The character of a nation

As I grow more fascinated with Bangladesh, I want to learn as much as I can about the character of you all, my dear readers. I recently discovered that the sport of hadudu is the national sport of Bangladesh. I watched it played online, and I tried it with my children here at home. Who knows? If the sport doesn't kill me, it might just cure my asthma.

The thought of an individual taking one final breath and then moving toward an opponent with superior strength, is an interesting character-building exercise. The game builds courage. The player chants a simple phrase, divides the opposition and then tries to return to the safety of his fellows, despite the possibility of physical injury. The game requires no expensive equipment, only a sense of purpose, a good set of lungs, and a measure of fearlessness.

As I researched this cultural phenomenon, I also stumbled upon another fact that increased my admiration for your national character one hundredfold. It seems that this week, you celebrated the life of a man with a simple message, who was brave enough to deliver that message with his final breath.

I am not sure how many of my fellow Americans can appreciate the undercurrents of fear that a dictatorship can inspire. I don't know many people in New Jersey who have lived under the black cloud of totalitarianism, who have had machine guns aimed at them, who have whispered, even about soccer matches, in public coffee houses for fear of being misunderstood, or who have been pushed off a moving train by a soldier for not offering his seat. But having lived in Argentina, these events were not uncommon and I experienced them all personally.

In the Roman Catholic Easter Week of 1987, four years after the end of the military's reign of terror known as the Dirty War, the Argentine military threatened to once again rise up against a democratically elected government. Without hesitation, the people thronged to the plaza to express their vehement opposition. I was living in Buenos Aires, so where was I?

A friend of mine had been drafted as a Sergeant into the army and his family had been caught on a military base. My friend wanted nothing to do with a military coup, and he sent me a message asking me to help him and his family escape from the base. It was easy. Some of the Sergeant's friends staged a soccer game as a distraction. It worked beautifully. Nothing distracts an Argentino like a soccer game. We were able to get onto the base, extract the Sergeant and his family and exit while the guard's watchful eyes were fixed on a beautiful corner kick that an acrobatic near-backflip sent rocketing toward the net. We were probably the only ones on that base that didn't see the outcome of that shot. We were running for our van.

Later that afternoon, I decided not to join the millions in the Plaza. Who was I, after all, an American among millions of Argentinos? The truth was, it was just not convenient, and I felt that I had done my part. In short, I was lazy.

In the end, the adage "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" always does apply. The sheer numbers that appeared in the Plaza that day discouraged the military and allowed President Raul Alfonsin to negotiate a peaceful settlement. But I will never forget that during that critical afternoon, I decided that I had done enough, and I stayed home. If others had followed my example, the horrors of the Dirty War may have resurfaced in my beloved adopted city, and the book that I published there, made possible by the very freedom those brave people were defending, would have been banned. Yes, there were millions in the Plaza that day, but I applaud the courage of the first to arrive, having no support in numbers. It is very true that because every government rules by the consent of the governed, whether or not that consent is fear-inspired, we all get the government we deserve.

On November 8, 2010 Emilio Massera, the member of the Argentine Military Junta, creator of death camps, kidnapping sprees and the farming of women to sell infants to rich adoptive parents, died in Buenos Aires. Ten people came to his funeral, the newspapers in the United States didn't have a word to say, and I didn't think the fact was worth mentioning to my children.

On November 10, 2010, in a small neighbourhood in New Jersey, several children of African-American, Italian and Irish descent met on a small patch of ground to learn to play a game that was the national sport in a place none of them could identify on a map. They were told that they were playing this game on this day to honour a brave man named Noor Hossain who embodied the defiant courage of all people who deserve to be free. As I watched them enjoy the game, I prayed that they would never have to face the difficult lessons the sport inculcates, but asked God that if the situation ever did arise, convenience would not keep them from the fray, defending the simple message of self-determination with their final breath.

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Frank Domenico Cipriani writes a weekly column in the Riverside Signal called "You Think What You Think And I'll Think What I Know." He is also the founder and CEO of The Gatherer Institute — a not-for-profit public charity dedicated to promoting respect for the environment and empowering individuals to become self-taught and self-sufficient.