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On 9/11, I remember a small act of friendship that changed my life

Dear Friends,

It has been many days since I have last written to you, and I thank you for your grace, your support and your friendship as I navigate this world as a journalist, a mother, a daughter, an aunt, a Nancy Drew and a hopeful optimist. While my words have been quiet on Substack, I have been speaking through action and deed with dispatches at @AsraNomani on X, the Jewish Journal and other platforms and work.

There is much that I must catch up with you about and I promise more regular dispatches from the trenches of our world’s new challenges, but I want to today share with you a meditation on friendship that I had this week with the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. What I know is that the tragedy of 9/11 had casualties that extended far beyond that day in the first responders who carried illnesses from toxins they breathed in that day, civilians killed in the wars that followed and one journalist whom I called a friend whose fate months later was being written as the towers fell.

I created a video to share with you my reflections.

On Sept. 11, 2001, I was in my childhood home on Cottonwood Street in Morgantown, W.V., on book leave from my job as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, readying my day to volunteer as “lunch lady” at my young niece and nephew’s North Elementary School.

My mother called me from her store, Ain’s International, on High Street in downtown Morgantown and told me, “Turn on the news.”

As I watched white clouds filling the streets that I had not long before walked, heading to the Journal’s offices on Liberty Avenue, just across from the World Trade Center, I knew the course of my life had changed.

Soon after, I took a Greyhound bus — one of the few ways to travel at the time — to New York City to pay my respects to the tragedy there. Some days later, I then headed to Pakistan as a correspondent for Salon magazine to investigate the extremists who had murdered in the name of my religion of Islam. There, in the port city of Karachi, Pakistan, I met my friend Daniel Pearl, known to his friends and family as Danny.

Merve, Blink and Danny

I introduced Danny to two stuffed animals — Merve and Blink — I had brought from my niece and nephew’s classes as ambassadors from the children of Morgantown, representing their curiosity. I wrote dispatches back to the Dominion Post from Merve and Blink, answering questions the children had given me before my departure. Were there roads in Pakistan? (Yes.) Did they have computers? (Yes.) What did the children like to do? (Play!)

It was an exercise in education and innocence that bolstered my spirits as I navigated extremism in Qur’an study circles and Pakistanis in ill health and depression in local psychiatric clinics.

You can see from a photo that captured Danny’s introduction to Merve and Blink that he was bemused, in a moment of levity in a serious time. Danny, like the best of friends, was the kind of person who didn’t try to change you but went with the flow.

‘One Tin Soldier’

This September 11th, I was taken back to the early 1990s. Reporters in the Wall Street Journal’s Washington, D.C., bureau on Connecticut Avenue NW, I told Danny that I had loved one song since I was a child: “One Tin Soldier.”

I played it for him, eager for his response. He wasn’t much impressed!

But in a sign of his friendship, dear Danny did something special: he bought the song sheet for the ballad and played “One Tin Soldier” on his violin at a music festival in rural Massachusetts.

I was so thrilled. “One Tin Soldier” was the peacenik theme song for an iconic movie called “Billy Jack” that I watched as immigrant girl from India, living in New Jersey. It told the story about a nonviolent Vietnam War veteran who beat up unscrupulous people. The irony was not lost on me but the theme of the song resonated with me throughout my life.

The song carries a powerful message about the futility of greed, conflict and the tragic consequences of misunderstanding. Yes, Danny thought the song was cheesy but he was such a kind friend, he learned to play it anyway.

I knew that numb feeling of the “bloody morning after.” I felt it the day after we heard the news that Danny had been murdered by his kidnappers. I defaulted to a learned state of dissociation that I carried for many years, as I attempted to investigate every detail of Danny’s murder, while raising my son.

It was only after going to the depths of hell to see the hand of the man who confessed to killing Danny — Khalid Sheikh Mohammad — did I realize that running away from my grief would never bring Danny back. I wrote about this realization in a piece for the Washingtonian magazine that I hope you will read. I am grateful to then-editor Garrett Graff for assigning me that journey.

‘Conflict and Art’

A fear years ago, I shared Danny’s story in a multimedia exhibit I created for an exhibition in Athens, Greece, on “Conflict and Art.” Using touchstones collected from my journey, I attempted to chronicle the journey we can hope to make from trauma to post-traumatic growth, as my friend Orli Peter, a trauma psychologist, has helped me understand.

Clarity, passion and purpose can rise from even the most painful moments, Orli explained to me.

When I said I wasn’t an artist, my friend Vasia Deliyianni, who curated the show, said that I am an artist as a writer and helped me tell my story.

‘Peace on Earth’ was all it said

The lyrics to “One Tin Soldier” tell the story of two groups—the mountain people who possess a wealth and another, the valley people, that covets it. In their quest for treasure, the valley people wage war, only to discover that the treasure is simply a message of peace engraved on a stone: “‘Peace on Earth’ was all it said,” belted out the original band to sing the song, Coven.

The song resonates with (yes, cheesy) themes of friendship, wisdom, and the idea that true riches are not material, but found in kindness and peace.

On days like September 11th, the song’s message becomes especially relevant —reminding us that beyond the pain of tragedy, there’s a choice to build a better, more peaceful world.

In the movie, Billy Jack is one tin soldier of folk hero fame.

So many families lost their “one tin soldier” — daughters, sons, husbands, wives — with the tragedy of 9/11 and the years of attacks that have followed, wave upon wave of tragedies from Karachi to Paris, San Bernardino, California, and now the Nova Music Festival.

Jan. 23, 2002

Danny’s kidnapping on Jan. 23, 2002, made him a casualty of this violence by extremists from my faith. His last words: “My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish.” His alleged crime, like the young people at the Nova music festival, including a hostage named Hersh Goldberg-Polin: being Jewish and a grandson of Israel.

Now years later, I want you to know this story of this generous friend who learned to play a song just because his pal liked it. Danny’s humanity and many acts of friendship inspired me to advocate these past 23 years for the Muslim reform in which my parents raised me, loving music not cursing it.

I walked with my niece, now grown up, and my mother, now 86, in the woods off White Park in Morgantown. I felt so grateful to be alive, because I know so many years later that violence and hate took the life of my friend named Danny.

Let us express gratitude for the gift of life we have, as so many families grieve the loss they felt from 9/11 and the tsunami of terrorism unleashed on our earth by evil men like Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.

Let us cherish the small acts of kindness that leave lasting impacts.

Let us live life, as Danny and so many innocents did, with joy, curiosity and full hearts.

Asra Q. Nomani can be reached at asra@asranomani.com and @AsraNomani on all social media platforms. I founded the Pearl Project, a nonprofit investigative reporting initiative dedicated to justice for Daniel Pearl and journalism in the public interest. I am on the road to Springfield, Ohio, as soon as I push “send” on this dispatch to report to you from small town America and unpack the truth about cats, dogs, immigration, community and humanity. I will not only follow the paw prints but the money to understand how we got to this strange moment where we are debating if cats are being eaten. It’s a story that is America’s story where issues of migration, culture, politics and scandal meet on High Street in Springfield, Ohio. See you on the road! To support the Pearl Project, you can donate here with a tax-deductible donation. Thank you for your support.