From the bottom of my heart, I would like to express my gratitude to all of the people throughout the world who have given Danny and me support and encouragement.
The messages I have received from the five continents have shown me that a lot of you who don't even know Danny personally have come to understand him as a man. Not a hero, not a spy, but an ordinary man and great journalist who has traveled the world to reveal facts and seek the truth — a value for him as sacred as freedom itself.
Danny's principles were steadfast: He never accepted an opinion at face value nor submited to those who tried to silence or pressure him, regardless of their power or nationality. All of this can be seen in the work he has produced over the last 12 years as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. A video has been produced of him forced to read a statement and then showing him dead and stabbed in the most cruel and cowardly manner.
From this act of barbarism, terrorists expect all of us to bow our heads and retreat as victims forever threatened by their ruthlessness. What terrrorists forget is that they may seize the life of an innocent man or the lives of many innocent people as they did on Sept. 11, but they cannot claim the spirit or faith of individual human beings.
The terrorists who say they killed my husband may have taken his life, but they did not take his spirit. Danny is my life. They may have taken my life, but they did not take my spirit.
I promise you that the terrorists did not defeat my husband no matter what they did to him, nor did they succeed in seizing his dignity or value as a human being. As his wife, I feel proud of Danny. I trust that our struggle will ultimately serve the greater purpose of resisting those evil people casting a shadow upon our world. This responsibility rests with each one of us no matter our age, our gender, our nationality, our religion. No individual alone will be able to fight terrorism. No state alone will be able to wage this battle. We need to overcome cultural and religious differences, motivating our governments to work hand in hand with each other, perhaps in an unprecedented way.
I think we are now all aware that terror is not a problem facing one country alone, not Pakistan, not the United States. It is the worldwide responsibility of governments and we as journalists, professionals of all kinds and human beings — mothers and fathers, daughters and sons. We are all going to need courage and commitment. Let us inspire each other to goodness.
Revenge would be easy, but it is far more valuable in my opinion to address this problem of terrorism with enough honesty to question our own responsibility as nations and as individuals for the rise of terrorism. My own courage arises from two facts. One is that throughout this ordeal I have been surrounded by people of amazing value. This helps me trust that humanism ultimately will prevail. My other hope now — in my seventh month of pregnancy — is that I will be able to tell our son that his father carried the flag to end terrorism, raising an unprecedented demand among people from all countries not for revenge but for the values we all share: love, compassion, friendship and citizenship far transcending the so-called clash of civilizations.
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