lives, there are many pessimistic voices in the West today. The losses in the Muslim world, particularly in Pakistan and Afghanistan, are next to impossible to measure at this time. As West’s defeat looks more and more imminent, the new battle lines are being drawn. The jihadists were never bolder. The world is about to start paying the price for ignoring the ‘Pakistan’ question.

From literary point of view, what I liked was how Levy put himself in place of Daniel Pearl and described how he would have felt in the last few days of his life. Many a time, reading the book, I tried to do the same thing. The result was astoundingly the same. During his last hours, Daniel Pearl must have had similar thoughts. As a Pakistani who had known many of the characters in the book, I found the description of the country and the characters accurate. After reading the book, I visited several places I had not before. One such place was Hotel Akbar where Daniel Pearl had met Omar Saeed Shaikh, only to find out how perfect the description of the place was. The reason was simple; Levy also spent a night in that hotel and perhaps the room. It was at a great personal risk. This hotel was not only quasi headquarters of the jihadists but also in the news at that time.

The book was a huge success. It sold 250,000 copies in addition to the pocket edition and 12 foreign editions and turned Daniel Pearl into a world icon. Levy donated all the income from its US edition to the Daniel Pearl Foundation, the parents of Danny, Ruth and Judea Pearl, had founded. Bernard-Henri Lévy had met them during his research and remained close to them thereafter. Most importantly, the book became widely known in Pakistan even before it was translated into English. It was the first ever book by a French writer to have attracted attention in Pakistan. Levy became the first ever French writer to have become known among the Pakistani intelligentsia in recent decades. Pakistanis had heard little about French writers since 1960s when Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Albert Camus were among Pakistanis’ favorite writers.

For Pakistani and many other intellectuals with Muslim background, the book gave a ray of hope. At a time when everybody circumvented the real issues, Levy showed the way forward. He showed that Islamism and jihadism were the biggest challenges to the Muslim world and the world at large. This was the time when every intellectual had to choose on whose side he was. He stood on the side of the moderate and democratic Islam.

Arif Jamal

Arif Jamal is journalist (New York Times, Radio France International) and specialist in India-Pakistan relations and their impact on the international political/strategic system. His specialities include global jihad, Kashmir jihad, Afghan jihad, Pakistan army, Islamist education (madrassah system), Islamist/jihadist politics and groups. He is author of “Shadow War: The Untold Story of Jihad in Kashmir” (Melville House Publishing, New York, 2009).

Photo 2 et 3 : November 2002,  in Karachi, Bernard-Henri Lévy penetrates into the madrasa Binori Town and yet forbidden to foreigners, especially non-Muslims. Place of learning and spirituality, but also a real support base in the heart of the city,of  the Taliban’s most radical groups and the closest to Al Qaeda. (c) D.R.

Photo  4 : Kalid Cheik Mohamed (c) D.R.