I. What it means to be a Greek writer in today's world
You speak a language that has never ceased to be spoken, from antiquity to the present day. Yet, this tremendous cultural heritage, in everyday global life, easily becomes a burden. Translate. Always get your spirit translated in order to be understood. Your voice and your critical texts and your books and your science and everything. Get them translated. Otherwise silence. Nobody hears what you have to say. Nobody listens to it. One may oppose that the same applies to other languages of minor dissemination (see below sections II-IV). It is exactly so but speaking Greek implies a very specific difference.
To put it in plain words: it is as if you are the descendant of a very prosperous, historic family, but a decadent one, with no future ahead. You are left with memories, nothing substantial to feed yourself upon, only the ancient glory and a huge obstacle of communication with the rest of the world – who is aware enough of the glorious past but obstinately unwilling to learn whatever concerns the present, whatever happens beyond the Zorba / touristic context.
You may download here an interview of A.M. taken in 2002 by Canadian cultural activist Myrna Kostash, in which issues of language and diversity are discussed in the complicate Greek conditions of the period just before the Olympics of 2004.
To put it in plain words: it is as if you are the descendant of a very prosperous, historic family, but a decadent one, with no future ahead. You are left with memories, nothing substantial to feed yourself upon, only the ancient glory and a huge obstacle of communication with the rest of the world – who is aware enough of the glorious past but obstinately unwilling to learn whatever concerns the present, whatever happens beyond the Zorba / touristic context.
You may download here an interview of A.M. taken in 2002 by Canadian cultural activist Myrna Kostash, in which issues of language and diversity are discussed in the complicate Greek conditions of the period just before the Olympics of 2004.
| Aris M. Interview.pdf |
II. What it means to be a minor language writer today
We live in a world in which everything with great rapidity
takes on the garb of economic size, of quantifiable product, of exchange value.
The trend is to create «global customers that want global services by global
suppliers», an aggressive round-the-clock marketing that dominates all aspects
of everyday life.
In this world of ours global and regional alliances and organizations governmental, non-governmental and private are superseding the imagined community of the nation-state. Actually the world is being re-imagined and re-shaped, by media magnates, transnational companies, drafters of human rights documents, and organizers of “international” conferences. All these agents implement various language policies, regional, national, supranational, governing some languages uses or domains, from education to entertainment and from the media to consumer goods. But most of these policies conform to a hegemonic linguistic ordering in which some languages are evidently more equal than others.
Many writers and intellectuals whose mother tongue is summarized in the euphemism of the «less diffused» languages, experience the consequences of this global fact as the main actors of a play staged by unknown powers; and thus they react as the workers of the manufactures at the time the first steam machines turned them into factories: instictively, regressively, in despair.
Things have been shaped nowdays in such a way that writers and intellectuals are obliged to choose and accordingly defend one of two distinct global language policy options:
A. The “diffusion of the English” paradigm B. the “ecology of language” paradigm[i].
The first paradigm is grounded on the following social economic and cultural standards:
a. Capitalism
b. Science and Technology
c. Modernization
d. Monolingualism
e. Ideological globalization and Internationalization
f. Transnationalization
g. Americanization and Homogenization of world culture
h. Linguistic, cultural and media imperialism
This particular paradigm is at the heart of all contemporary debates about globalization and book policies –where statistics prove a marked imbalance in the proportions of domestic and imported literary production: the translations of Anglo-American literary works are steadily over-represented on the markets of smaller countries, particularly those in Eastern and Central Europe, where, during the last decade, the share of imported cultural products has risen dramatically. Evidently, the importance of this paradigm extends beyond books and literature; it implies some essential factors which constitute the major foundations of our contemporary existence:
1. The market dominates all aspects of life: from civil rights to emotional and sexual life, from social security to entertainment, from culture to ethics etc.
2. Profit is the ultimate and only measure for estimating concepts, values, attitudes, and even sentiments or cultural events.
3. Cultural goods are treated as mere commodities or consumer goods.
4. Powerful cultural industries possess the means to promote a single cultural model dominating other possible cultural models; they assert themselves in a totalitarian manner at the local and global level and so they marginalize all kinds of national, ethnic, minor, etc. cultures.
5. The culture industries possess a large share in the symbolic area with works designed to suit all the consumers of the planet; works that blur memory and historical perspective; works that are linked to no specific national region and in which instant impressions are favored over analysis and critical distance; in this way they clearly undermine the dialogue between different cultures, languages, literary and artistic trends etc.
Living up with these facts means consequences that are equally familiar to everyone: Human values, civil rights, quality of life and historical memory no more guide the choices of people. We live a virtual reality where the medium is more than ever the message; and the medium is not the spoken and written word, but the electronically diffused image. Digital images are widely diffused as a substitute of language while global images are widely diffused as a substitute of a substitute, which means as a global language. In this virtual world, thought, criticism, intervention, participation, truth and falsehood are limited to their virtual versions: fair/ethical/legal is exclusively that which television or any equivalent mass media production of the kind presents as such.
Even the form of intellectual commitment itself has become a manner of expression that aims at producing audience ratings –that is to say, support rather than criticism–. It therefore no longer seeks to analyze, enlighten, and understand but, on the contrary, to simplify and produce the greatest value on emotional response in a world where show time and emotional manipulation have replaced the interchange of experiences. On this particular basis the so-called social media have been massively developed during the past decade.
Seemingly the 90% of the images that dominate the planet (made in the USA) govern the planet without any resistance whatsoever. The language most widely spoken on the planet (re-shaped in –and diffused mainly by– the USA) governs the planet without any resistance whatsoever.
Further consequences to this:
Ever larger social groups throughout the world earn their living in ways which in the past would have been considered criminal, immoral or inhuman. Never before have such large sections of the population been ready to sell anything and everything: the environment, their country, their cultural heritage, their ethics, their aesthetics, their values, their daughter, their knowledge, their language and, above all, their hopes for a more human world. Never before has political corruption been perpetuated so easily by the relaxed attitude to it of a large section of the population. Never before has the American Dream achieved such widespread dominance as a universal human value. Never before profit has been such a persuasive accomplice of tolerance and acquiescence on the part of the citizen. Never before has the citizen’s conscience been so lonely when set against the fierce competition of profit.
Undoubtedly the above observations constitute the basic facts of our contemporary life.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
[i] See Robert Phillipson: «The promise and threat of English as a “European” language», in “Strong” and “Weak” languages in the European Union, Aspects of linguistic hegemonism, Centre for the Greek language, ed. by A.-F. Christidis, Proceedings of an International Conference, Thessaloniki, 26-28 March 1997, published June 1999, p. 302.
In this world of ours global and regional alliances and organizations governmental, non-governmental and private are superseding the imagined community of the nation-state. Actually the world is being re-imagined and re-shaped, by media magnates, transnational companies, drafters of human rights documents, and organizers of “international” conferences. All these agents implement various language policies, regional, national, supranational, governing some languages uses or domains, from education to entertainment and from the media to consumer goods. But most of these policies conform to a hegemonic linguistic ordering in which some languages are evidently more equal than others.
Many writers and intellectuals whose mother tongue is summarized in the euphemism of the «less diffused» languages, experience the consequences of this global fact as the main actors of a play staged by unknown powers; and thus they react as the workers of the manufactures at the time the first steam machines turned them into factories: instictively, regressively, in despair.
Things have been shaped nowdays in such a way that writers and intellectuals are obliged to choose and accordingly defend one of two distinct global language policy options:
A. The “diffusion of the English” paradigm B. the “ecology of language” paradigm[i].
The first paradigm is grounded on the following social economic and cultural standards:
a. Capitalism
b. Science and Technology
c. Modernization
d. Monolingualism
e. Ideological globalization and Internationalization
f. Transnationalization
g. Americanization and Homogenization of world culture
h. Linguistic, cultural and media imperialism
This particular paradigm is at the heart of all contemporary debates about globalization and book policies –where statistics prove a marked imbalance in the proportions of domestic and imported literary production: the translations of Anglo-American literary works are steadily over-represented on the markets of smaller countries, particularly those in Eastern and Central Europe, where, during the last decade, the share of imported cultural products has risen dramatically. Evidently, the importance of this paradigm extends beyond books and literature; it implies some essential factors which constitute the major foundations of our contemporary existence:
1. The market dominates all aspects of life: from civil rights to emotional and sexual life, from social security to entertainment, from culture to ethics etc.
2. Profit is the ultimate and only measure for estimating concepts, values, attitudes, and even sentiments or cultural events.
3. Cultural goods are treated as mere commodities or consumer goods.
4. Powerful cultural industries possess the means to promote a single cultural model dominating other possible cultural models; they assert themselves in a totalitarian manner at the local and global level and so they marginalize all kinds of national, ethnic, minor, etc. cultures.
5. The culture industries possess a large share in the symbolic area with works designed to suit all the consumers of the planet; works that blur memory and historical perspective; works that are linked to no specific national region and in which instant impressions are favored over analysis and critical distance; in this way they clearly undermine the dialogue between different cultures, languages, literary and artistic trends etc.
Living up with these facts means consequences that are equally familiar to everyone: Human values, civil rights, quality of life and historical memory no more guide the choices of people. We live a virtual reality where the medium is more than ever the message; and the medium is not the spoken and written word, but the electronically diffused image. Digital images are widely diffused as a substitute of language while global images are widely diffused as a substitute of a substitute, which means as a global language. In this virtual world, thought, criticism, intervention, participation, truth and falsehood are limited to their virtual versions: fair/ethical/legal is exclusively that which television or any equivalent mass media production of the kind presents as such.
Even the form of intellectual commitment itself has become a manner of expression that aims at producing audience ratings –that is to say, support rather than criticism–. It therefore no longer seeks to analyze, enlighten, and understand but, on the contrary, to simplify and produce the greatest value on emotional response in a world where show time and emotional manipulation have replaced the interchange of experiences. On this particular basis the so-called social media have been massively developed during the past decade.
Seemingly the 90% of the images that dominate the planet (made in the USA) govern the planet without any resistance whatsoever. The language most widely spoken on the planet (re-shaped in –and diffused mainly by– the USA) governs the planet without any resistance whatsoever.
Further consequences to this:
Ever larger social groups throughout the world earn their living in ways which in the past would have been considered criminal, immoral or inhuman. Never before have such large sections of the population been ready to sell anything and everything: the environment, their country, their cultural heritage, their ethics, their aesthetics, their values, their daughter, their knowledge, their language and, above all, their hopes for a more human world. Never before has political corruption been perpetuated so easily by the relaxed attitude to it of a large section of the population. Never before has the American Dream achieved such widespread dominance as a universal human value. Never before profit has been such a persuasive accomplice of tolerance and acquiescence on the part of the citizen. Never before has the citizen’s conscience been so lonely when set against the fierce competition of profit.
Undoubtedly the above observations constitute the basic facts of our contemporary life.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
[i] See Robert Phillipson: «The promise and threat of English as a “European” language», in “Strong” and “Weak” languages in the European Union, Aspects of linguistic hegemonism, Centre for the Greek language, ed. by A.-F. Christidis, Proceedings of an International Conference, Thessaloniki, 26-28 March 1997, published June 1999, p. 302.
III. What it means to be a European (other than English) writer?
A gainst this authoritarian experience another paradigm seems
to find new supporters in the international debates; it is the
already mentioned “ecology of language” paradigm. It is an alternative option
that ensures what in culture debates is called «sustainable development for
“minor” languages» and their respective literatures.
Ecology of language paradigm
a. A human rights perspective
b. Equality in communication
c. Multilingualism
d. Maintenance of languages and cultures
e. Protection of national sovereignties
f. Promotion of foreign language education
The model is quite explicit. As explicit as the authoritarian model I have analyzed in some detail. It merely needs explanation. It supports the right to a national, racial, religious, gender-defined, multilingual culture. But it has the “disadvantage” of being supported mainly by UNESCO and a few NGO’s. It constitutes a real challenge for the intellectual and the writer whose language is considered a “minor” one.
Some years ago (during the Greek Presidency of the E.U.) an E.U. conference on book policies was held in Athens under the emblematic title “Is There Such a Thing as a European Book? Books and the Book Market in the European Union after Enlargement”. In the Conference Resolution we read that: «The dual nature of the book, on the one hand as a cultural and on the other hand as an economic good, must be taken into account when commercial and economic regulations are being negotiated. [...] The crucial element that should receive protection is a book’s content rather than its form. Hence a prerequisite for effective protection is the elaboration of a contemporary definition of what a book is, which will include digital forms and will be valid across a range of policy implementations, such as reduced VAT rates, fixed book price systems and the protection of the author-creator’s moral rights.» This passage, despite its good intentions, sounds well nigh absurd in the globalized reality of the book sector today. Phrased in the characteristic market jargon, cannot but certify the fact that between the real use value of the book and its nominal, purely economic value, the balance today is tilting decisively towards the latter.
There is no need to repeat facts already mentioned on the occasion of the first language paradigm. It is indisputable that the book of literature as a cultural good of lasting use is undergoing competition from market consumer products. Its use value tends to give way to its more or less profitable exchange value. For this reason, contemporary publishing production is investing less and less on a book’s cultural use value, and more and more on winning over the consumer-reader, in the same terms as those that apply for consumer goods (advertisement, market research, the star system, etc). We are deluged with disposable books of literature to provide us with fast, ready-made, easy food, which is not in the least nourishing to the spirit, just as the food served at fast-food outlets is minimally nourishing to the body.
Readers throughout the world are slowly but steadily being transformed into TV zappers, books are partaking more and more of the virtual spectacle: People flick through books and pretend that they’re reading. By buying books they comfort themselves that they’re reading; they read books of literature that are in fact more shallow than the jokes friends tell at the bar; and what is more, reviewers in newspapers write criticisms for these best-selling salads pretending in their turn that they have read works of a minor Chekov or Kafka…
Ecology of language paradigm
a. A human rights perspective
b. Equality in communication
c. Multilingualism
d. Maintenance of languages and cultures
e. Protection of national sovereignties
f. Promotion of foreign language education
The model is quite explicit. As explicit as the authoritarian model I have analyzed in some detail. It merely needs explanation. It supports the right to a national, racial, religious, gender-defined, multilingual culture. But it has the “disadvantage” of being supported mainly by UNESCO and a few NGO’s. It constitutes a real challenge for the intellectual and the writer whose language is considered a “minor” one.
Some years ago (during the Greek Presidency of the E.U.) an E.U. conference on book policies was held in Athens under the emblematic title “Is There Such a Thing as a European Book? Books and the Book Market in the European Union after Enlargement”. In the Conference Resolution we read that: «The dual nature of the book, on the one hand as a cultural and on the other hand as an economic good, must be taken into account when commercial and economic regulations are being negotiated. [...] The crucial element that should receive protection is a book’s content rather than its form. Hence a prerequisite for effective protection is the elaboration of a contemporary definition of what a book is, which will include digital forms and will be valid across a range of policy implementations, such as reduced VAT rates, fixed book price systems and the protection of the author-creator’s moral rights.» This passage, despite its good intentions, sounds well nigh absurd in the globalized reality of the book sector today. Phrased in the characteristic market jargon, cannot but certify the fact that between the real use value of the book and its nominal, purely economic value, the balance today is tilting decisively towards the latter.
There is no need to repeat facts already mentioned on the occasion of the first language paradigm. It is indisputable that the book of literature as a cultural good of lasting use is undergoing competition from market consumer products. Its use value tends to give way to its more or less profitable exchange value. For this reason, contemporary publishing production is investing less and less on a book’s cultural use value, and more and more on winning over the consumer-reader, in the same terms as those that apply for consumer goods (advertisement, market research, the star system, etc). We are deluged with disposable books of literature to provide us with fast, ready-made, easy food, which is not in the least nourishing to the spirit, just as the food served at fast-food outlets is minimally nourishing to the body.
Readers throughout the world are slowly but steadily being transformed into TV zappers, books are partaking more and more of the virtual spectacle: People flick through books and pretend that they’re reading. By buying books they comfort themselves that they’re reading; they read books of literature that are in fact more shallow than the jokes friends tell at the bar; and what is more, reviewers in newspapers write criticisms for these best-selling salads pretending in their turn that they have read works of a minor Chekov or Kafka…
IV. What is to be done?
Under these circumstances what is the possible stand for the
intellectual who works in a “minor” language? He is neither a politician nor
a cultural activist or a businessman. His only weapon is the language he uses
in his literature, but it requires a valid passport to cross borders. What is
he expected to do if he desires to endorse the second paradigm? There is no recipe
for that. But, in my humble opinion, one of the first steps to be taken is to
map the symbolic territory whose borders the writer desires to cross.
We have to redraw the map of cultural Europe; not without borders, because that concerns only the consumer goods; but without boundaries of any sort, linguistic or ideological, so that we may be able one day to connect places and writing, stories, languages, and cities, to draw a new cartography of Europe, a mapping that extends beyond the old notion of Mittel Europa. We need a geo-poetics of «extreme» Europe.
There are great Greek authors in the past century who very few people, most of them academics, happen to know outside the borders of Greece. Apparently the same rule applies to all “minor” language countries. But the present-day economic and technological change opens up vast prospects for the exchange of creative works. The challenge for all of us, writers and members of the enlarged European Union, is to divert the available infrastructure to the benefit of cultural pluralism and linguistic diversity. To do this we must first understand that translation, dissemination and promotion of less diffused literature is not simply a question of money. It will only be assessed if we get to know more and more about each other’ s cultural and social life. That is our specific territory and our only hope to survive in this peculiar village where a single image, a single language and a single culture is attempting to establish itself as the global censor of artistic and literary creation. That should be our Europe.
We certainly can’t change dramatically the flow of things. But we can’t leave it all in the hands of the borderless market. We can still have faith in what is undervalued in the borderless market and turn our back to what is overvalued there. We can still have faith in the boundless, diverse, interlingual reading community of extreme Europe: From Ireland to Serbia, or even better, from Joyce to Ivo Andric, from Poland to Greece, or even better, from Gombrowicz to Kavafis, the uncertain values of the common European heritage, remain our only hope. Will they be able to save old Gutenberg’s multilingual and pluralist culture? Well, no one can answer this question with certainty. Writers will continue to lay claim to their humanist dreams in whatever language they speak and write; on the other hand, the majority of publishers, all over the world, will be always ready to sell, to one of the few “major” languages, rubbish dressed in glossy covers – leaving aside for their domestic markets local masterpieces the existence of which will always elude their sight. Between the first and the second language paradigm lies indeed a vast ocean of uncertainty and hope. But at the end, one of these two tendencies will prevail.
We have to redraw the map of cultural Europe; not without borders, because that concerns only the consumer goods; but without boundaries of any sort, linguistic or ideological, so that we may be able one day to connect places and writing, stories, languages, and cities, to draw a new cartography of Europe, a mapping that extends beyond the old notion of Mittel Europa. We need a geo-poetics of «extreme» Europe.
There are great Greek authors in the past century who very few people, most of them academics, happen to know outside the borders of Greece. Apparently the same rule applies to all “minor” language countries. But the present-day economic and technological change opens up vast prospects for the exchange of creative works. The challenge for all of us, writers and members of the enlarged European Union, is to divert the available infrastructure to the benefit of cultural pluralism and linguistic diversity. To do this we must first understand that translation, dissemination and promotion of less diffused literature is not simply a question of money. It will only be assessed if we get to know more and more about each other’ s cultural and social life. That is our specific territory and our only hope to survive in this peculiar village where a single image, a single language and a single culture is attempting to establish itself as the global censor of artistic and literary creation. That should be our Europe.
We certainly can’t change dramatically the flow of things. But we can’t leave it all in the hands of the borderless market. We can still have faith in what is undervalued in the borderless market and turn our back to what is overvalued there. We can still have faith in the boundless, diverse, interlingual reading community of extreme Europe: From Ireland to Serbia, or even better, from Joyce to Ivo Andric, from Poland to Greece, or even better, from Gombrowicz to Kavafis, the uncertain values of the common European heritage, remain our only hope. Will they be able to save old Gutenberg’s multilingual and pluralist culture? Well, no one can answer this question with certainty. Writers will continue to lay claim to their humanist dreams in whatever language they speak and write; on the other hand, the majority of publishers, all over the world, will be always ready to sell, to one of the few “major” languages, rubbish dressed in glossy covers – leaving aside for their domestic markets local masterpieces the existence of which will always elude their sight. Between the first and the second language paradigm lies indeed a vast ocean of uncertainty and hope. But at the end, one of these two tendencies will prevail.
