Good evening, all. I've decided to hit the pause button on the audio version of my substack posts. It takes time to record and get the audio right. I've had this post ready for a while, but finding the time to do the audio has held it up. With the other things I'm doing, something had to give. The audio podcast version may return, but I can't let it be the problem.
I recently read "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" by Czech author Milan Kundera. It's not your typical North American novel. Rather than one tightly interwoven story, there are seven interconnected parts, each exploring different themes and characters but sharing common motifs and ideas.
The novel opens with the story of Mirek, a Czechoslovakian intellectual forced to flee his country after the Communist takeover in 1948. Mirek's story mingles with the stories of other characters, including Tamina, a woman who struggles to come to terms with the death of her husband, and Kundera himself, who reflects on his own experiences as a Czech writer living under Communist rule.
Throughout the book, Kundera explores the themes of memory, forgetting, and laughter, highlighting the complex relationships between personal and collective memory, history, and truth and fiction. He also examines how political power and ideology can shape and distort individual and collective memory and the role of humor and irony in challenging and subverting these dominant narratives.
Kundera weaves these stories and themes together, blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction, past and present, and individual and collective experience. Ultimately, "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting" is a powerful meditation on the nature of memory, history, and identity in a world shaped by political and social upheaval.
I was surprised to see so much overlap between this book and the things I've been thinking about recently, such as culture and power and the degree to which they overlap. Let me introduce the idea of year zero.
In a political context, year zero is a term used in 1975 to refer to a radical approach to governance in which the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia sought to completely transform society by eliminating all remnants of the past and starting over. The Khmer Rouge's implementation of the year zero concept was ruthless and led to the deaths of an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people through executions, forced labor, and famine.
Under the leadership of Pol Pot, they sought to create a communist, agrarian society that rejected modernity and Western influence. They began a radical social engineering campaign involving the forced relocation of urban residents to rural areas, the abolition of private property, the abolition of religion, and the elimination of anyone deemed a threat to the new regime, including intellectuals, professionals, and former government officials.
The Khmer Rouge also sought to create a new, revolutionary culture by destroying religious sites, books, and artifacts, as well as banning traditional forms of music, dance, and literature. The regime sought to replace these with new, revolutionary forms of culture that would reflect their political ideology.
My wife and I watched "The Man in the High Castle" television series a few years ago. It's a science-fiction alternate history where Germany and Japan won the Second World War. The Nazis decided to eradicate American history in the portion of North America they controlled. They called this process Jahr Null, which is year zero in German. The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia was melted down to make a swastika, and the Statue of Liberty was demolished.
The point I'm making is that year zero isn't just something from the 1970s. It's a part of our culture now. Removing statues in our time is often a more limited and targeted action aimed at removing monuments that commemorate individuals or events deemed offensive or problematic. Furthermore, while year zero is often associated with totalitarian regimes and involves using state power to enforce a new vision of society, civil disobedience groups or government officials can remove statues in a democratic context.
From Kundera, we read
I find it highly significant in this connection that Husak dismissed some hundred and forty-five Czech historians from universities and research institutes. (Rumor has it that for each of them —secretly, as in a fairy tale—a new monument to Lenin sprang up.) One of those historians, my all but blind friend Milan Hubl, came to visit me one day in 1971 in my tiny apartment on Bartolomejska Street. We looked out the window at the spires of the Castle and were sad.
"The first step in liquidating a people," said Hubl, "is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster."
Results from a year zero approach include:
1. Destruction of cultural heritage: The erasure of all remnants of the past can destroy important cultural artifacts, historical sites, and traditions. This can lead to the loss of valuable knowledge and cultural practices, as well as the erasure of significant parts of a society's history and identity.
2. Human rights abuses: Implementing a year zero approach often involves violence and repression, including the imprisonment, torture, and execution of those deemed a threat to the new regime. This can result in widespread human rights abuses and the violation of fundamental freedoms.
3. Economic disruption: The radical restructuring of society that often accompanies a year zero approach can lead to significant economic turmoil, including the forced relocation of people from urban to rural areas, the abolition of private property, and the disruption of trade and commerce.
4. Long-term social and psychological effects: The trauma of living through a year zero period can have an impact on individuals and societies. These effects may include a loss of trust in government and institutions, a breakdown of social norms and relationships, and a sense of dislocation and disorientation.
I'll delve into this more next time while exploring some related concepts.
Finally, we don't have to wait for someone to use the words year zero. Pay attention to their actions and goals. If they're decent people, they don't want a revival of the Cambodian Killing Fields; they simply want people to acquiesce peacefully. But if they want that level of societal change, when push comes to shove, they would be willing to force changes on other people for their own good. Peter Hitchens once said, "The problem of utopia is that it can only be approached across a sea of blood, and you never arrive." Look at Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia. And maybe a country near you.
Before I leave, I want to share some updates on my soon-to-be-released novel. The title I've been working with seems to have been used by others many times and to remove confusion, I've decided to change it. The new title is "The War Nobody Started." It will be available in paperback on Amazon on June 30th, and the ebook version will be available for preorder on June 26th.