ABSTRACT: Document on Esperanto prepared for the 36th Congress of the Radical Party (Rome, Hotel Ergife, 30 April - 3 may)

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Asking if Esperanto is dangerous may seem strange to a lot of people. Can a language, which does not have the power of the state behind it, and is only spoken by a few hundreds of thousands of people, actually be dangerous?

The first Esperantists also asked themselves this question when they had to deal with the hostility of the Tzarist empire. They had answered the call of Zamenhof to create universal brotherhood by eliminating language barriers, and they were extremely surprised that such an innocent goal should meet with such antagonism. They reacted simply by emphasizing the fact that what they were aiming to do would in no way endanger anybody. But this did not allay the suspicions of the Tzarist authorities and, quite without reason, they associated the Esperantists with the revolutionaries.

Luckily, the Esperantist movement also became established in Western Europe, where people were generally more tolerant. The Esperantists argued that their language could greatly facilitate communication in an era when trade was developing globally, and this helped them to gain support in France and other countries, where people were enjoying the fruits of a plurennial struggle for liberty, equality and fraternity.

Nevertheless, Esperanto had always met with opposition in France, where it was earmarked as dangerous and said to be contrary to the country's interests. The truth of the matter was that the authorities feared Esperanto might have an adverse effect on the mind of the average citizen, that is, it would counteract the effects of nationalistic propaganda. The Esperantists contested this by replying that an international language in no way conflicted with national loyalty, and that a good subject had to look beyond national frontiers. This point of view was still upheld in the Twenties: the Esperantist movement grew, thanks to the "neutral" position it maintained in politics, religion and race relations, and thanks also to the general situation which permitted a moderate form of internationalism to coexist with patriotism.

As everyone knows, this situation changed radically with the advent of Fascism and Nazism. The German Esperantists felt the effect of this most. The Esperantist organizations had to disband in 1936, after having tried unsuccessfully to defend their right to exist by using the arguments they had always adopted in previous decades. It was not possible for them to survive because the Nazi regime would not tolerate a compromise between nationalist and internationalist views but demanded complete subservience. For the first time, the Esperantists found themselves up against a government that did not commit itself, even verbally, to international co-operation. They also found that the Nazis condemned everything that was international and of Jewish origin, which, according to them, had to be destroyed. They also learned that Esperanto had once again been tagged as dangerous.

Almost simultaneously, the Esperantists in the Soviet Union were persecuted. They were one of the principle targets in the Great Purge of 1937/38, during which they were arrested, sent to labour camps, and executed. This happened because Esperanto was used to great effect in letters written by Soviet citizens to people abroad. In these letters, they transmitted news to the West which showed the Soviet regime in a bad light, and revealed aspects of daily life in the Soviet Union that official propaganda was doing its utmost to hide.

These two instances of unwarranted persecution made the Esperantists realize that they had underestimated Esperanto's potential. They had always been confident that if the number of people who spoke the language grew steadily this would eventually lead to official support, and that the sceptics would be convinced by the fact that Esperanto was being used, and offered real benefits. What they hadn't reckoned with was the poltical and social context in which they had to function. They had never considered, and did not want to consider, the ways in which a political movement or regime could promote Esperanto, and so they were completely unprepared when it came to dealing with Stalinist and Hitlerian oppression.

It was this very oppression that led the Esperantists to understand why their persecutors considered Esperanto itself to be dangerous. However, when they understood the political implications of their project, the general situation had already begun to change. While it became evident that Esperanto could only function in countries that were at least in some way democratic, all the powers that had violently opposed international communication were already going through a crisis. In theory, then, conditions were becoming extremely favourable for Esperanto, and the Esperantists were once again able to plead their cause in their original tone of voice, which was neither haranguing nor aggressive.

In reality, no one can define Esperanto as dangerous. But this doesn't mean that all the obstacles have been overcome.

To clarify this, let us first take a look at the various factors which favour the adoption of Esperanto.

- We find ourselves living in an era in which international communications are constantly being intensified. People have become more aware of global interdependence, mass media are being perfected to such an extent that it is possible, via satellite, to broadcast knowledge to the furthest corners of the earth, international tourism is expanding at an incredible rate, and this permits the "masses" to glimpse traditions and living conditions that are radically different to their own.

- There is virtually not one government whose policies do not embrace world peace and international collaboration.

- The linguistic situation in the international organizations has become critical. An extremely large slice of their budgets is dedicated solely to linguistic communication. There seems to be no way out of the dilemma created by equal rights for all languages, on the one hand, and the need to be practical and reduce costs.

- Esperanto is no longer opposed on a political or ideological basis, and has not been since the socialist regimes disappeared. Esperantists are only regarded with suspicion here and there, in some Muslim countries, for example - because of Zamenhof being of Jewish origin - and because some people think that Esperanto's internationalist approach links it to Zionism.

Neverthless, Esperanto is not spreading more rapidly even though the conditions are more favourable now. It is not actively opposed, but it is contested in a way in which it has been since it was first created. Let's say that it meets with "passive" opposition. This is manifest in a disregard for the problem of equal rights in the area of languages, the fear of a possible "victory" for Esperanto, a lack of awareness of the vitality of the language, and the misinterpretation of the Esperantist movement's aims.

Some of these arguments against Esperanto can easily be defeated, for example, the prejudice that Esperantists are seeking to universalize their language and render national languages either subordinate or obselete, which is held by a surprising number of people. However, as Esperanto has been in use for over one hundred years the world has had many opportunities to see exactly how it functions. It is often possible to placate Esperanto's critics, but it is also necessary to continually communicate the facts about Esperanto in order to counteract the incorrect information that has been given to the public. The Esperantists are helped in this by the fact that the tendency to criticise Esperanto as being an artificial language has considerably diminished in recent years.

However, there is one particular area in which it is very difficult to eliminate criticism. Esperanto is, in fact, often accused of not having a cultural tradition. The Esperantists naturally react by informing critics just how much of a cultural language it has become, by citing literary works that have either been written, or translated, in Esperanto. But people are not always convinced by this argument. Why?

In the first place, we realize that the argument concerning Esperanto's lack of "cultural tradition" has considerable weight in this era in which "regional" cultures are being revived and the homologizing effect of technology is being resisted on a world level. It is, therefore, no wonder that it is difficult to eliminate the suspicion that Esperanto also has an homologizing effect.

In this instance, perhaps attack would be the best defence. We have to be courageous and acknowledge the observation that Esperanto does not have a cultural tradition. However, this does not mean that we agree with those people who say that it is not possible to render nuances or to tell tell jokes in Esperanto, that there is no real Esperantist literature, and that it is not possible to translate from Arabic or Japanese into Esperanto. It possesses all these qualities. Saying that Esperanto has no cultural tradition means this: Esperanto is not in fact backed by a feeling of solidarity - which would strengthen it - in the same way that national languages are strengthened. National languages draw on a centuries-old cultural tradition and are reinforced by the common sentiments of the respective nations. Esperanto is in a very weak position compared to national languages which possess a rich, multifaceted cultural tradition, simply because it relies on a feeling of solidariety that is itself weak, in

other words, a feeling of international solidarity. The world is becoming internationalized on a technical, economic and political level, while the international aspect of man, of the "masses", is completely underdeveloped.

When we speak about furthering international relations, we are not illuding ourselves. The fact that one can communicate with all parts of the world and technological and scientific developments permit one to explore every corner of the earth, still does not bring the different nations and cultures together. It is often man's traditional way of thinking that stops him actively participating in an international society, but we have also noticed that there is even an unwillingness to take advantage of that which progress has theoretically rendered possible. When examining the above-mentioned tendency to resist homologization on an international level, it is very difficult to distinguish between an understandable desire to defend individual cultures, on the one hand, and the somewhat provincial tendency to remain apart from others, to reject anything foreign, on the other, which combined contribute to dividing the world anew. Millions of people travel abroad, more out of curiosity than a desire to learn,

and it is almost wiser to stay at home. Mass tourism concentrates more on satisfying the individual's desire for the exotic than increasing a person's knowledge. In a similar way, when announcing that international communications have been revolutionized, people give importance to improving and making the latest developments in mass media available to everyone, that is, concentrating on the technological aspect. The fact that ordinary people should have the possibility of exchanging information and communicating directly, without an intermediary, is almost never discussed. The fact also remains that many governments, in spite of the fact that they say they are all in favour of international co-operation, have a tendency to protect themselves from outside influences, using the mass media in their country to transmit an image of the world distorted by their own ideology, or utilizing their own economic power to create unidirectional cultural propaganda.

The concept that people should be able to live their lives in peace, that collaboration between countries should include the peaceful coexistence of their peoples, of the individual, in an atmosphere of mutual understanding, is once again slowly gaining ground. In short: we need people to feel that they arre united, and that the are linked by a feeling of solidarity.

This feeling has always existed to a minor degree, and it is the cultural tradition from which Esperanto was born. Zamenhof's language belongs to a cosmpolitic tradition which has existed for millenia, even though it has remained dormant for centuries and has only remained partially alive, especially in the last 200 years. The people who have adopted Esperanto have not only advocated cosmopolitanism, but have also actually created solidarity between people, so successfully, that opposing dictators like Hitler and Stalin condemned Esperanto as dangerous, and mercilessly persecuted its supporters. They almost succeeded in "exterminating" Esperanto and, with it, the hope that humanity was on the way to becoming united.

Esperanto has outlived the dictators, its supporters are no longer persecuted, and the language is spreading in many countries. But, as we have seen, there are still a number of obstacles in the way. We have tried to define these here. It would seem that what Mario Pei, the American linguist, wrote a few years ago is still essentially true: "Governments do not favour an international language. They believe that such a language would weaken their hold over the individual. Notwithstanding the fact that many governments profess to support a internationalism, very few of them actually do".

But the age of the dictators is over, and people can now influence the policies of their governments, even if slowly. And what we're talking about here is too important for the Esperantists to deal with alone. The problem, to which Esperanto would be a fitting solution, is already understood at a world level: people are understanding more and more that it is necessary to both facilitate international relations and respect the individual democratic cultures in the world; that it is necessary to resolve the linguistic chaos that exists, and to uphold the right to language. But there is a general lack of awareness of the need for a common feeling that will unite the people who live on this planet, and of the fact that to create this feeling and keep it alive, people must start communicating.