Is This a Great Country, or What?

Personal letter to Marco Lokar, Trieste, Italy, care of Seton Hall University, South Orange, N.J.:

“Dear Marco:

“Please come back to the United States first chance, after the war with Iraq, with divine mercy, is over.

“And please forgive those who caused you to go away, the ones who welcomed you to America and then challenged you to love it or leave it.

“I suspect you must be telling people back home about the so-called ‘free country’ where freedom of choice isn’t necessarily a reality.

“Well, freedom of choice also includes freedom of dissent, which in turn gives citizens the right to disagree with you .

“In your case, Marco, certain people who opposed you went too far. But keep in mind that in any country, it takes only a hostile few to influence the lives of a great many.

“When you came to play basketball for Seton Hall, you were just one of the boys. You were not some ‘foreigner.’ You were simply a player.

“Two years ago, when Seton Hall played for the national championship, one of its most popular players was Andrew Gaze, an Australian enrolled in classes for that one year. Gaze was never looked upon as some outsider. He was looked upon as someone with an outside shot.

“You’re not even that good a player, Marco. You scored only a few points each game.

“But you were definitely part of the team.

“At least until the war broke out. After that, someone at Seton Hall decided to show support for U.S. troops overseas by displaying American flag patches on every basketball player’s uniform.

“Nobody forced every member of the Seton Hall student body to wear these emblems around campus. For every other student, there was freedom of choice.

“You thought that applied to you, too. But it didn’t. Not as far as part of the public was concerned, it didn’t.

“The coaches never objected when you chose not to wear a flag on your uniform. But certain Seton Hall ‘fans’ did. They booed your every flagless move. And certain others did. They made threatening calls, wrote threatening letters, confronted you with abuse.

“You tolerated it for a while. But as it became more and more upsetting to your pregnant wife, you realized that even though the fighting was supposed to be in Asia, it was no longer safe to be living in America. Maybe not even safe to have someone born in America.

“So, you left. Quit school. Went home to Trieste.

“And maybe the angry citizens felt satisfied. Maybe even justified. They conducted their own little Ox-Bow Incident, pronounced you guilty of behavior contrary to the general welfare and made your life a living hell-- just because you didn’t wear a flag on your basketball uniform .

“I don’t know, Marco. I don’t know what to tell you.

“I don’t even know what your reasons were. Maybe you have friends in or near Iraq. Maybe you objected to mixing politics with sports. Maybe you protest American presence in the Persian Gulf, or simply protest war in general, the same way thousands of Americans do every day along city streets.

“I don’t know what gets into people. I don’t know why it is acceptable to have opinions, so long as it is theirs.

“You were in the minority. You weren’t ‘one of us.’ Whatever their reasons, these people treated your Seton Hall teammates as though they were playing with the enemy.

“There is a high school team in Dearborn, Mich., on which 10 of 12 players are Arab-Americans. These players have been heckled and abused. One player’s surname is Hussein. He cannot help that. He hasn’t done anything. He doesn’t want to live in the Middle East. He wants to live in the American Midwest.

“Sometimes, I think the Statue of Liberty must feel like going out for a good cry.

“There are a lot of Americans who fully support the war effort who nevertheless would refuse to stitch a flag onto their lapels if so instructed by their superiors.

“The administration of Seton Hall should shoulder the responsibility for sacrificing one of its innocent student-athletes.

“By removing the flag emblems from the players’ persons and demonstrating troop support in dozens of other ways--banners on the wall, pregame moments of silence, flags painted onto the court--Seton Hall could have spared a young man much unneeded humiliation and torment.

“They say you are welcome to come back, Marco. They say your scholarship will be safe. They say you can play basketball here again.

“But if you do, just make sure that you are singing our national anthem before every game and not just moving your lips. Because somebody is going to be checking.”

Sincerely A U.S. Citizen