As America celebrated the 250th anniversary of its birth, thoughts about this country occupy my mind. America is more than a country. It is an idea. It has also been presented as an exceptional nation, the "first new nation," according to Seymour Martin Lipset. What do these profound statements mean? I will return to these important questions toward the end.
But I want to begin with a humbler and perhaps somewhat unusual question: What does America mean to someone who grew up in a provincial town in Bangladesh -- then East Pakistan -- witnessing both America's generosity and its barbarity at the same time, like the Janus-faced figure of mythology?
America was a land of great movies and music -- a mecca of popular culture, jazz, and Hollywood. One of my favourite pastimes during my school days in the small town of Bagerhat was going to the morning show at the local cinema, Light Hall, with my friend Amal.
The films we watched ranged from Night of the Generals, starring Peter O'Toole, to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. We were captivated by those movies and, perhaps unconsciously, developed a deep admiration for American creativity and ingenuity.
At school, we were sometimes given dried milk powder donated by the United States. The packages bore the images of the American and Pakistani flags joined in a handshake. We were also enamoured of John F Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline. While still in school, I read Kennedy's biography and even attempted to read a Bangla translation of his Profiles in Courage, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.
Jacqueline Kennedy visited Pakistan in the early 1960s and was famously photographed with Bashir, a Pakistani camel-cart driver. Bashir was invited to visit America following his chance encounter with Vice President Lyndon B Johnson during Johnson's earlier visit to Pakistan. We were fascinated by this story of kindness, friendship, and human connection. Looking back, it was perhaps an early example of American soft power, long before Joseph Nye coined the term.
As a school student, I picked up a condensed version of The Ugly American in Reader's Digest. Set in a fictional Southeast Asian country that was clearly meant to evoke Vietnam, the book told a story very different from what I had expected. The "ugly American" turned out to be a man of generosity -- a good Samaritan who used his technical knowledge to improve the lives and well-being of ordinary villagers.
Later, when I was in college, I learned about the My Lai Massacre -- an episode of shocking American brutality. On March 16, 1968, US Army soldiers killed hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, in the village of My Lai. The massacre was initially covered up but was later exposed, becoming one of the most notorious war crimes of the Vietnam War and profoundly shaping public opinion about the conflict.
I vividly remember reading the horrifying details in Time magazine. The actions of Second Lieutenant William Calley, Captain Ernest Medina, and the soldiers under their command, who rampaged through the village killing almost everything that moved, left an indelible impression on me.
We were further disillusioned by the American role during Bangladesh's Liberation War. By then, as a somewhat more mature young man, I had begun to appreciate the complexities and contradictions of America.
While the Nixon-Kissinger administration opposed Bangladesh's struggle for independence, Senator Edward Kennedy and many Democrats strongly supported our cause.
Ted Kennedy visited the refugee camps in West Bengal and worked tirelessly to mobilize support for Bangladesh. American schoolchildren even raised money from their lunch allowances to help the millions of refugees.
America, I was beginning to realize, was never a single voice.
During my years in America, in the Reagan era, I came to know another side of this remarkable country -- not politically, but personally.
It was a beautiful land inhabited by people capable of extraordinary kindness and generosity. We became close friends with several families who would probably be described as politically conservative. Yet they welcomed us warmly, cared for us deeply, and opened their hearts to us.
Since both my wife and I were doctoral students, our department became an extended family. When my wife was expecting our first child, our colleagues organized a baby shower for us -- an act of warmth we have never forgotten.
Some of the happiest years of my life were spent in America. We were charmed not only by its natural beauty but also by the kindness and generosity of its people.
America has long been known for its vibrant civic life. Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in the 1830s, marvelled at Americans' civic spirit, voluntary associations, and active public life. What impressed him most was the absence of deeply entrenched social hierarchies -- the very opposite of what he had known in his native France.
The ideals that America represents, embodied in its Constitution and the Bill of Rights, are rooted in the Enlightenment values of liberty and equality. Liberty, in both its political and economic dimensions, became the cornerstone of the American experiment.
Deeply influenced by thinkers such as John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, America also emerged as a society relatively free from feudal traditions and rigid ideological structures. These characteristics have often been cited as the foundations of what later came to be known as American exceptionalism.
In the late eighteenth century, the United States became the first nation to free itself from European colonial rule. Since declaring independence in 1776, America has remained, for many, a beacon of freedom and opportunity, while for others it has also been a source of domination and oppression.
It is this enduring paradox -- between idealism and power, generosity and violence -- that has shaped my lifelong engagement with America.
It is perhaps this paradox that makes America not merely a country, but an idea that continues to inspire, provoke, and perplex the world.
Habibul Haque Khondker is a sociologist and columnist.