The Capital

by Robert Menasse

  So this was to be no more than a discussion? It was deceptive. This was the stage for his execution, more like, the end of his life in the world of experts. But hadn’t this been what Erhart was aiming at? What does one say when awaiting an execution? Last words. This is how far it’s come, he thought, this was precisely what he’d been driving at for ages: last words.

  How cheerfully Mr Pinto greeted all those present! Only the Greek professor who taught at Oxford was still typing something frantically on his laptop, it must be something vitally important and urgent, or at least it was a demonstration of importance and urgency. With a smile Erhart said to him, Are you ready? Can we begin?

  Last words. This was a story that went right back to Erhart’s first academic publication, an article which appeared in the quarterly Journal of Economic Research of the University of Vienna when he had still been a research assistant. In it he had written about Armand Moens’ theory of post-national economics, underpinning it with new statistical data on the development of global trade. Brimming with pride, Erhart had sent a copy of his piece to Armand Moens, who, to Erhart’s amazement, promptly replied. Alois Erhart had brought Moens’ letter with him today, an excerpt of which would form part of the short lecture he now gave.

  Erhart began with the Armand Moens quote: “The twentieth century ought to have been the transition of the nineteenth-century national economy to a twenty-first-century economy for mankind. This was thwarted in such a horrific and criminal way that afterwards the desire returned with greater urgency, but only in the minds of a small political elite, whose successors soon no longer understood the criminal energy of nationalism and the consequences that had already been drawn from this experience.”

  A few people tapped away at their laptops. Erhart didn’t know if they were taking notes or answering e-mails. Nor did he care. He had another thirteen to fifteen minutes, he had time, his moment was still to come.

  Erhart gave a very brief outline of global economic development up to the First World War and, citing a few figures, the drastic setback caused by nationalism and fascism, and he saw that in the fifth minute of his speech some of his audience were already bored. Nothing bored them as much as a reminder of fascism and nationalism. It was a dark chapter, the book containing that chapter was closed and a new one had been opened long ago, this bookkeeping is fantastic now, apart from in a few sluggish countries where action needs to be taken, that is our job, we disapprove of chapters in old books, we are the new bookkeepers.

  Just one example, Erhart said, of the caesura in the years 1914 to 1945: if global trade over the next few years follows the same linear trend as that of the past twenty years – and we cannot take this for granted – then in 2020 it will reach the same volume of global trade as in 1913. This means that we are only just creeping up to the level of globalisation in the pre-war era.

  That’s nonsense! That can’t be true!

  They were waking up! Oh, if only they knew that they were nowhere near awake yet!

  Why do you say “nonsense”? This is verified statistical data, Erhart said. I just wanted to remind you, I’m surprised you didn’t know it.

  Then Erhart came out with three further Moens quotations as evidence for his argument that the development of the transnational economy required new democratic institutions, which must supersede the national parliaments. O.K., he had really condensed all this, but Erhart didn’t have much time left and he wanted to move on to the shock.

  He took a deep breath, then said, And now I’d like to tell you a little story. I’ve cited Armand Moens a few times in this paper. You swallowed that. Maybe you thought, O.K., Moens might not be mainstream, but these are quotations from a noted economist, and you, ladies and gentlemen, you cite others in your work and your discussions, you cite the names who now are mainstream. You don’t look for the truth, because you consider the mainstream to be the latest truth. Wait! Wait! I’m not saying that I know what the truth is. All I am saying is that we have to ask ourselves this question. And I say that we’re not necessarily going to get any closer if we let ourselves be guided by the zeitgeist, by the current powerful interests of the few, for whom the majority of mankind is just an item of depreciation in their bookkeeping. Anyway, what I wanted to tell you is that in my first academic publication I examined Armand Moens’ theory. Full of pride I sent him my article. I didn’t expect him to reply, but he did. I would like to read you a passage from his letter. Dear Herr Erhart etc., etc., etc. . . . yes, here it is: What you have done is most flattering and testimony to your considerable talent. You have cited my work favourably while adhering to all the citation regulations. You have produced a perfect first publication, according to the rules of our business. But imagine you were to die now and this publication were all that remained of you. Would you still be satisfied with it? Do you not have any ideas, any visions that go far beyond what you have cited? Is this article really what you wanted to tell the world, what only you could say? Will it continue to have an impact if you never have the opportunity to say anything else?

  I say: NO!

  NO in capital letters, Erhart said.

  And now let me tell you something else, he continued. If, as you say in your accompanying letter, you regard yourself as my pupil, then the first thing you need to learn is this: whenever you say anything publicly, whenever you publish anything, you must always bear in mind the possibility that these could be your last words. Take your next lecture – imagine you knew you had to die immediately afterwards. What would you say then? One last time you have the opportunity to say something, one last time, it’s a matter of life and death. What would it be? I’m sure you’d say something different from what you’ve written in this article. And if not, then you shouldn’t have written it at all. Do you understand what I’m getting at? There are countless words with which one can affirm one’s life, secure an academic post and defend it, words that end up in collected works and commemorative publications, and I’m not saying that all of them are wrong or unnecessary, but what we urgently need are words with the existential weight of last words, words that won’t lie dormant in some archive but will wake people up, maybe even people who are not yet born. So, my dear Herr Erhart, send me another text. I’d very much like to know what you would write if that was your last chance to say something. And then I shall tell you whether it’s worth your while publishing anything else.

  Erhart looked up. He didn’t tell them that after having read this letter he was unable to write anything for weeks, until he found out that Armand Moens had died. He could sense that a peculiar atmosphere prevailed in room, which he wasn’t able to gauge. António Pinto called out, Many thanks for this interesting . . . um . . . stimulus, Professor Erhart. Now would anybody —

  Just a moment, please, Erhart said, I haven’t finished.

  So sorry, Pinto said, there are still some last words, so to speak. Please go on, Professor!

  I have tried to show, Erhart said, that we need something completely new, a post-national democracy, so that we can construct a world in which national economies no longer exist. There are two problems with my thesis, which I shall defend to my dying day. The first is that not even you, the elite of international economists, members of numerous think tanks and advisory committees in E.U. countries, can conceive of this, can accept this idea. All of you still think in terms of national budgets and national democracies. As if there were no common market and no common currency, as if there were no freedom of movement for finance streams and value chains. You actually believe that something will improve within Europe if the Greek budget, i.e. a national budget, is restructured in a way that brings about the collapse of the health system, the education system and the pensions system in Greece. Then everything is fine as far as you’re concerned. Do you know what your problem is? You’re cats inside a box and there is no certainty that you even exist. You and your theories are only presumed to be real. Such an assumption allows calculations to be made, and because these calculatio
ns are possible, this is taken as immediate proof that the calculations reflect reality and that this is the only way it can be. No, wait! You can get all get up in a minute, there are a few things I’d still like to say. O.K., I acknowledge that you are experts of the status quo. Nobody understands it more intimately than you do, nobody has more insider knowledge than you! But you have no idea of history, and you have no vision of the future. Am I right? Wait, Professor Stephanides, I have a question. If you had lived in the era of Ancient Greece when they kept slaves and you had been asked whether you could imagine a world without slaves, you would have said: No. Never, ever. You would have said that a slave-owning society was the prerequisite for democracy, would you not? No, no, Professor Matthews, please wait. Please. I am trying to picture you in Manchester at the time of Manchester Capitalism. If you had been asked back then what needed to be done to secure Manchester’s future, you would have said, Under no circumstances must we give in to these unions; they’re demanding an eight-hour day instead of fourteen, a ban on child labour and they even want retirement and disability pensions – that would totally undermine the attractiveness of Manchester as a place to do business . . . and what about now, Professor Matthews? Does Manchester still exist? Oh, and you can wipe that arrogant smile off your face, Herr Mosebach. The radicalism with which you defend German interests today suggests that, had you been born in an earlier era, you would have ended up a defendant at the Nuremberg Trials. And you don’t even know it. But please don’t tremble, dear Mosebach. People like you are always pardoned, for any expert witness can see that you’re not a bad man, you’re just blinded. You are a fellow traveller. And this is the problem with all of you. You’re all fellow travellers. You are outraged when somebody tells you this today, but you are precisely the people who, when there is a catastrophe tomorrow and perhaps even a trial, will say in your defence that you were only fellow travellers, tiny cogs in the system. So now I ask you, do you have any clue what we’re discussing here? We’re discussing the future development of the European Union – a post-national community, born of the realisation of the historical error that you consider again to be “normal”: this is how the world is, this is how people are, they want to define themselves by means of their affiliation to a nation, they want to define who belongs to their nation and who the others are, they want to feel better than the others and if they’re afraid of them they want to smash their skulls in, this is perfectly normal, this is how people are, the main thing is that the national budget falls within the framework of the agreed criteria.

  Thank you, many thanks, Professor Erhart, António Pinto said, now are there any questions —

  Please, Mr Pinto, I’m not finished yet. A couple more minutes, please.

  Erhart’s briefcase had slipped from his lap to the floor, along with the text of his lecture. For most of the time he’d been speaking off the cuff, his lecture had strayed off course, but he was determined to get to what he wanted to say, the crux of his radical intervention. Just a couple more minutes for my summary. No, for my vision. Really the last words. O.K.? O.K.! Right, I’ll start by summing up. Competing national states are not a Union, even if they share a common market. Competing national states in the Union block both European policy and national policy. So what needs to be done now? Further progress towards a social union, a fiscal union, i.e. the creation of parameters which will turn the Europe of competing communities into a Europe of sovereign citizens all enjoying the same rights. This was the idea, after all, this was what the founding fathers of the European unification project dreamed of – because of their experiences. But none of this is achievable so long as national consciousness continues to be fuelled in the face of all historical experience, and so long as nationalism remains largely unrivalled as an ideology with which citizens can identify. How can we make people on this continent more aware that they are European citizens? Many small measures are possible. For example, all national passports could be replaced by a European one. A European Union passport in which the holder’s birthplace is noted, but not their nationality. I believe that this alone would stir something in the consciousness of that generation growing up with such a passport. And it wouldn’t cost a cent.

  Erhart could see that the idealists in the group were rocking their heads from side to side, but at least they were prepared to contemplate the idea.

  But this is not enough, he continued. We also need – and we need this most of all – a symbol for our cohesion, it needs to be a concrete project a collective effort which emphasises what we have in common; we need something that belongs to everybody and binds them together as citizens of the European Union, because collectively it was the citizens of Europe who wanted and created this, rather than merely inheriting it. The first great, bold, conscious cultural achievement of post-national history, and it must be both of political significance and powerful psychological symbolism. What am I getting at?

  Erhart could see that some in the room now seemed intrigued as to what would come next. Taking a deep breath, he said, The European Union must build a capital city, it must give itself a new, planned, ideal capital city.

  Professor Stephanides smiled: The discussion as to which city in Europe should enjoy the status as capital of the Union is dead. That’s water under the bridge. It was a sensible decision not to award this title to a single city, not even to Brussels, but to distribute the European institutions amongst different cities in different countries.

  You have misunderstood me, Professor Stephanides. I’m not saying that a city ought to be awarded the title of capital. I am convinced that this would only fan the flames of nationalism in the individual countries, whose citizens would feel that their lives were being controlled remotely by this capital, which was also the capital of another nation. This, of course, is the problem with Brussels too, even though at first I deemed Brussels to be a sensible choice as E.U. capital: the capital city of a failed nation state, the capital of a country with three official languages. No, what I meant was that Europe must have a new capital city. A new city built by the European Union, rather than the old capital of an empire or country in which the Union is merely a tenant.

  So where do you want to build this city? In which no-man’s-land? In the geographical centre of the continent? The richest and most powerful nation in Europe can’t even build an airport for its capital city, and you’re dreaming of a whole new city? With a faint smile on his lips, Mosebach shook his head.

  Do you mean a sort of European Brasilia? As a thought experiment I think it’s interesting, said Milana Eliste, the Estonian political scientist who taught in Bologna.

  You can’t build this city in a no-man’s-land, of course, Erhart said. There isn’t any no-man’s-land left in Europe, not a single square metre that doesn’t have history. And this is precisely why the European capital must be built in a place whose history was decisive for the idea of European unification, a history that our Europe wishes to overcome, but nonetheless must never forget. It must be a place where the history remains tangible and alive, even when the last individual who experienced or survived it has died. A place as the eternal beacon for future policy in Europe.

  Erhart scanned his audience. Was there anyone here who suspected what was coming? Milana smiled and looked at him inquisitively. Stephanides was peering at the window with pointed boredom. Mosebach typed something on his laptop. Pinto looked at his watch. But ten seconds later they were all staring at Erhart, their mouths agape. Speechless. Thirteen seconds later Erhart, the esteemed professor emeritus, was history as a member of the think tank “New Pact for Europe”.

  And this is why the Union must build its capital city in Auschwitz, he said. Auschwitz is where the new European capital must come into being, planned and erected as a city of the future, and at the same time the city that can never forget. “Auschwitz: never again” is the foundation stone upon which the project of European unification was built. And it is also a promise for the future, for all time. We must build this
future as a tangible, functioning centre. Do you have the courage to entertain this idea? This would be a concrete outcome of our Reflection Group: a recommendation to the Commission president to launch an architectural competition for the planning and construction of a European capital in Auschwitz.

  Alois Erhart set the suitcase on his bed in Hotel Atlas so he could start packing. His face felt hot; he thought he had a temperature. What he had just been through burned inside him. He pulled the curtains to one side and looked out of the window, down onto the square. Slow motion, he thought. Down below was hustle and bustle in slow motion. When the heat was oppressive everything moved very slowly, as if the movements were all part of a collective movement with a collective destination, the arrival at which must be delayed for as long as possible.

  Erhart had learned that the project of European unification was based on the understanding that nationalism and racism had led to Auschwitz and must never be repeated. This “Never again!” accounted for everything else, the Member States’ surrender of sovereignty to supranational institutions and the conscious creation of a transnational, integrated economy. It also accounted for the most significant work of Armand Moens, who as an economist began to think about how the post-national economy should be organised politically. It was a question to which Professor Erhart had dedicated his academic life too. His life, the life of his teacher, contemporary history, the maintenance of social peace, the future of the continent – all this was based on two words: “Never again!” That was how Erhart saw it. “Never again!” is a promise to eternity, an assertion that claims eternal validity. The last people to have survived what must never be repeated were dying. What then? Did eternity, too, have an expiry date? Now the responsibility had been assumed by a generation which, in their political sermons at least, still felt duty-bound to voice this “Never again!” as a muttered warning. But what then? When the last person had died who could bear witness to the shock from which Europe had wanted to reinvent itself, then for those living now Auschwitz would have receded as far as the Punic Wars.