GEORGE KONRAD
247
lines was struck by the reluctance among his West German conversation
partners to picture a Europe that was no longer defined by the iron
curtain and hence redefined Germany's place in the balance of power.
The experts labeled all such talk a pipe dream: the serious public was
engrossed in debating the desirable number of missiles to be maintained
on German soil. But when the Hungarians opened the borders to the
East Germans, the Wall came tumbling down - and with it an entire
way of thinking. Suddenly our mutual dependence and responsibility
were as clear as allegory.
Euphoria over the change in system stemmed from a genuine sense of
liberation when the air came whooshing out of the imaginary collective
ego as out of an old balloon. The keen observer will note, however,
that there are new balloons on the market.
Looking backwards, we must keep in mind that communist censor–
ship did more than prohibit; it affirmed, affirmed all manner of things.
Moreover, it did so in exalted tones and as often as not in the first-per–
son plural. Even its first-person singular was essentially a first-person plu–
ral.
What the unsuspecting man in the street fails to see is that once
more a common ego has started talking in the first-person plural.
It
may
don the toga of independence, but it talks in terms of "us all." A clear
statement of independence is not enough, nor even the sincere desire to
put it into practice: good intentions are not sufficient to ensure the
creation of, say, good poetry.
State functionaries during the communist period had no idea how
much their every move was conditioned by the state , how much the
one-party-state first-person-plural mentality had permeated their con–
sciousness. Shifting to a nation-state first-person-plural mentality does not
take a great mental effort. Shifting from the first-person plural of the
Soviet Empire, whose sole concern was to maintain its crumbling
colonies, to, say, the first-person plural of North Ossetia is perfectly sim–
ple and would be all well and good - were it not for Ingush neighbors.
The entire East European region is pregnant with new autonomies
ready to burst out into the world and show how unique they are, each
naturally enough vying to be first among equals as well as among mi–
norities. Until recently their aspirations were foiled by the Soviet Empire;
now they are foiled by a neighboring nation or nationality . The major–
ity foils the minority, the minority the majority. Roles may change, but
the other is always the troublemaker.
L'enfer
-
['est les autres
-
hell is
