It is worth considering that SAT and SAT-Amikaro aim to create spaces for social and political debates involving mostly laypeople, workers and activists for progressive causes. This purpose historically weaved these associations into the fabric of traditional, class-based social move- ments. In this sense, an economic shift from labour-intensive to capital- intensive industry weakened the ranks of the proletariat after the intense deindustrialisation that marked France in the 1970s (Raymond 2005). This resulted in the weakening of communist and socialist agendas, which gave room to more decentralised forms of activism addressing environmentalism, gender equality, alterglobalisation and anti-capitalism more broadly. Thus, it is understandable that a weakening of the tradi- tional left-wing, workers' activism that sustained SAT-Amikaro since its early days would also affect the present-day dynamics of the association.
Given that Esperanto is also advanced as a cause, the Esperanto move- ment itself is subjected to its own ebbs and flows. Forster's (1982) sociological study of the Esperanto movement in Britain points out that, in the early twentieth century, members of the Esperanto Association of Britain (EAB) felt that the language was at its peak at that point and were very enthusiastic about promoting it. However, 'already in 1936 the question "Is Esperanto still alive? I never heard about it" is suggested as commonplace' (Forster 1982: 277). In a statistical survey carried out in 1968, Forster shows that EAB was conscious of its ageing membership, with 45% of its members being over 60 years old. Yet, Forster's study indicates that EAB's membership had stagnated, rather than declined. Despite its difficulties in attracting new members, it had retained the allegiance of enthusiastic, long-standing Esperantists.
Therefore, the perception of ageing and declining membership at SAT-Amikaro owes to diverse factors: a broader weakening of la vie associative (institutionalised community life) in France and beyond; a generational shift that makes present-day youth less prone to become active association members; an age-based cleavage favouring middle-aged people and the elderly, sometimes giving the impression that the future of associationism is at risk; a shift in the progressive political causes thriving in each historical context; and a discourse according to which the Esperanto movement is permanently in a vulnerable situation. Even though these changes do not affect only SAT-Amikaro, what are its members particularly grieving for?
Among the pieces of evidence that Dominique enumerated to indicate the decline of the association, the lack of active members to perform everyday tasks at the headquarters was ubiquitous. The few volunteers were often overwhelmed by administrative tasks and constantly remarked that most members were not as involved—or not in the way they expected in terms of managing the bookshop, teaching the language and attending to the office and accountancy. Hence, when expressing loss and despair, what they very much feared losing was a specific space of socialisation—the headquarters—whose structure Dominique, JoPo, Yassine and other left-leaning Esperantists relied on in order to practice the language, buy Esperanto books and hold weekly debates.
These debates—particularly the weekly babilrondoj and the annual congresses—provide an illustration of the forum in which SAT-Amikaro materialises its goals. On Friday evenings, the association holds its babil- rondoj (debate circles). As described in previous chapters, these debates count on ten to twenty habitual participants. The topics to be discussed are selected and announced in advance on posters at the headquarters, through the associations mailing list and on the website. Every partic- ipant brings drinks and nibbles—stereotypically enough, cheese and wine are always the essential ones—to snack during heated discussions in Esperanto about the French elections, the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, fascism and authority, and alternatives to nuclear energy. The members' concerns over losing these regular debates stand for the fear of losing a certain manner of engaging with Esperanto, through the lens of a cause to be advanced alongside other class-based political stances. Without this forum, Esperanto would still exist, just as commu- nism, socialism, pacifism and anarchism would still count supporters. Yet, members such as Dominique and JoPo would be deprived of the setting in which these issues are connected, in which Esperanto gains political relevance and mediates discussions between people who are engaged with different causes.
The different kinds of cheese and the fairtrade organic wine around which these debates are held stand as indexes of what these Esperantists fear to lose hold of: the local and ephemeral—although regular—mate- riality of Esperantujo made possible by face-to-face activities. In other words, the ritualised sociality of meeting, being together and drinking wine while debating progressive political perspectives in the language. As the core goal of the Esperanto movement is to ensure the stability of the Esperanto community, these Esperantists' movements seem not to be moving well enough as the only setting whereby they engage with the language and its community slowly withers away.
6.3 Standing Still...
While Dominique and JoPo insisted that not much had been going on at SAT-Amikaro lately, some activities were still taking place. For instance, volunteers frequently sought opportunities to spread the word about the language and the association, as a way of easing their frustration and, at the same time, of hoping to recruit new speakers and members.
One of the systematic ways in which SAT-Amikaro promotes Esperanto and itself is by holding a stall at the annual Fete de L'Humanite. This three-day festival—held in the surroundings of Paris and targeted at raising funds for the left-leaning magazine LHumanite— brings together different political parties, social movements and activists that are discontent with contemporary politics in France and the world. This includes communists, socialists, environmentalists, groups supporting refugees and migrants, feminists... and Esperantists. In the 2016 edition of this festival, the associations SAT-Amikaro and Esperanto-France held a joint stall to promote Esperanto, which was announced the week before at the bilingual French-Esperanto broadcast at Radio Libertaire. Although activists and volunteers from both associa- tions shared the same stall, it was easy to identify which association each of them came from: three out of six volunteers from Esperanto-France wore green outfits displaying Esperanto-related content, whereas three of the five SAT-Amikaro volunteers wore shirts with anti-capitalist content or with references to other social movements.
Aside from their garments, they also deployed different materials and strategies to promote Esperanto. Whereas Esperanto-France volunteers emphasised the use of the language for travelling, meeting national Others and supporting the rights of language minorities, SAT-Amikaro volunteers stressed Esperantos learnability for those with no formal education nor background in foreign language learning. In common, members of both associations shared certain disappointment at the fact that most passers-by showed indifference to the cause that drove them. Yet, SAT-Amikaro members seemed to grieve more, for they were promoting their language project 'at home', in a left-wing festival, among people with whom they shared so much—but, when it comes to their interest in Esperanto, so little.
Long-standing Esperantists and those who are interested in the history of Esperanto recall the times when Esperanto appeared to have more visi- bility in wider society, as when the language was used in advertisements by companies such as Air France in the 1930s and Philips and Fiat in the 1970s (Forster 1982: 249). This nostalgic outlook is more pronounced among long-standing members of SAT-Amikaro, such as Alain. A retired postman, Alain was a regular participant in the babilrondoj and, due to his interest in history, he was the volunteer responsible for organising the associations archives. Flicking through documents and pictures, he showed me records of 'the days when Esperanto was closely connected to grassroots left-wing politics'. Regarding political activism, the climax of public attention was probably reached in the 1930s—1940s, as mentioned at the beginning of the chapter. With the tone of a story- teller, Alain showed me documents from the associations and his own personal archives depicting large attendances at SAT-Amikaro's courses and congresses in previous decades, as well as several members marching for the association and for Esperanto in the demonstrations of the First of May (Labour Day) in Paris in the 1950s. Among his favourite registers— one he handled with particular care—was a weekly timesheet with the didactic activities offered by the internees at the Royallieu-Compiegne internment camp c.1940. Alain was thrilled that, among the internment camps that housed French resistance fighters and Jews during the Second World War, at least one offered Esperanto classes four times a week.