A year of “Becoming Bangladesh”

The Sun has already called it quits for the day. A gloomy drizzle dampens not just my head, but my spirit. Our November garden doesn't need the rain, the killer Frost has come. All that is worth eating has been harvested.

I have decided to stay in tonight. Instead of venturing out, I will travel in my imagination. This has been my weekly habit for the last fifty-two weeks. My wanderings have taken me around the globe, and even back in time. The favourite destination for my reverie is Bangladesh.

Last week, I realised that I had been writing to you, all my dear readers for one whole year. When I was originally introduced to bdnews24.com, I envisioned writing articles in which I discovered Bangladesh and reflected my observations back to all of you. It would be sort of fun house mirror, warped by my American perspective, for your entertainment.

From the very beginning, perhaps as early as my second article, I began to understand what a treasure I had discovered in "becoming Bangladesh". No political reality, no natural disaster, no news item was as impressive to me as the individual narrative of the millions of good people struggling valiantly to not just eke out an existence in a land that is mostly floodplain, but to blossom as a cultural and economic tour de force.

In my second week of writing, I had learned the story of Noor Hossain, and shared his story with my own children, holding him up as an example of what the courage of a single individual could do to change the world. Week by week, as I wrote, I received so many thoughtful, well-written responses that I was fast becoming a real fan. What struck me as I read these responses was that the overwhelming majority reflected a great wealth of faith. The most common question Bangladeshis asked me was, "Why us? You have no connection to Asia, let alone Bangladesh. What do you find so compelling about us?"

I recall late last year, as I was reading about the Bhola cyclone of 1970 how deeply it affected me. I think when we Americans study history we are focused on Vietnam we don't pay much attention to the tragedy. We here in the United States mark time from our September 11ths, our Hurricane Katrinas. We reel from these disasters, but on a global scale our American tragedies pale in comparison to those you have suffered.

One night in early December as I researched another article for this internet newspaper, I read about the 1970 devastation. It was 40 years after the fact, but I shed tears as I read the story. It kept me up all night. Half a million people — the kind of good people I had so recently begun to relate to and admire had lost their lives in a single storm. As a father, it sickened me to learn that more than half the deaths in that storm were children under ten.

As the weeks passed and I continued reading the history of your remarkable people, I couldn't believe that less than a year after the natural devastation, additional millions were displaced, raped, tortured or killed outright by the Pakistan Army. I shuddered at the reports of murdered intellectuals, the best and the brightest of the emerging society, teachers, poets, students, physicians and scholars rounded up and murdered as the war wound down. This struck a note with me; it was reminiscent of events with which I had closer experience, those of the terrible years of military dictatorship in Argentina.

I read of your subsequent famine in 1974 that was exacerbated by so many unfortunate human factors, including the shameful inaction of my own nation due to petty grievances of the Nixon administration. The United States withheld 2.2 million tons of food aid in order to exert a political influence. The fact broadsided me. Like most of the American public, I had no idea we'd done such a horrible thing simply to prevent the export of Bangladeshi jute to Cuba.

All of this, the endless coups of the late '70's and '80's, and the coup in '96 and 2007—  struck me that despite all of the devastation, all the hard times, the instability of the weather, the cat-fight government, the constant threats and slights from neighbours, foes and even allies, and the pressures of an ever-increasing population, that Bangladesh was, perhaps a crucible in which the most remarkable examples of human dignity, optimism, and stories of survival. These were the stories I loved best.

I discovered a rickshaw-puller who had spent his meagre fortune to get medical care for his injured wife, a courageous filmmaker who never lived to make a movie for an independent Bangladesh, a guru-singer whose death delayed political battles so both sides could do him honour, a repentant cricket crowd that actually demonstrated their apology, a flautist/poet, and a Bangladeshi crime victim in Texas whose pilgrimage led him to seek forgiveness for his shooter.

One of my reader friends admonished me that instead of admiring the people of Bangladesh, I needed to see the faults in how things were handled, that I was living in a fool's paradise. Another reader expressed his wishes that I continue to love Bangladesh and Bangladeshis. In any case, after this very painful, difficult birth, perhaps the most painful birth of a nation in the history of humanity, the Bangladeshi people could have allowed their national character to be one of rancour and disharmony. If you had taken on the role of victim, you would have been justified. Nations born out of disaster, like Israel, seem to embrace that role.

Instead, the people of Bangladesh embrace the light.

In 52 weeks of "becoming Bangladesh", I have learned many things. I am frustrated by the lack of resources for language learning, because I have a deep desire to speak your language. I watched Jibon Theke Neya on YouTube, and the only word I recognised was "gaan", a word that occurs quite often, since it seems that in your movies people burst into song almost as often as things in American movies burst into flames, and with about as little provocation. I have celebrated my first Ramadan, listened to your music, appreciated the World Cup for the very first time, and as soon as I learn enough Bangla to get by, I'm packing my bags, getting on a plane and heading your way.

This is my first article of a new 52-week cycle. I hope I can focus on more extraordinary Bangladeshis both within your borders and in your Diaspora. Critics might say my outlook lacks a cynic's eye. One of my readers once told me I have the naiveté of a four-year old, but since this article is a celebration of my first article of a new year, at least for this week I beg your indulgence. After all, for a year my words have been visiting you. The imagination is infinitely powerful, and our Creator has bestowed upon us, no matter where we are, the promise of brotherhood.

So although on this dreary night, my words travel disconnected and distant from my physical being, in the geography of the heart, I am never so far away that I won't stop by and visit at least once a week.

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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 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", teaches the native art of oral tradition storytelling.