Impromptus

A great man, &c.

By
Paul Rusesabagina in Washington, D.C., January 28, 2016 (Marvin Joseph / The Washington Post)
On ‘the hotel manager,’ Rwanda’s Paul Rusesabagina; the chess and freedom champion Garry Kasparov; the Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo; and more

Every now and then, you have an opportunity to meet a great man. Some of them are famous, most of them are not. I had such an opportunity last week when I met Paul Rusesabagina. He is known throughout the world as “the hotel manager.” That’s because a movie was made about him, in 2004: Hotel Rwanda. President George W. Bush saw that movie twice. He met with Rusesabagina in the Oval Office. They discussed, among other things, the genocide in Sudan. Later, Bush gave Rusesabagina the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In the Rwandan genocide, Paul Rusesabagina saved more than one thousand people.

Rwanda has a dictator, Paul Kagame. He has ruled for more than 20 years, having taken power in 2000. Rusesabagina is a foe of this dictatorship. He was seized in August 2020 and made a prisoner. He was, of course, treated brutally. All the while, people campaigned for his release, and those people started with his daughters Carine and Anaïse. I wrote about them last year (here). They are remarkable, admirable young women. Rusesabagina and his wife, Tatiana, adopted them after their parents were murdered in the genocide.

Thanks to the international pressure on the Kagame regime, Rusesabagina was released last month. Last week, he attended a dinner in New York, with Carine and Anaïse. I took a picture of him:

He and I discussed several issues, and he said to me, “You have to stand up for what you believe.” He said this with great dignity and conviction — a quiet conviction. The statement did not sound trite from him, at all. It sounded deeply meaningful.

People like me risk almost nothing. What do we risk? “Mean tweets”? Mean “comments”? Disinvitations? Will we lose out on the chance to do a cable-TV “hit” at 1:14 p.m.? We risk relatively nothing. But people such as Paul Rusesabagina and Vladimir Kara-Murza (the Russian political prisoner) — they risk everything. I admire them no end.

People sometimes say they are “humbled” by this or that. I can tell you that, shaking Paul Rusesabagina’s hand, I felt humble. And he is humble himself, clearly. And a great man.

• So is Garry Kasparov, the chess champion. And the freedom champion. He is the founder of the Renew Democracy Initiative, and it was an event of that organization at which Rusesabagina and his daughters — and other members of his family — appeared.

Kasparov was born in the Soviet Union, and he knows Communism, and he knows dictatorship, very well. He was widely hailed as the best chess player who had ever lived. He could have spent the rest of his days as the retired champion — putting his feet up, gathering laurels. Instead, he has stuck his neck out for freedom, democracy, and human rights. He has made himself a target of authoritarians — particularly Russian ones — and their legions of supporters, everywhere.

Kasparov said to me once, “I never wanted to be a statue. That would be boring. Plus, you know what pigeons do to statues.”

I sometimes make a statement — a particular observation — that Kasparov contradicts. Let me tell you what the statement is, before I give his contradiction. I say, “Kasparov didn’t have to do it, you know. He didn’t have to throw himself into human-rights work. He chose to do so.”

We could say the same of Andrei Sakharov, before him. Sakharov was a great scientist, at the top of the Soviet heap — one of the most honored men in the whole, vast USSR. And he threw all that away to take a stand for human rights. He suffered greatly for that stand.

Boris Nemtsov, too, was a great scientist, or a great-scientist-to-be. He earned his Ph.D. in physics at age 25 and was a protégé of Vitaly Ginzburg, a Nobel laureate. Ginzburg told him that he was throwing away a great scientific career. But Nemtsov entered politics, working for a decent and humane Russia, and he was murdered, of course, in 2015.

To repeat: My line is, “Kasparov didn’t have to do it.” But he contradicts me, saying, “In a way, I did. I do.” There’s no real choice. Conscience compels him. He can do no other.

Over the last 25 years, I have talked with a great many dissidents and political prisoners — former political prisoners, future political prisoners. (I have talked with a few current ones, too.) They all say that. They all say the same thing: “I had to do it, I have to do it. There’s no choice.” Conscience compels them. They can do no other.

Earlier, I mentioned the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Bush gave the medal, not only to Rusesabagina, but also to Natan Sharansky (formerly Anatoly Shcharansky). And to Óscar Elías Biscet, a leading prisoner of conscience in Cuba. Of course Bush would. That’s him.

I hope that a future president, of a similar strain, will bestow the medal on Garry Kasparov. And Vladimir Kara-Murza. And many astonishing and invaluable others.

• Sometimes, you hear of a great man only when he has died. Here is a report by Ellen Knickmeyer, of the Associated Press. It begins,

Bound to Sudan by ailing parents and his devotion to treating the poor there, American doctor Bushra Ibnauf Sulieman kept working as long as he could after fighting engulfed Sudan’s capital.

The report continues,

For days after battles between two rival Sudanese commanders erupted in Khartoum on April 15, the 49-year-old Sulieman treated the city’s wounded. He and other doctors ventured out as explosions shook the walls of homes where Khartoum’s people cowered inside. Gunfire between the two factions battling for control resounded in the streets.

Dr. Sulieman was “a U.S.-born gastroenterologist who divided his time and work between Iowa City, Iowa, and Khartoum.”

One more sentence, hard to take:

In the wholesale looting that has accompanied fighting in the capital, Khartoum, a city of 5 million, a roving band of strangers surrounded him in his yard Tuesday, stabbing him to death in front of his family.

What a man he was — is. “Dr. Bushra Ibnauf Sulieman.” A name to remember, and hail.

• It is hard to “transition” after that. Giannis Antetokounmpo is a great basketball player, as you know, one of the best in the NBA. After his team, the Milwaukee Bucks, was knocked out in the first round of the playoffs, a reporter asked him whether he considered the season a failure. Giannis was frustrated at the question, but he answered it interestingly, and even movingly. In the course of his remarks, he said to the reporter, rebukefully, “Why did you ask that question?”

If I had been in the reporter’s shoes, I would have said, “First, because it’s my job — that’s what I’m here for. But second, to elicit such marvelous answers as the one you gave.”

See what you think:

• I thought this was . . . really something. You may like it too.

• This rang my chimes:

(Don McLean wrote that song in 1971. Honestly, I can’t remember life without it. It has always been, or long been, part of the atmosphere.)

• Speaking of music, I have a “New York chronicle” for you, in the new New Criterion: here. Under discussion is a range of composers, performers, and issues.

I wish you a happy Monday.

If you would like to receive Impromptus by e-mail — links to new columns — write to jnordlinger@nationalreview.com.

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