American amnesia

In our neighbourhood, on the edge of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, we have a sort of Olfactory news service. The smell of spit and salt in the breeze signify a storm brewing at sea. The scent of smoke from the West means that the cycle of fire and renewal continues in the forests. We can tell when a skunk wasn't careful enough crossing a highway by its final pungent broadcast. I think American news editors are also guided by their sense of smell, and the ranker the manure, the more likely it is to sprout prose.

When none of the major outlets reported the killing of Bangladeshis by Indian border guards, I began to grow suspicious of what media sources here in the West consider "fit to print". When many news sources chose to report your local Islamist hartal or the stoning of the 14-year-old girl, I formulated the opinion that reporters in the West are interested primarily in promoting news stories that feed the prevailing prejudice du jour. Westerners are comforted by affirmation of their one-sided view of the developing world. Such things sell papers. Such things sell advertisements.

But I am beginning to entertain a different point of view when it comes to press coverage here in the West.

Journalists, teachers, and politicians in Europe and The United States have become lazy thinkers.

They are steered by the same collective consciousness towards a "newsworthy" item that compels a flock of sparrows or an immense cloud of fish to change direction en masse, to feed on the phytoplankton of human interest when more newsworthy events go unnoticed. The approach to news is formulaic, impersonal and trivial. It has nothing to do with historical perspective or the greater good.

My native American friend tells me that his people always considered the impact of their choices to the seventh generation before they spoke or acted. They say that we are a people who would starve our grandchildren to feed our children. They call Americans a "People Without Grandfathers".

If journalists were to subscribe (no pun intended) to the mindset of the Mi'kmaq, the native tribe from which the philosophy of the seventh generation comes to my awareness, they would make very different choices regarding that which they choose to write about, and that which they choose to ignore.

I write for a local newspaper here in New Jersey that was founded because its young editor decided that, with the demise of our local daily, we had lost the continuity of the historical record of our town's existence. This individual now does the local towns a service that many fail to appreciate, and that larger news outlets can no longer justify economically. He preserves our history, one of the most endangered resources of our nation. Even if his readership is still relatively small, his paper will provide the only hard copy account of our daily lives that our great-grandchildren will be able to reference regardless of technology.

Throughout America, the reporting of local news, and the recollection of national history, are both on the verge of disappearing. The story of the United States, and its loss of memory, is a cautionary tale for a youthful Bangladesh.

This memory loss will become clear to outsiders this week, and I invite my dear readers to witness the intellectual eclipse firsthand by seeking out information in their favourite US news sources. This week, the United States will not celebrate, commemorate, or collectively call to mind, the 150th anniversary of the onset of the bloodiest, most defining moment of American History, The Civil War.

As I clicked on CNN links and perused the New York Times, my lack of faith in American journalism was amplified.

See, On April 13, 1861, a Confederate Flag was raised over Ft. Sumner, South Carolina, following the bombardment of the Union stronghold by rebel forces. One hundred years later to the year, our first Barack Obama was born. Nothing I have read leads me to believe that anyone appreciates that our first African-American President was born in the centennial year of the Civil War. Nothing I have read leads me to believe that any American, including President Obama, will take the occasion of the sesquicentennial of this conflagration to examine its lessons and apply them to our reality today.

I have always been taught that a people who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it. While I hope and pray that an armed conflict that pits brother against brother will never again be fought here, I fear that the lessons learned about compromise and "charity toward all" are slipping away. I see the rise of religious prejudice and xenophobia (notions I abhor) espoused by the same individuals who promote other ideals I hold dear — patriotism, individualism and regional self-determination. I see their opponents embracing big government, and submitting to foreign authority. I recoil in horror at their reliance upon enormous spending programmes that entitle monopoly, promote bureaucracy and destroy the small businessman. These same "enemies of individualism" are also the champions of social freedom and tolerance. Such dichotomies, coupled with the dual catalysts of intransigence and suspicion, were the same poisonous combination of elements so lethal to our nation 150 years ago.

I quizzed two boys, 13 year-olds. "Who was John Wilkes Booth?" Neither boy could answer the question. I was shocked. "Who was Ulysses S. Grant? Robert E. Lee? No answer. Worse still, absent was the intellectual curiosity to ask for the correct answer.

An older girl, age 15, correctly identified Booth as the man who assassinated Lincoln, but thought that Robert E. Lee, the genius general of the Confederacy, was the man who had shot Kennedy.

Someone who overheard my impromptu quiz shook her head. "What are they teaching our children in school?" That was the most disturbing commentary of all. It begged the real issue. It passed the buck. It says that we Americans are relying on strangers in schools to teach our children when we have the obligation, as parents, to teach them ourselves.

After World War II, my relatives that remained in Hungary were forced to learn Russian and embrace atheism in the classroom. This was the result of the Soviet "liberation"- a term that was used with bitter humour by the oppositional Magyars. Russian was a compulsory school subject that many students proudly failed. Church was never so well-attended as during the Soviet occupation, and patriotism thrived. Every Hungarian schoolchild knew his long history in exacting detail, thanks to lessons taught in the home.

We Americans were way more successful at forcing the oppressed to abandon native language and religion. We were much better at erasing indigenous history. We erased the story of the native inhabitants of the continent through the calculated use of addictive drugs, entertainment, bullying, forced Diaspora and censorship.

And now, the very practices which we foisted upon the Native Population are threatening to erase our own heritage and history. Our children are drugged, entertained and misnourished into pudgy-fingered complacency. We move far from our grandparents. We spend more time with computer games than in conversation with each other. We text more than we pray.

Cultural dementia is most easily prevented when a nation is young. Bangladesh, at age 40, can easily prevent the memory loss that the United States, at 234, needs major surgery to correct. A culture, properly maintained, can follow a simple prescription and take steps to assure that its memory stays clear.

The simplest means of prevention is by establishing common national family traditions that celebrate important historical events. These celebrations should be punctuated by games, entertainment and special dishes. The same children who could not identify the major players in the Civil War were able to communicate the importance of Thanksgiving and Independence Day. Celebrations which rely upon speeches and demonstrations for commemoration are doomed to obscurity simply because they do not require universal active participation.

In America, almost everyone celebrates July 4th with a family barbecue, and eats Turkey at Thanksgiving. The cultural prerequisite instituted in every household across the country insures that even in exile, the rituals can be observed, and the event that is commemorated will be remembered. By enshrining these holidays in universal family traditions that teach, entertain, and feed, we make them a part of every citizen's life.

I don't know enough about Bangladeshi holidays (yet) to understand if the commemoration of historical events are tied to games, meals and rituals like so many religious holidays. For me, personally, one particular day of yours (which I've already written about) teaches such an important lesson that I intend to embrace it as an annual celebration in my own family- Noor Hossain Day. It is an eloquent reminder to people of all nations that one brave person can make a difference.

In effect, it is Noor Hossian's spirit that has caught fire and spread democratic fervour throughout the Middle East. This day belongs to every freedom-loving person on earth. It teaches that the individual, not the government, is responsible for the conscience of the people. Noor Hossain teaches my American children that they are at least as responsible for the direction of our nation as President Obama. As soon as I get a few recipes, we will eat Bangladeshi food that evening, and play Ha-du-du (if you want to know why, I refer you to my article- http://opinion.bdnews24.com/2010/11/15/the-character-of-a-nation/).

Speeches, wreath-laying and history books are no guarantee that the memory of important historic (or personal) events will be remembered. America in 2011 sits upon the same social fault line that defined and devastated her 150 years ago. Up until now, we remembered and took care to build our important infrastructures upon the sort of social compromise that kept us far from those fault lines.

My Hungarian grandparents taught me more about Hungarian history by means of card games, poetry and works of art than I ever learned about American history in a classroom. You who were witnesses to the defining events of your nation's history, even if you now live outside Bangladesh, I recommend you follow my grandparents' example. When my grandmother buttered a tiny piece of bread, covered it with jam and galloped it into my moth, it wasn't a piece of bread at all, but a husszar, on a horse, riding into the teeth of the enemy. When my cousins and I raise a glass of beer, we still say, "Death to the Hapsburgs! At our weddings, we all wore the same jackets sported by the revolutionaries in 1848. Establishing such traditions within the family ties our identity to our history no matter where we go.

You who are among the generation that founded Bangladesh, how lucky you are to be able to create the traditions that will help your own descendants, seven generations from now, to remember their past!

Who knows? Some day knowing their own history may help them discern the difference between the danger of approaching storm and a mere skunk in the road.

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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. His most recent book, "Learning Little Hawk's Way of Storytelling", is scheduled to be released by Findhorn Press in May of 2011.