We are of old Europe, and the new Europeans are coming. Yes, we know it - of old Europe, of the old and the relapse of the old and this is not our time. The future! How bright and dazzling it is! How splendid! But it is not for us. Splendid, we know that, dazzling - its marvellous - but it is not for us, we've been counted out, and it's only right. What place would we have there, in the new Europe? How would we know what to do?
Better old Europe for us, we old Europeans. Better the rust belt for us, we who are used to the old world. Let us rust with the rusting machines! Leave us there to rot, with the machines that rot! Do not let regeneration touch us! Keep the new European money away from us! It would be wasted, if it came to us. What would spend it on, we who have dim eyes and clogged ears, we who stagger to the pub in the evening and stagger home from the pub at night? What have we to spend money on? Let it be spent on others! Let the others be regenerated, and not us!
For we do not want bright new bodies. We do not want to be reborn in the new dawn! Better our bent and coughing bodies! Better the old degradation, the old wheezing and complaints! But you are coming, aren't you, technocrats of the new order? You're coming with your investment and your plans? No stagnancy - no corner of the world untouched. Nothing unregenerated and no one who will not acquire the new skills. We are to be trained, we know that. Everyone is to be trained and retrained, we know that. Our skills will be transferable; we will go wherever we are told to go; a new life awaits us and our bodies will no longer be so sluggish and so dull.
Why do we smoke so much? Why do we drink so much? Why our obesity? - it is a living affront, our healthlessness, our obesity. Because we are not yet fitted to the new world. Because our bodies, which could be the bodies of anyone, are holding us back. Why should Europe lag behind itself? Why is it that Europe is snagged by our pale, obese bodies? We are an affront, a challenge. Not an embarrassment, but a challenge. For the lifestyle gurus are coming to find us. They'll track us down and find us. The life-coaches will get us. We'll be assessed and our needs identified. We'll be assessed and motivated and sent on courses and trained and fitted to the new world.
And those who train us will weep with happiness. Those who reform us will tell their spouses and friends about us. I'm working with the long term unemployed, they'll say. I'm doing some voluntary work with the long term unemployed, they'll say, trying to get them back to work. What miserable lives they have, they'll say, they look terrible, they dress terribly and they spend all their money on beer and cigarettes.
We are to be made new. Millions will be spent on us - making us new. Because the new world is coming! New Europe! And all of Europe must be prepared - every corner! No one must be untouched! Our names will be called! Our social security numbers will ring out! Each of us will be judged and assessed and then trained! Each of us will report for training! And our lives will be like our podgy bodies - a residue. And our lives, trailing sickly behind us, will be a flabby residuum.
Old Europe! We will forget we were ever alive then, in the old Europe! We'll be trained out of it, the habits of old Europe and the welfare culture of old Europe! Because the new Europe is calling! It's time to be trained, time for the body to be slimmed down and toned! New bodies for new Europe! New, trained bodies for new Europe! Trained minds - and trained bodies! For that's what's coming: a lifestyle politics. That's what's on its way - a politics of the lifestyle, where training passes through every part of your life, through every sinew. How sleek we will be in the future! How fit and how sleek, we men and women of the future!
We've seen something like it before, that's true. We've been sent on courses here and there, that's true, and we've met them, our trainers, the Christian-capitalists, the socially responsible executives of the new order. We've met them and known our own failure. How could we measure up! What good are we who can barely tie our own shoelaces! The world has moved beyond us, that much is clear.
How we will disappoint them, our bright, new trainers! How we will disappointed them, us clients! Because they know we're not happy, they're certain of that. They're doing it for our own good, that much is clear. For our own good! For the good of everyone! For the good of the new Europe, where everyone is equal and equally empowered! For the new common sense of the new Europe! That's what you really want, isn't it - to lay off the booze and lay off the fags? That's what you really want, they say, speaking our language - to lay off the drink and lay off the smokes? It's what you really want, isn't it, an interview suit? It'll make you much happier - losing some weight. Interview skills, back to work - it's what you really want, isn't it?
How stupid we are, how dense, we who do not dream with them! How slow we are, how stubborn, we who will not change in the flames of the future! For our own good, we know it, and hang our heads. They're working for us, for each of us, and we feel ashamed. Every one of us - targetted and assessed. New Europe comes looking for every single one of us! New Europe itself in the sleek bodies of our trainers! What fools we are! How retarded we are! For they've come, the assessors and trainers, right to our doors! Knocking on our doors, each of one of us! They have our names, and their working their way down the list. One by one, by name, by social security number - we are all to be accounted for.
We know we've been spolit, we know we've had it easy. £50 a week - too much. £50 benefits - too much. They want to see something from us. We are to be helped to help ourselves. Old Europe has made us soft. We are too fat for the future!
For a long time, we thought they hadn't noticed us. For a long time, after we were laid off, we thought - this is it, we'll never be reached, we're too low on the list. But New Europe has its eyes everywhere. New Europe - the all knowing, all seeing eye has our number!
Who'll bother with us, we thought, there are more pressing matters, after all. There are wars to occupy them, the Eurofighter to build. There are regulations to prepare - they won't need us. We won't be needed by the New Europe. We are defunct, like the scrapped machines in the rust belt. We are as East Germany to West Germany, as the cosmonaut to the astronaut. We are the space station Mir falling to pieces in the sky. Why should they bother with us? Why shouldn't we escape their attention? Because New Europe knows we are a cancer that devours it from within. A cancer - devouring it, New Europe, from the inside.
For my body is also your body, New European. My sluggishness, the vagueness of my thoughts - yours. Yours my dim eyes and clogged ears. Yours my fat body and blackened lungs. Yours - New Europe, never yet itself, never having achieved itself, you will not close the circle. It is our bodies that detain us. It is by our bodies that we will fall behind. What are your plans to us? What are your programmes? Who reads the brochures that fall through our letterboxes? Who listens at the training sessions and back to work sessions?
We resist - through inertia. We will endure - because we can't be bothered. Happy stubbornness of our limbs and entrails! Happy our shortness of breath! Happy that we die below the average age and drag your averages down! Happy that we smoke in doorways and on thresholds! Happy that we take no exercise, except to stagger to the pub and stagger home from the pub, all the while getting fatter, all the while dragging the averages down! Happy that we fail or drop out of every course you tailor for us! Happy the cancer that will creep through our bodies!
For that's what we are: a cancer. That's what we are - disobedient cell, that has not heard the signal. New Europe is calling - but we are not listening. New Europe is blazing above us - but we are not looking.