Therefore, these Esperantists are not refraining from engaging with mainstream aspects of the wider society, but using the language to add alternative layers to such mainstream options. They are not 'anti-' anything and are barely actively 'pro-' something. Instead, they celebrate a certain proliferation of possibilities and work their selves through a do- it-yourself attitude that characterises their engagement with Esperantujo.
This ethnographic focus on individual approaches to the language may lead the reader to think that, once a universalist project, Esperanto has renounced its ambitious goals regarding peace promotion and large-scale international communication. However, historical data illustrates how this prefigurative functioning has been in place since the language's early days. Erik Esselstrom (2008) and Esther Schor (2016: 121) narrate the life of Hasegawa Teru, known by her Esperanto pseudonym Verda Majo (Green May). Born in Japan in 1912, she soon became interested in politics and became acquainted with proletarian literary circles and with Esperanto. Adopting strong feminist and anti-war stances, Hasegawa learned Esperanto and married a Chinese Esperantist. Having moved to China, she joined the Chinese resistance and became a regular contrib- utor to Chinese periodicals, writing articles in Esperanto that reported on women's working conditions in Japan and urged Esperantists around the world to boycott her home country. On a similar note, at coffee breaks during present-day Universal Congresses, it is not difficult to come across Esperantists who enjoy talking about how they, not so long ago, fled the Soviet Union or Cuba by applying for visas or special permissions to attend these Esperanto gatherings. Using Esperanto to change their lives, many of them stayed abroad illegally and found shelter among fellow Esperantists. Even though several of these narratives are recent, something similar happened to Tivadar Soros, Georg Soros' father, who used the occasion of the 1947 Universal Congress of Esperanto in Bern, Switzerland, to escape Hungary (Tonkin 1999: IX).
Ultimately, if we conceive of people's engagement with Esperanto as prefigurative, then the distinction between the Esperanto community and movement would collapse. However, in taking emic categories seri- ously, this distinction remains. As associations (the traditional bastions of the movement) and particularly the finvenkistoj (the ardent promoters of Esperanto who work for the language's universalisation) lean towards thinking of Esperanto as a future-oriented cause, the way they define the Esperanto movement brings it closer to traditional social movements and farther from prefiguration. Hence, the movement is broadly defined in terms of future-oriented goals, while the community also comprises those who work their selves in the present through the language. Looking at Esperanto through the lens of prefigurative politics, thus, fleshes out the controversies between distinct perspectives on language and politics, while raising the question of what this anthropological research gains and loses with such attention to prefiguration.
8.4 A Language Not Meant to Become Universaclass="underline" Esperanto as a Powerless Alternative
Forms of political action based on prefiguration such as grassroots activism for alterglobalisation, environmentalism, anti-racism and femi- nism have experienced ebbs and flows, but have received attention even from their antagonists. Esperanto, by contrast, is often listed among minor causes and dismissed, which subjects its speakers to mockery. In line with this, what does this study's focus on prefiguration say about the label of Esperanto as a 'failed universalist project?' Julien—who used Esperanto regularly as his working language for over two years—was one of those who formulated to me a detailed view on the prospects for Esperanto, spelling out, in a conversation in Esperanto, this language's alleged failure as something utterly foreseen.
Julien was 28 years old when we first met, in April 2017, in Rotterdam. A French national who studied Computer Engineering in his homeland Bretagne, he moved to the Netherlands to volunteer at the offices of UEA and TEJO after graduating from university. An Esperanto speaker since 2011, Julien had already attended many Inter- national Youth Congresses in countries ranging from Israel to Vietnam. As a volunteer at UEA and TEJO, he later helped organise several similar meetings. His initial drive to learn the language originated from his interest in international communication combined with his unease towards English being a compulsory language throughout his studies and career:
In practice, we need English because it is almost imposed on us and we cannot really survive [in the job market] without it. I wouldn't say people shouldn't learn it because we shouldn't be less skilled due to refusing to learn a language. But English is not a good solution [for international communication] because it conveys the interests of certain countries and cultures [...] I don't like English, not because of the language itself, but because of how it was pushed on me. In my BA, nobody gets a degree certificate without passing an English exam from the university. I do speak English, but I don't think this requirement is fair, because our degree is in Computer Engineering, not English. And I think it's possible to be a good computer engineer without speaking English fluently.
If Julien was not happy with the fact that proficiency in a given foreign language should be a requirement in this case, does that mean Esperanto would be the solution for this issue? Continuing our conversation after a day of work at UEA's headquarters, he said:
If someone asks me 'why isn't Esperanto more widespread?', I would say 'because you still haven't learned it!' [laughing] But the truth is that learning Esperanto requires some effort. Esperanto is easier than non- artificial languages, but still, learning any language is difficult. Since Esperanto is hardly part of education systems in the world, one cannot imagine that half of the world would learn a language in their free time just out of pleasure. So I think Esperanto is not going to be widely used if it's outside the scope of formal education.
Following this, I asked him whether he thinks public education should offer Esperanto as a taught module, to which he answered:
When I think of Esperanto in terms of achievable aims, for me one of these feasible plans would be to have Esperanto as an optional subject in the French public education system, but not as a compulsory subject, so that it could be one among other languages available for the students to learn. But Esperanto shouldnt be imposed, because I disapprove of the way English is imposed. If we have an education system that says 'Ok, so now we'll all only learn Esperanto and no other language,' then it wouldn't be any better than the current situation.
A number of Esperantists[36] consider that the language should eventu- ally garner the support of states to grant a space for Esperanto in public education systems. However, keeping Esperanto as a choice, as high- lighted by Julien and Idris, is one of the key traits that set it apart from other languages and make it appealing to these speakers.
Throughout history, colonialism and imperialism left a linguistic legacy behind, establishing hierarchies between dominant and domi- nated languages, languages of the colonisers and of the colonised (Phillipson 1992). Such forms of linguistic imperialism remain in place via diverse mechanisms. Firstly, native speakers of dominant languages such as English and French largely regard the expanded use of their language worldwide as unproblematic. Secondly, language ideologies and practices validate certain languages as axiomatic languages of science, diplomacy and international business, conveying the idea that learning them can straightforwardly turn anyone into a 'citizen of the world'. With these languages being backed by powerful language councils, this situation culminates at present in the existence of language markets that generate income by turning learning materials, language courses and translation services into profit-making commodities. As a consequence, language figures among the most lucrative export products of certain countries (for the 'English language industry' case, see Phillipson 2003: 77-78 and Grin 2005: 82-85).