Do they hate us? Have they even noticed us? After all, the battle has been won, we've been driven out or driven under. The battle won, and they are everywhere and we are nowhere, so why should they hate us? Most are unaware there was even a battle. The takeover happened without appearing as such; the battle was over before they knew it began.
What battle was there, what takeover? There is no one for them to hate, after all, we've been driven out or driven under, driven outside or crushed by great wheels. We're already out, or if we are inside, we are too busy, too wretched, in too marginal a position, they've forgotten us, and we're being crushed by great wheels. What hope is there for us? But there is infinite hope for them; they have won; but the victors have been so victorious they don't even know there's been a battle.
What battle?, they say, and blink. Was there a battle? It felt like one, but in truth we were so unmatched to our enemy we hadn't a chance. Did the enemy notice us as they rolled over us? Or was it that they could only roll thus, that the great wheels must turn thus, and we were only that which was in their way? In truth, they paid no attention to us, we were not worthy of attention. In truth, we were brushed aside as an annoying fly was brushed aside, temporary irritant.
What did they have on their mind? Getting on with business. They were strong and we were weak; what could we say to ourselves but, they hate us. They hadn't noticed us, we were nothing to them, they were already fearsomely strong, but we said to ourselves, they hate us. The great wheels rolled over us; what else could we say but, they hate us, they sought us out and hunted us down, the great extirpation was systematic, they deliberately drove us to the margins or drove us out, it was their plan from the start. But they didn't notice us, we were nothing to them, there was no battle, but how could there be when we had no power, no voice.
The great wheels rolled across us as wheels roll. They wheels turned, we were crushed, but they didn't notice. How could they notice when we were so small and insignificant? They hate us, we said to ourselves. They hate us, which is why they've sought us out, but in fact they never sought us out, the wheels turned because wheels turned; they were strong and we were weak, and their strength, which increased daily, meant we could not endure.
Do they hate us? I've looked into their inscrutable faces and can see no hate. I've looked into their eyes and I see no malice. How soft and pudgy they are! How unstrong they appear! But their softness is a sign of their strength. They can allow themselves to grow soft because of their strength. I do not understand them, but I know there is no hatred, only strength, only certainty. They know the future is theirs. But they with a knowledge that is benign, their sense of their rightness is absolute; they are in possession of the right methods, the right techniques, it is obvious to them. They are on the right path, but for them it is not even a path, it is the broad day, it is the morning of the world, it is the still-new morning. They have the right techniques, but to them they are not even techniques, but the expression of what they are, the gestures closest to them.
How I admire their strength, and how I fear them! How I admire and fear them! I am drawn to them, it is true, I love nothing more than certainty that is unaware of itself, I love those with a sense of the inside and the outside, I love those who can divide night and day. But I fear them, that is also true, and I want to say they hate us, even if that hatred is as vast as their strength, and even if they do not know they hate. I have know them well, have studied under them and worked beside them; I know them and am drawn to them.
What certainty! What direction! What strength! One wheel of the great juggernaut, a forewheel of the great vehicle, part of a vaster ensemble that drives itself across us. A wheel, one wheel of the juggernaut, a plate of the caterpillar tread as it flattens us: they belong to the new industries and the new techniques, they speak of the new world and of the flattening of the old world. What chance could we have?
They hate us, we say to ourselves, but like the juggernaut, the great bulldozer, theirs is the movement forward, theirs is the drive forward, theirs is the expansion to the far limits of the horizon. Who are we to them, unbraced against the future? Who were we, unprepared and dreaming? The battle was over before it began; in their histories they will not remember us. Their histories, the epic poem of their victory will have no room for us. We are forgotten, but in truth, we had never been remembered; no one set their sights on us; no one sought us as a target, we were only part of the foilage, part of the world to be conquered.
In the end, for them, there will never have been a battle, the world was theirs before they noticed it; there was no battle and no frontier, there was only the inside, which was to stretch across the horizon. In the end ... but there will be no end, they belong to the morning, they are machines of the dawn, and have only begun, one wheel of the juggernaut, to flatten the world. Where runs the line between inside and outside? For them there is no line, no frontier; there was no enemy. Victory is theirs and it was not even victory. The battle was won, but there was no battle. They hate us, we say, but we were always unnoticed, they looked beyond us, their gaze was fixed on the future.
2.
Ours is a pluralistic tradition, they say, all are admitted, they say. We are tolerant, they say, and all can be admitted. Just speak as we speak, and speak to us. Learn to speak like us, and to speak with us, and you will be admitted. Speak as we speak, learn our tongue, and you will prosper in our kingdom, we'll make a place for you. Translate yourselves into our tongues, make it so we can understand you, and we'll give you some room, you'll decorate our world. Who was not more open to debate than we are? Who was not more welcoming of discussion? We have time, all of time, to walk with one another and to talk. We have all of time, it is still morning, to walk with you and speak. Only learn our language, learn how to speak, and you will be admitted.
For a time, some of us tried to speak, some of us went over to them and tried to speak. They spoke; some went inside, some disappeared there. But the rest of us never learnt to speak; we were too weak. They hate us, we thought, and what chance do we have. They hate us, we thought, and it is not worth our time to learn their language. For how could we make ourselves understood? How when the conditions of the debate were theirs from the start? How when the rules were in their hands, even though they didn't know the rules were in their hands?
Happy victors who held everything, who possessed everything in their great hands! Happy victors for whom the day was still young and the horizon wide! They hate us, we said, but in truth they were like clumsy beasts who wanted to play with us. They hate us, but they came towards us like great and clumsy beasts who would tear us from themselves as they played with us. They were curious, that was true. They bounded towards us, we were new sport, new curiosity. They were not cruel; there was no hatred in them. They came towards us, curious at their new playmates. But how could we play with them, we for whom it was not a game? How could we but watch as those who played thus were torn apart and scattered to the wind?
There was no hatred in them, that was true, but there was a fearsome strength that was the strength of the whole world. They hated nothing; they were pleasant, amenable, but in truth they were at one with the strength of a new world and with the morning of the world. Conquerers, they didn't know themselves as conquerers! Conquerers, they didn't see us as the conquered, as panting and exhausted from the first! They hate us, we said, but we spoke of the hatred their world had for us. They hate us, we said, but it was their language which hated us. How could learn to speak? How could we translate ourselves into the new idiom?
Back and forth they went all day; back and forth, with seminars and colloquia. How busy they were! How feeble we were! Back and forth, busily, they spoke here and spoke there, and invited others to speak here and speak there. How marvellous, that activity! For a time, we tried to imitate them. For a time, we lived by imitation, we tried to do as they did. But the strength failed us; the measure of strength was denied us - were the losers; we had lost and sank down in despair.
3.
The inside was inside and we were outside. It seemed we were inside, but in fact we were outside. In the offices and lecture rooms, we were already outside, we knew we were outside, we were held into the outside everyday. We who had worked ourselves inside, we in fact outside from the first. We who were inside were in fact outside, we belonged outside, we had no place inside.
The inside was inside, the great wheels turned, the juggernaut rolled forward and we saw it brought a whole world. The inside was inside, it sang of itself and perpetuated itself. The inside sang in the podgy faces of our colleagues. How could know their stare but as an accusation? How could we know them but as usurpers? In truth, they had always been there. In fact, they had always been there, the inside had always been the inside.
True, for a time, rules were relaxed and a kind of opening had occurred. For a time, it is true, they allowed others to come, others were allowed to join the party. But those times were passed, those times had already passed. Who were we to think we had a place in the new world? We were men and women of the past; we were men and women of the exception. We did not belong and could not belong, for how could we belong?
They belonged inside and we were outside. They belonged inside and were continuous with the whole history of the inside. Theirs was the inside and they embodied the whole history of the inside, its great tradition. Who were we, who were outside? Who were we, who were the outside inside? Sometimes they would sniff us curiously. What is that smell? they would ask themselves. Sometimes, they would step back, confused: who are they? what is that smell? They would narrow their eyes for a moment, but only for a moment.
The enemy, they thought, who was not even an enemy, was vanquished. The battle, which was not for them a battle, was over long before. They, the new breed, had conquered the world. It was immediate and obvious, it was the air they breathed and the wide morning. What were we to them? What could we be? They passed over us; they ignored us. They were busy with the seminars and colloquia, and who were we to them?
They hate us, we said, but this was a lie even to us. They hate us, but who were we to them? They were on the side of the inside. They were on the inside of the inside, theirs was the kingdom. Inside, they feared nothing, for they brought the inside everywhere, and what had they to fear?
4.
Slowly our last strongholds fell. Slowly, the last kingdoms fell. Some were conquered by a show of arms - just a show, that was enough. Some converted, some went over to the inside, even though they would always remain outside inside. Some, exhausted, dispersed to the four winds. Slowly we lost the battle, but was there even a battle? And what did we embody, we who were outside? What was it we were to defend, what tradition was ours?
Only pathos was left to us. Only a feeling of defeat and strangulation. Only pathos was ours. Only the pain-filled knowledge that the inside had confirmed itself as it had always confirmed itself. Only the pain-drenched knowledge that the inside was at one with the tradition of our country and that nothing had changed in that tradition. Who were we to think we could change anything? Who were we, outsiders, who thought we could change anything. The inside confirmed itself; the law confirmed itself. The inside was the inside, and we were the outside. The inside rolled its great wheels across us and broke us.
Some of us were grateful to be so broken. How they had hated themselves! Now was the judgement enacted. Now was it passed, the great sentence, in the juggernaut which broke their backs. And the rest of us? We were too weak for hatred. Too weak but to say, they hate us. Too weak but for that to be our mantra, they hate us, as if they had noticed us. For what had they noticed? Who were we, such that we could be noticed? Laughter. Laughter of the whole day. Who were we, after all, to be noticed? And with our last breath, we breathed - for how hard it was not to be noticed, never to have been acknowledged as an obstacle or an enemy - they hate us.