What About the Workers? Part 2: "Neutrality, Out!"

And Diogenes could only express that idea because of the fact that Greek had become a common language in the whole of Eastern Europe and had, by degrees, permitted people to think in a manner which became more and more free of the chains of nationalistic ideology.

After the long, chaotic centuries of the Feudal period the ancient tyranny, in its new guise of Nationalism, once again suppressed freedom of thought. And it is a striking fact that the world had to wait for the spread of another common language, Esperanto, before it became possible for another daring thinker to confront the same problem and to provide a solution in that Manifesto de la Sennaciistoj which future generations may regard as the most meaningful work in our present literature.

The new Diogenes was not unlike the old. It was not just his beard but his stern irony, his rough sincerity, and his absolute rejection of all forms of polite hypocrisy that qualified him as a member of the school of Cynics. And one could easily imagine him, dressed as an old philosopher, walking the streets of the city in broad daylight with a lantern in his hand, searching like Diogenes for one honest man.

The first time I met him was in Grosjean-Maupin's study where we had met to discuss Lanti's projected new dictionary - La Plena Vortaro. I was not so much impressed by his bony head and compact body, his large nose and thin lips, his bushy eyebrows, than by his direct, confident manner of confronting whichever person he was speaking to, and by the profound and unshakeable convictions which you could see in his pale blue eyes..."

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Eugene Adam killed himself twice, once metaphorically and once in the true sense of the word. He took his own life when he was already dying of an incurable disease. But thirty years before that event, the Frenchman Eugene Adam became the intransigent, Esperanto-speaking citizen of the world, "Eugeno Lanti." The pseudonym was derived from the French "L'anti" and pointed to the fact that, from now on, Lanti would be opposed to all dogmas, myths and falsehoods.

In later articles I will examine more closely the two major contributions which this unusual person made to Esperanto: the first, to the language and the second, to the movement. I will also be supplying links to the many WWW resources related to S.A.T., translations

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