I rang you as soon as I heard the news that a Court in Pakistan had overturned the convictions of the four men accused of killing Danny, finding them guilty of kidnapping but not murder. The men were later rearrested. You spoke instead about people in Spain—where you live—suffering in hospital without their families. It said a lot to me that you were thinking of others. Could you share your thoughts on the Court’s decision?
The facts are clear and those responsible for Danny’s death belong in prison. The other day, Adam’s honorary godfather called me from Pakistan. He wanted to share that everyone in both his professional and private surroundings was outraged by the attempt to reverse Omar Sheikh’s sentence. That means everything to me. When I left Pakistan pregnant with Adam, hundreds of Pakistani citizens wrote to me, adding their names and contacts so I could see that they didn’t fear reprisal for supporting us. I am not interested in revenge on terrorists’ terms. What matters most is how other people react, that is where we have a margin to grow as a world: each individual’s sense of integrity is our collective source of hope.
Can you speak a little more about that?
Terrorism would have won if I had lost my faith in mankind but the opposite happened. I believe even more in people’s potential to remain dignified and empathetic and I believe in people who strive for justice and the greater good. The more they hate the more I love, the more they spread fear the more I spread hope. Meanwhile, Adam embraces life, and Sheikh was never able to claim Danny’s legacy. Adam wants to study physics and philosophy. He’s also a talented guitar player and graphic artist who is teaching himself Arabic. He’s going to Harvard. We have won this war, me and all those like you who have helped him grow. P.S. I’ve told Adam that I am embarrassing him, but it’s all your fault. He said okay.
I remember, like it was yesterday, Maddox and Adam sitting in your apartment in New York watching the Jungle Book
while we were trying to make pasta. And now they are college students. I
often think about the fact that when you lost Danny, you were pregnant
with Adam. Was there a promise you made to yourself or to him that got
you through?
When we got married Danny wrote a marriage vow that
read: “Turn our lives into a work of literature”. After he passed away, I
understood what he really meant beyond the romantic thought itself. I
promised him to honor our narrative of peace and understanding. I
promised to keep listening to Led Zeppelin in the mornings. And that I
would fight back every time despair and pain lodged in my head, advising
me to give up on myself and others. I promised to keep exploring the
human race and through storytelling, shine a light on people who are
both the opposite and the antidotes to terror. As for Adam, when he was
born my first thought was a promise: that I would guard his integrity
and freedom as fiercely as one of those sculpted two-headed,
fire-spitting lions that adorn the entrance of our building.
How do you talk to children about hard realities?
I believe in taking children seriously while respecting their rights to
be children. In my own family, my father’s suicide remained a secret
until I was 17. As a teenager, I knew he didn’t just die by accident as I
was told, and that was very scary. When I discovered his suicide note,
it was an odd but powerful relief. When I found out, we still were not
allowed to talk about him though. I believe proper communication would
have spared me a lot of angst. Children don’t belong to anybody but
themselves and they are entitled to their realities.
Every situation and trauma is different. Do you
have any advice or reflections for people who are going through so much
at this time? It’s very difficult to give advice in general because
pain is so specific. Hardships tend to shape people’s lives, and it’s
our work as human beings to give them significance and to clarify what
it is that we have come into this world for.
Danny was someone who devoted his life to the
search for truth. Did you and he share the same view about journalism?
Do you still have the same faith?
I do believe in journalism. My
faith has never wavered. That is not to say that we don’t have serious
problems with it today, ranging from economics to systemic assaults on
truth. But ethics was our cement and still is to me.
You’ve written about how easy it is for terrorists to manipulate the media. Is this still a concern?
We are very predictable. That is why criminals perform their deeds in
time for the evening news. The rush for attention-grabbing headlines
reflects the economic model a lot of people work under. They’re in it
for the cause, but they stumble inside the profit-making machine. For a
long time, journalists were happy asking everyone questions but
themselves. News was that straightforward. Nowadays, journalism is only
as good as the willingness of those who practice it to be honest when
they ask themselves who or what they’re in it for.
I respect the work you do training women journalists with your Women-Bylines initiative. Could you tell me what drives you in this?
The traditional media has easily overwritten the female gender until
now. I find that the most exciting and promising event of our generation
is the end of that era, which started with mankind itself. Today, we
are still raped as a weapon of war or held as sexual slaves or we endure
discriminations from another age. We also have three jobs and raise our
kids alone. In Africa, the Middle East, and all over the continents and
across cultures, women stand for justice—refusing to be married off as
children, mutilated, deprived of land rights, or held back by countless
of discriminative laws. They are insisting on being part of the equation
for the greater good.
And they are taking a lead?
Yes, and to me,
this is so interesting because it’s an emerging leadership of people who
have never known power. If you don’t have power, you are not afraid to
lose it. When you have endured how abuse of power translates into your
family or community’s lives, you have no desire for it. Instead, you
understand how humans operate and take it from there.
With travel coming to a halt due to the virus, there will be much more focus on local journalists and photographers.
There
are excellent trained journalists in most of the places foreign
correspondents used to cover. I remember discussing this with Danny. It
feels completely wrong that people who have the knowledge of a place or
situation and the right address books were just used as “fixers.” Danny
agreed with me, even though that thought seriously threatened his job.
How do you reflect this in your work?
I try to
combine the two: The rise of women and the recognition that people were
entitled to report about their own lands. I am a cofounder of a new
media project called Meteor that focuses on quality journalism and
women. Women-Bylines is one part of it, a series of workshops worldwide
to produce films and multimedia by and about women. If you give women a
voice, they are going to use it and if they use it, it will be for
justice.
We all fall short but is there a philosophy you try to live by?
Do you remember the last words in my book? They’re from Diane Ackerman:
“I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.”
Monday, May 29, 2017
Random Fuzzy
- The interview took place in April and was published a month later on May 25 -- a late celebration of Mother's Day. It is part of the promotional effort for Mon Guerlain. It is highly likely that she &/or Mariane had copy approval esp. since she has artistic control over the campaign.
- They will go on a family trip to visit refugees on June 20 for World Refugee Day. They will go to Africa. A family photo op in support of refugees. It won't be just a video message this year.
- Translating from the ELLE article in French, as before I used both Microsoft's bing and Google translators. At times it was necessary to translate sentences separately to get a more complete and more grammatically correct translation.
- Some phrases can't be translated literally: donner le change is intended to mean to pretend, cover it up, put off the track, put up the pretense. show a good appearance, deceive
So
A voir ces deux la tentant de donner le change, on voudrait croire les rumeurs que les disent prets a s'aimer a nouveau
Is more correctly translated to
To see these two trying to put up the pretense, one would like to believe the rumors that say they are ready to love each other again
Instead of
To see these two trying to give the change, one would like to believe the rumors that say them ready to love each other again<
This section then makes more sense:
Si ses divorces precedents d'avec Jonny Lee Miller et Billy Bob Thornton n'avaient pas paru (trop) l'atteindre, depuis l'annonce officielle de sa separation d'avec Brad Pitt, en septembre dernier, l'actrice semble faire face avec moins d'assurance. Et lui tout pareil. A voir ces deux la tentant de donner le change, on voudrait croire les rumeurs que les disent prets a s'aimer a nouveau:
If her previous divorces with Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton had not appeared (too much) to reach her, since the official announcement of her separation from Brad Pitt last September, the actress seems to be coping with less assurance. And he's the same. To see these two trying to put up the pretense, one would like to believe the rumors that say they are ready to love each other again:
Angelina Jolie se confie
Cette semaine, retrouvez également
une interview exclusive d’Angelina Jolie par son amie Mariane Pearl. La
star parle de ses projets et de son état d’esprit. Elle se confie sur
son rôle mère ainsi que sur sa propre mère qu’elle définit d’une
« grande sagesse ».
*****
Elle vit désormais a Malibu, auprès de ses six enfants, et est toujours une femme aussi engagee. Muse de nouveau parfum Mon Guerlain, Elle s'est confiée a son amie Mariane Pearl sur ses projects et son état d'esprit.
Par Mariane Pearl
Avec Florence Besson
"Je pense que des l'instant ou tu deviens parent, tes desirs et tes objectifs, devienment secondaires, "nous confie Angelina Jolie. Ce sont les besoins et les reves de tes enfants qui priment. C'est d'autant plus vrai quand la famille traverse une phase delicate. Si ses divorces precedents d'avec Jonny Lee Miller et Billy Bob Thornton n'avaient pas paru (trop) l'atteindre, depuis l'annonce officielle de sa separation d'avec Brad Pitt, en septembre dernier, l'actrice semble faire face avec moins d'assurance. Et lui tout pareil. A voir ces deux la tentant de donner le change, on voudrait croire les rumeurs que les disent prets a s'aimer a nouveau: lui seul avec son bulldog, que se voue a la sculture et avoue dans GQ avoir eu toute sa vie, comme on dit pudiquement. "un problem avec 'alcohol"; et elle, tout a sa famille (elle a meme revu son pere, Jon Voight) apres sa tournee pour son dernier film "First They Killed My Father" sur l'horreur du regime des Khmer rouge. Angelina Jolie aurait ete tres emue d'apprendre que Brad Pitt avait decide de luter conttre son alcoolisme. Elle a choise de s'intallera a Malibu non loin de lui, au lieu vivre a Londres. Les choses s'apaiseraient enfin entre eux. Parce que, comme elle l'a confie les lames aux yeux en fevrier a la BBC, lors de son unique interview televisee depuis septembe, et comme elle nous l'explique aujourd hui dons cet entretien exclusif: "Quoi qu'il advienne, nous somme et resteron toujours une famille." Plus forte, meme, espere-t-elle, pour proteger leurs six enfants, dont la petite Shiloh, 11 ans cette semaine, que se fait appeler John depuis ses 2 ans et qui Angelina ni Brad ne veulent contraindre a porter des robes. Une famille complexe, comme toutes les autres, avec ses individus, ses fraternites, l'amour que les unit. Et c'est ce lien quela star a voulu celebrer avec nous, a l'occasion de la fete de Meres, elle interviewee par Mariane Pearl,l'epouse du regrette journalist Daniel Pearl, dont elle a interprete le role en 2007 dans "A Might Heart." Depuis ce deaux femmes sont amies. Pour nous, elle se sont retrouvees le temps d'une journee a Los Angeles. FB
"Je retrouve mon amie Angelina a l'occasion de la fete des Meres, pour evoquee la sienne, Marcheline Bertrand. La publicite qu'elle a recemment tournee pour les parfums Guerlain est un homage a cette femme que l'a toujours inspiree par sa grace et son elegance...Notre amitie a toutes deux remonte a 2005. Nos fils Adam et Maddox sont eux aussi amis depuis leur petite enfance. Ils regardaient ensemble :The Jungle Book" tandis qu'on essayait de ne pas rater la cuisson des pates. Douze ans plus tard, au mois d'avril,nous voice assies dans la cuisine de la maison que loue Angelina a Los Angeles. Les six enfants que j'ai vus grandir, sont scolarises a domicile. Tandis que nos parlons, ils fait leurs devoirs, assis dans la piece a cote." MP
She now lives in Malibu, with her six children, and is always an engaged woman. Muse of the new fragrance Mon Guerlain, she confided to her friend Mariane Pearl on her projects and her state of mind
By Mariane Pearl
With Florence Besson
"I think when you become a parent, your desires and goals become secondary," says Angelina Jolie. "The needs and dreams of your children take precedence" This is especially true when the family is going through a delicate phase. If her previous divorces with Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton had not appeared (too much) to reach her, since the official announcement of her separation from Brad Pitt last September, the actress seems to be coping with less assurance. And he's the same. To see these two trying to put up the pretense, one would like to believe the rumors that say they are ready to love each other again: he alone with his bulldog, who is devoted to sculpture and admits in GQ having had all his life, as they say modestly. "A problem with alcohol"; And she, everything has her family (she even saw her father, Jon Voight) after her turn for her last film "First They Killed My Father" on the horror of the Khmer Rouge regime. Angelina Jolie would have been very excited to learn that Brad Pitt had decided to fight his alcoholism. She chose to settle in Malibu not far from him, instead of living in London. Things would at last subside between them. Because, as she confided in February with tears in her eyes to the BBC, in her only interview since September, and how she explains to us today in this exclusive interview: "Whatever happens, we are and will always remain a family." Even stronger, she hopes, to protect their six children, especially little Shiloh, 11 years old this week, who is called John since she was 2 years old, and who neither Angelina nor Brad want to force to wear dresses. A complex family, like all others, with their members, their fraternities, and the love that unites them. And it is this link that the star wanted to celebrate with us, on the occasion of Mother's Day, she, interviewed by Mariane Pearl, the wife of the late journalist Daniel Pearl, who she interpreted the role in 2007, in "A Mighty Heart". Since that time, the women are friends. For us, they found the time a day in Los Angeles. F. B.
I meet my friend Angelina, on the occasion of Mothers Day, to evoke Marcheline Bertrand. The advertisement she recently shot for Guerlain is a homage to this woman who has always inspired by her grace and elegance ... Our friendship dates back to 2005. Our sons Adam and Maddox are also friends since their early childhood. They were watching together "The Jungle Book" while we were trying not to miss the pasta cooking. And twelve years later, in April, we sat in the kitchen of the house that Angelina rents in Los Angeles. The six children, that I have seen grow up, are educated at home, while we talk, they do their homework, sitting in the next room. M. P.
Can you tell us about your mother and how she influenced the woman you became?
My mother was very sweet and very kind, she was someone who never put her own interests ahead and I believe that the greatest happiness in her life was to see her children succeed. She inspired me a lot in her way of being, and in everything she taught me. But her death [in 2007] also taught me a lot. It made me want to be truly present for my children and take care of myself and my health.
Your mother was a pioneer, too, an activist, does it resemble any aspect of your personality?
I was about 10 years old the first time she took me to a charity dinner organized by Amnesty International. She dressed me in my best clothes. I learned that day, the fate of prisoners of conscience, who were unjustly detained and why. My mother raised me with the conscience of the world, she often told me of the causes that touched her heart. She took me to see the Underground Art, she introduced me to foreign films, European classics ... Our shelves were full of interesting books, and the people she invited were all fascinating in their own way.
Would you say she was an intellectual?
She would never have described herself in this way, but she was of great wisdom for the things that really mattered. She had this innate grace, she embodied the pure values of goodness and noble sentiments.
Speaking of incarnation, do you think she would like Guelian's perfume of which you are the muse?
She would have loved it, I'm sure. She always liked Guerlain. That's also why I agreed to work with them.
You often talk about her to the children?
Of course, she would have been a great grandmother! It is often said that in life certain events have their reason for being. But I do not understand why she is not with us today. I know how much she would have contributed to my children's happiness and I am sad
they will miss out on that. I would give anything for her to
be with me at this time. I’ve needed her. I talk to her often in my
mind and try to think what she might say and how she might guide me.”
Have your children transformed you?
I think as soon as you become a parent, your desires and goals become secondary, their needs and dreams come first. This belongs to them. It's amazing to see them grow so quickly, become independent, become singular, strong, and gentle beings. I observe how they integrate knowledge, what they like and what we see in the world that revolt them or make them lose their patience. It's an endless source of learning for me.
What does it mean to be a mother to you?
This is the greatest gift and the greatest responsibility. It means doing everything that you can to live by your
values and try to be an example to your children.”
Their adolescence scares you?
Not at all. As a mother, you worry, it is inevitable. You must both protect them and allow them to spread their wings. But I'm really impressed by their strength, and I love it when they say what they think.
Do you think there is a common force for mothers that could be a basis for finding solutions to conflicts and political stalemates - which are only getting worse?
I think it would be totally wrong to think that it is because we are parents that peace concerns us more. Peace is an innate desire in human beings. But it is also a factual and absolute reality that throughout history, women have been excluded from negotiations for. And that is still often the case. We have to change that. It's not a question of women taking the power of men either. It is a question of balance and wisdom, of working together in society so that all of us can participate equitably in decision-making and build the future of our countries.
Motherhood has been regarded as a sacrifice: one gives one's life for one's children. Do you think this is always the case?
I do not see motherhood as a sacrifice. For me it's a privilege.
How do you see the revival of feminist engagement in the United States?
I think there is a revival of activism worldwide, not just in the United States. People seem to become more aware of the importance of politics. They want to make their voices heard in the choices that concern them or that affect how their country treats the rest of the world. We need this internationalist spirit.
What are your projects?
My work and my travels are limited right now for personal reasons. But I look forward to our next trip around World Refugee Day on June 20th. We are going to Africa. And the children love this continent. I think it's important to show them the world in this particular period. In life, one is often led to concentrate only on oneself, and I believe that a broader view of things is fundamental. On June 20th, we're going to be in the company of refugees and members of the U.N. I will also go to the field to document the role of the military in the prevention and suppression of sexual violence as a weapon of war. And I will also continue to teach at the London School of Economics.
The world we have to pass on to our children can be scary. How do you share your political commitment to them?
I try to lead by example, being conscious of others and being responsible. And to help them have a broader view of the world. But really the only way I know to raise them is to really listen. It’s
perhaps the most important thing any parent can do. They are resilient
children but they are children, and as much as they need help to
understand the hard truths in life they also need what we all need –
protection and love,”
Recall what Brad said to GQ:
Family first. People on their deathbeds don't talk about what they
obtained or were awarded. They talk about their loved ones or their
regrets—that seems to be the menu. I say that as someone who's let the
work take me away. Kids are so delicate. They absorb everything. They
need to have their hand held and things explained. They need to be
listened to. When I get in that busy work mode, I'm not hearing. I want
to be better at that.
"Thanks to
women like Zainab Bangura and Angelina Jolie, we're forcing the world
to stop looking away—and to recognize that sexual violence is a vile
crime against humanity, not an inevitable by-product of war." —John Kerry, United States Secretary of State
MEET THE WARRIORS: From left, Julienne Lusenge,
Jineth Bedoya, Zainab Bangura, Angelina Jolie, Suraya Pakzad, and Whaku
Shee. Photographed at the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in
Conflict in London.
I first met Angelina Jolie through the diaries she wrote after her
visits to refugee camps. I read them online, and even then—long before
we became friends and watched our toddlers jumping on hotel beds
together—I was fascinated by Angelina's attention to detail and her will
to understand infinitely complex situations. She has traveled to more
than 40 countries with the United Nations, spent untold hours reading
about international justice, and come back with the horrific stories of
what women undergo when the men in their countries wage war. "Everywhere
I went," Angelina told me, "rape was the silent killer. But it became
quickly clear to me that these women were not just the collateral damage
of war. Rape was a strategic, organized scheme to destroy entire
communities." Indeed, violating and torturing women, girls, toddlers, or
the elderly is used as a free and efficient weapon of mass
destruction—in fact, in many conflict-ridden countries, it is more
dangerous to be a woman than a soldier. One study found that, in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, 48 women are raped every
hour, and in still other countries, like Colombia, the crimes go
undocumented, the women uncounted.
So today I am incredibly moved but not the least bit surprised to see
Angelina prompting the world to recognize the systematic destruction of
women. This past June, in her role as Special Envoy of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, she joined British Foreign
Secretary William Hague in London to cochair the Global Summit to End
Sexual Violence in Conflict, a gathering of thousands of people from 123
countries and more than 70 foreign ministers working to crack the
fortress of silence and denial surrounding rape in war zones.
Angelina knew many of the women there already from her work in the
field. There were mavericks like Julienne Lusenge, one of the first
women to publicly denounce the epidemic of sexual violence in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. (She began her campaign of truth by
walking into the local radio station and seizing the microphone.)
Journalist Jineth Bedoya, who was kidnapped, tortured, and raped while
investigating arms trafficking in Colombia but who continues to report
on the political violence there. ("I felt like a statistic. I am doing
this so that those who come after me can have a face," she says.) Zainab
Bangura, who began as a grassroots organizer in Sierra Leone and who
now, as a representative to the United Nations, campaigns to classify
rape as a war crime. Suraya Pakzad, who, under the Taliban regime in her
native Afghanistan, dared to educate girls illegally in her house and
founded the Voice of Women Organization there. And Whaku Shee, who is
working with the Women's League of Burma to help prevent the military
from raping Burmese ethnic minorities. "We care for each other—and for
each other's children," says Angelina. "It is a profound source of joy
and inspiration." The feeling of kinship and solidarity is mutual: "I
have never seen anybody so committed," Zainab says of Angelina. "I have
been with her at the United Nations. I have walked with her in the
Congo. She understands the issues very well, but more important, she
listens."
Together, these six matchsticks of awareness—along with so many
others like them—are building a bonfire of international indignation. At
the summit more than 200 experts wrote an international protocol, the
first of its kind, designed to help bring perpetrators to justice and
rehabilitate victims, who are often rejected by their communities after
an assault. The document was written by women alongside men—a powerful
fact because, as Angelina says, "this is not a woman problem. It's a
crime against humanity."
It's this understanding and commitment that makes me admire Angelina
so much. She and these brave women are role models for a better world.
Each is an agent of change, doing her piece to end an unbearable
situation. Because, after all, this is a crime against humanity that
only humanity can fix.
Angelina Jolie spoke with @glamourmag about her campaign to end sexual violence in war. See pics & read what she said http://t.co/sw8yxnxoaN
— JustJared.com (@JustJared) July 9, 2014
The pair arrived at 8pm and dined until midnight at the eatery, which is known to be ideal for a romantic interlude. One
of the top ten restaurants in the city, it specialises in a mix of
French and Russian cuisine, as well as modern Hungarian dishes. The establishment is situated at the bottom of the historical Buda Castle. The couple both looked elegant for the outing. Angelina dressed all in black; wearing trousers, a blouse and a long overcoat.
