1 (Sextus Adv. math. 7.132)

Cierro los ojos y veo una bandada de pájaros. La visión dura un segundo o acaso menos; no sé cuántos pájaros vi. ¿Era definido o indefinido su número? El problema involucra el de la existencia de Dios. Si Dios existe, el número es definido, porque Dios sabe cuántos pájaros vi. Si Dios no existe, el número es indefinido, porque nadie pudo llevar la cuenta. En tal caso, vi menos de diez pájaros (digamos) y más de uno, pero no vi nueve, ocho, siete, seis, cinco, cuatro, tres o dos pájaros. Vi un número entre diez y uno, que no es nueve, ocho, siete, seis, cinco, etcétera. Ese número entero es inconcebible, ergo, Dios existe.

Dezső Kosztolányi’s short story ‘Caligula’ was published in 1934. Written after the rise of Hitler and Mussolini to power, the work is as much about events then contemporary in Europe as it is about the mad Roman emperor who reigned AD 37–41.

1

The statue of Jupiter, when the workers wanted to break it up into pieces, began to laugh. The conspirators took this as a good sign. At that moment Caligula turned toward the oracle of Antium and received from Fortune’s temple this warning:

‘Beware of Cassius.’

2

Cassius Charea, the captain of the bodyguards and the leader of the revolutionaries, palely stood up among his followers. Every eye fell on him. They felt that Caligula’s glance too rested on the old centurion without seeing him, and suspicion burned in their hearts and minds.

News soon reached them that Caligula had executed Cassius Longinus instead, the governor of Asia.

Is he crazy? Cassius thought. Or is he joking with some of us? It seems to me like he has lost control of himself.

Caligua hadn’t lost control of himself. The next morning he called Cassius to an audience at six o’clock in the morning.

Cassius said goodbye to his wife and children. He hastened to the palace as one who is about to die would, whether by the sword, by the dagger, by poison.

3

Caligula was already awake by three o’clock. He could never sleep any later. Nightmares and terrible dreams tormented him. After a few hours of troubled sleep he got up and ordered that he be borne to the halls of the palace by torch and lamplight. He dismissed his servants and wandered around alone here and there with a hunched back, as if a monster in a terrible nightmare, supported by spindly legs. He waited for dawn.

He rested his elbow on the windowsill. In the frosty leaden-grey January sky was his glorious love, whom he always longed to hold in his arms, the Moon, but it wasn’t visible, for it rose above Rome among filthy green clouds. He spoke to it, soundlessly, in a constantly stammering tone.

In the meantime day broke.

4

Cassius, he greeted his guest, throwing open his hairy, bare arms to him. Come to me, he shouted and embraced Cassius.

Cassius obeyed, horrified.

Cassius was prepared for all sorts of things. He had heard that years before Caligua had invited the conspirators and, putting his swordpoint against his breast, offered like a sappy bad actor to die if they wished.

He heard that Caligula ordered an aristocrat to the palace at night and danced before him. He heard that Caligula had not punished a cobbler who called him a cheat. But this was a suprise.

5

Help me, Cassius, he continued. I trust you. I am surrounded by dangers. The Palatine games begin today. I am assigning you Cassius, you, to be the commander of my bodyguard.

He nervously glanced with fiery eyes, and then he laughed heartily. Cassius bowed, hestitating. He fell into a chair, because he could no longer stand on his weak, scrawny legs. His legs soon collapsed, as if his boots were empty.

6

Sit down, he reassured him. How old are you?

Fifty-eight.

I am twenty-nine, he jabbered. Still young. What, are you an old skirt-chaser? But how I suffer, Cassius. Indeed, a lot. My uncle Tiberius looked after me, that old, bloodthirsty tiger. He wiped out my entire family. He exiled my mother and forced her to commit suicide. He locked my brother Brutus away in prison and let him starve to death. He wanted to kill me too. I was still a little boy, and he constantly kept watch over me with spies and moles so that I wouldn’t turn against him or denounce him. When I slept, they bent over me and waited for what I would say in my sleep. They could have put poison into my food at any time. But I kept silent both awake and sleeping. I lied. I held a mask over my face. I played my part even better than a sombre, taciturn old man. I won. I saved my life. After than everything immediately opened up. I tried to live. I couldn’t manage. I wanted to tear off my mask. I couldn’t manage this either. Drusilla, my little sister, a goddess, died from a high fever. I was left all alone. In mourning I grew a beard and looked around me at the world. At first I laughed about how I could kill whoever I wanted. I adored gold. When I wasn’t content with what I had, I stripped off my clothes and had a roll in bed, so that I could feel blood flowing through my skin. I made faces at the mirror to scare myself. I made some great jokes too. I ripped out people’s tongues or cut them in half. I threw hundreds of foreigners into the sea and delighted how they floundered until they died. I starved the Romans, though my barns and storehouses were full. I destroyed the manuscripts of famous authors. Every day I dressed the statue of the god in Mars Field with the same as I was wearing, and then I struck off their heads and set my own portrait there. I had a marble stable built for my horse, with an ivory trough, and dined together with him in the stable, and I almost succeeded in making him a consul. I was loved once. The soldiers nicknamed me ‘little chick’ or ‘star’. In the joy of ascending the Roman throne I killed 160,000 beasts in three months. Now it all bores me. I can’t sleep. My eyelids droop. They say the problem is here. He tapped his forehead with a golden rod. Give me sleep, some sleep-inducing drink.

7

As Cassius listened he was almost moved. Caligula suddenly stood up held out his hand in farewell. Cassius kissed it. Only then did he realize that the emperor showed him a fig and his lips touched the fingernail of his thumb.

He blushed.

You monkey, Caligula warned him. Don’t be angry. Be on guard. And he dismissed him.

8

Cassius returned to his comrades with news of what had happened.

Kill him! Cornelius Sabinus cried. Strike at him immediately, stab him.

The festival games began that afternoon. Augustus had initiated these as a monument to his eastern campaigns, on an improvised stage near the imperial palace, only for noble citizens, senators, aristocrats. Caligula arrived with an escort of German bodyguards.

When the emperor entered, these lanky young men closed all of the entrances and stood in a row. He signaled his favour of them. He had selected some of them along the Rhine during his German campaign, but since he didn’t capture enough prisoners of war, he enlisted Romans among them as well, who were obliged to dye their hair blond, learn German and speak German.

The emperor came before the altar in a long yellow gown, a green wreath on his head. As he carried out the sacrifice, the flamingo blood sputtered and threw red specks on the bottom of his gown. Cornelius Sabinus exchanged a knowing glance with Cassius.

9

The first day passed, and then the second, without the conspirators daring to act. Callistus, a rich citizen and once a libertine, foamed with raged that the idiot was still alive. Caligula came and went among them freely, he reassured the wrestlers and the gladiators, and he applauded the singers and equestrians. He led the conspirators into bafflement. They thought that he was mocking them, that he wanted to lead them into a trap.

On the afternoon of the third day, he unexpectedly notified Cassius that he would go to the palace and have a bath. He advanced through the crowd without his German bodyguards. Along the way he greeted people here and there. He facetiously pulled at Cornelius Sabinus’s toga and winked. Well, what will it be? They didn’t understand. He ordered the bearers of his sedan-chair that they not bring him to the main entrance of the palace, but to the side entrance, a narrow underground corridor, where the young Asian aristocrats were learning their lines for the festival dramas, and being sensitive easterners they hid away from the cold, because it was freezing that day.

10

He descended here and spoke with some guests, a black Ethiopian and a yellow Egyptian, whose lips were blue from cold. He delayed there for a long time. Finally he heard that they slammed the gate shut, and then from far off at the end of the corridor a few flames lit up and slowly, very slowly approached him. In front, like some old dream shape that comes upon a dreamer, was Cassius.

The password? Cassius asked with soldierly disciple and formality.

Jupiter, Caligula answered at the top of his voice.

Then die in his name, Cassius cried and thrust his sword between Caligula’s outstretched arms.

Caligula dropped completely to the floor. Blood bubbled from his side.

I’m alive, he cried, as if mocking them, or lamenting.

Cornelius Sabinus, Callistus and the others set upon him. Three swords then bathed in his blood.

Caligula was still moving.

I’m alive, he felt one last time.

But then he turned remarkably pale and felt only that the world was without him, the mountains, the rivers and the stars too and he was no more. His head fell back. He opened his eyes and gazed almost adoringly at what he had always and even now searched for: nothing.

11

He face was white, bloodless and plain. The demented mask had fallen away. Only his face remained.

A soldier studied it for a long time. He was pleased that he recognized him now. He thought to himself:

A man.

How Esperanto Presents Itself

Esperanto’s roots lie in L.L. Zamenhof’s understanding of language. As a young man in imperial Warsaw, Zamenhof was disturbed by the partition of the city’s inhabitants into four uneasy communities (Yiddish, German, Russian, and Polish) based on their native tongues. Esperanto, he hoped, would provide a common ground for communication between the linguistic communities, eroding national divisions.

The largest international Esperanto organisation and the major lobbying force for the movement is World Esperanto Association (UEA) with headquarters in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. For the last couple of decades, World Esperanto Assocation has presented itself to various international bodies as an advocate of language rights and language diversity. It enjoys official relations with the United Nations and UNESCO. Representatives of UEA are often present at the meetings of these organisations, as in March of 2005 when UEA president Renato Corsetti and activist Andy Künzli attended the yearly meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights.

The Prague Manifesto, launched at the World Congress of Esperanto in Prague in 1996, strongly claims that Esperantists appreciate language diversity. The fourth point of the Manifesto is for ‘multilingualism’, the fifth for ‘language rights’, and the sixth for ‘language diversity’. In the decade since its launch, the Manifesto has often been presented to the public as a statement of principles that all Esperantists share.

Defence of national language is important, for language is culture, and inseparable from it. Language is the ultimate expression of human diversity. The effort to protect dying languages and to bring issues of language rights to the public’s attention is to be praised. One would think, then, that the Esperanto movement and UEA its voice provides a valuable service.

The Reality of Esperanto

However, the concern of language protection so strongly expressed in lobbying is in fact betrayed within the movement. Indeed, from the very beginning the Esperanto movement has been reluctant to protect diversity. It is important to note that Zamenhof himself did not seem to accept the idea of language diversity, instead seeking to impose a single language on international discourse for, he thought, the sake of peace. In those early days of Esperanto, national languages are not seen as expressions of diversity, worthy of protection, but rather as obstacles to overcome. Little has changed.

To return to the Prague Manifesto, let us consider the fourth point, for multilingualism:

Every member of the community has made the effort to learn at least one foreign language to a communicative level … We maintain that the speakers of all languages, large and small, should have a real chance of learning a second language to a high communicative level.

The one foreign language to which the Manifesto refers is, of course, Esperanto. Instead of emphasising the need to learn national languages, representing valuable and often endangered local cultures, the Esperanto movement considers its own artificial product a valid choice to fulfill the need for fluency in a second language. Furthermore, the point seems to accept this bare minimum of one language in addition to one’s native tongue, and does not advocate the continual education in languages throughout life necessary to understand language diversity.

In the sixth point of the Prague Manifesto we see a bold statement for language diversity.

In the Esperanto community … language diversity is experienced as a constant and indispensable source of enrichment. Consequently every language, like every biological species, is inherently valuable and worthy of protection and support.

Yet this goal contradicts the fifth point, for language rights.

In the Esperanto community the speakers of languages large and small, official and unofficial meet on equal terms through a mutual willingness to compromise.

Esperantists are so concerned with the notion of equality in communication that Esperanto is made mandatory and there is no space for the sharing of national languages. Language diversity cannot be a present reality if the use of a language is limited to its own small community with no cross-cultural exchange. In its zeal for putting two speakers on an (in any case unobtainable) ‘even ground’, the Esperanto movement destroys the diversity and multilingualism which it claims to support. In my experience, the idea of two people acheiving some wonderful equality through Esperanto is appreciated and praised much more highly among Esperantists than is the flourishing of national languages.

For an organisation claiming to defend language rights, UEA is strangely silent concerning actual examples of language oppression. For example, as I write this supporters of the Mari language in the Republic of Mari El in Russia are facing enormous obstacles, including beatings and loss of their jobs. Yet, UEA issues no condemnation against this and similar denials of the right to use one’s native language. The only ‘injustice’ which UEA seems to protest, to judge from the statements of its president Renato Corsetti , is the teaching of English as a foreign language.

To truly understand what the use and spread of Esperanto means for language diversity, however, we should examine its own body of speakers. Instead of protecting the native languages in its midst, Esperanto usually supplants them. Whenever two Esperantists meet, they are expected to speak Esperanto regardless of any command of each other’s language. Loyalty to Esperanto is meant to override curiosity about other cultures. It is obvious that this idea, applied vastly, cannot be reconciled with the public aim of protection of language diversity.

Indeed, Esperanto is so strongly obligatory that its use is expected among any two Esperantists even if they speak the same native language. The act of speaking in one’s native language with an Esperantist of the same mother tongue, referred to with the Esperanto neologism krokodilado, is one of the great taboos of the Esperanto movement and generally invites a scolding from other members of the movement.

The argument may arise that people attend congresses for the sake of practising Esperanto and therefore it is inappropriate to speak other languages. The first response is that, provided that they understand one another, it is never inappropriate for two people to speak the native language of one or the other, for to do otherwise is to rule out any true cultural exchange. A second response is that Esperantists cannot be expected to limit this insistence on Esperanto to congresses, for many Esperantists look to congresses as ideal environments. Many times I have heard some Esperantist say How I wish the whole world were like an Esperanto congress! The norms of congresses, including the censure of the use of any language other than Esperanto, would serve as models for all international communication, as well as for communication in international contexts between two people of the same native language.

Finally, the Esperanto movement’s claim of equality in communication is ludicrous, as the movement has a core of extremely fluent and normative speakers whose speech is challenging to new or ‘provincial’ Esperantists. I have occasionally seen such inequality in fluency or dialect between two Esperantists that they could switch to a national language and speak at greater ease. Not only is language diversity suppressed for the sake of equality, but the goal of equality itself is ultimately neglected.

The Wasted Opportunity of Congresses

Esperanto congresses are often presented as an ideal way to visit a foreign country and learn about its culture. However, in sheltering them entirely from the local language, congresses give participants no true contact with the host country.

A tourist who visits a foreign nation and eats only at restaurants belonging to international chains, ignoring local cuisine, understandably limits his understanding of the local culture. Yet, the Esperanto movement believes that tourists can truly have cross-cultural experiences when they speak only a foreign, constructed language and give no attention to the local language.

In 2001 TEJO, the youth section of UEA, ran a brief campaign to encourage the organisation of ‘language festivals’ at the city and regional level. These are events in which people could be exposed to many languages at a time and present their own language to the public, a noble idea. During the International Youth Congress of Esperanto in Strasbourg in 2001, a language festival was part of the programme and all participants of the congress were encouraged to attend. However, this experiment was not repeated, and the Esperanto community has in the subsequent years shown little interest in driving its members towards an appreciation for language diversity.

Until Esperanto congresses focus entirely on the culture of the host country and the cultures represented by participants, requiring all present to familiarise themselves with these and reserving Esperanto as a (admittedly occasionally useful) last resort, Esperanto congresses will continue to suppress language diversity.

Wasting of Public Resources

The Esperanto movement’s activities go beyond mere lobbying to use of public funds. UEA’s youth section TEJO receives thousands of euro annually from the Council of Europe for projects which propagate this supression of language diversity. TEJO mainly uses this funding to organise seminars on vacuous themes such as ‘project management’ or ‘youth co-operation’. With the exception of a seminar on organising language festivals in 2001 (for TEJO’s brief campaign) I cannot think of a single seminar where the public funding was truly used for the furthering of language diversity. Indeed, a frequent criticism of these seminars is they seem to have little effect beyond raising a new generation of activists who will in turn organise more meaningless seminars.

Esperanto is not a harmless hobby enjoyed by afficionados in their personal time, but rather it is deeply involved with public institutions. Yet, the consequences of the movement’s ideals are undesirable for the public which these institutions serve.

Better Than English?

Esperantists often say that they are standing up to a worldwide hegemony of English, but it is clear that Esperanto imposes its own hegemony so strictly that even English could be called preferable. I have seen far more interest in learning and practising other languages in English-using international circles than among Esperantists.

During recent travels to Spain, I had the opportunity to observe participants in a pan-European seminar on youth and globalisation. While English was the default language of this group, in conversations between any two people the participants would often switch to the native language of one or the other. For example, a young man from France would greet another in English, but upon discovering that his conversation partner is from Italy, would switch to Italian. This would not find approval among Esperantists. Ironically, English proves the neutral choice here. It is often seen as a sure bet for international communication among young people in many countries, but it is well understood that other languages may serve just as well. In the Esperanto movement, on the other hand, there is an ideological attachment to Esperanto which mandates its use even if there are other, more culturally rich possibilities.

Esperanto tends to impose its vocabulary upon the native languages of its speakers just as English is so often assailed for. In his book Esperanto sen mitoj (‘Esperanto without myths’, Antwerp: Flandra Esperanto-Ligo, 1999) author Ziko Marcus Sikosek gives a hypothetical German-language conversation among a local workgroup absurdly riddled with Esperanto parlance, a phenomenon that nearly all Esperantists have experienced. One can see immediately the kind of detrimental effect Esperanto can bring.

Da hat ein estrarano von TEJO geschrieben, daß er einen kontribuo für den internacia vespero oder das distra programo hat. Gibt’s dafür ’n rabato? Sein aliĝilo und die antaŭpago haben wir. Dann beträge seine kotizo als memzorganto und B-landano noch 50 Mark.

(Sikosek 1999: 166)

Alternatives

There are ways to meaningfully improve the lot of national languages and enjoy the same benefits which Esperanto claims to provide without being involved with the Esperanto movement.

Instead of supporting the duplicitous work of World Esperanto Assocation, one should give attention to other organisations for language protection, such as Onze Taal in Holland or the Youth Association of Finno-Ugric Peoples (MAFUN) in Finland, Estonia, Hungary, and Russia.

Esperanto congresses are fun international events, but one can find the very same ambience at a summer language course. Instead of spending your holidays among Esperantists, speaking their artificial language and ignoring national cultures, consider registering in a course on an endangered minority language, where you can conscientiously help to preserve a valuable and threatened culture while still enjoying tourism and sightseeing.

If you are a citizen of a member country of the Council of Europe, consider writing to your representatives to protest the Council of Europe’s funding of the activities of World Esperanto Association’s youth section, which do nothing to further the goal of a truly diverse Europe. Protest UEA’s representation in formal supranational meetings. The claims of Esperantists about the goals of their movement should be met and refuted so that governments can provide productive undertakings for their citizens.

Esperanto is clearly detrimental to language diversity. I hope the public will better understand the urgent need for protection of national languages and will see that Esperanto is not only unproductive to such goals, but in fact threatens the ‘rainbow’ of languages.