From 1933 to 1946, the German philologist Victor Klemperer kept a diary tracking the changing nature of the German language as it deformed. Although a Protestant convert, Klemperer was Jewish under Racial Definition laws. “My work on language was a means of legitimate self defence”, he wrote. “I randomly collected everything within reach found in the books, in newspapers, in radio broadcast, in speeches belted out through loudspeakers, in conversations on the street, in jokes told in secret because they could lead one to jail.”
In his diaries Klemperer recorded the new language of daily life, which carried implications barely grasped by those who spoke it. He observed how friends, who looked upon him personally with affection, used a vocabulary that was “the embodiment of brutal arrogance and contempt for people who are in any way different”. When asked what was the point of keeping such a diary, which failed to deal with the grand political sweep, he replied that “a thousand mosquito bites are worse than a blow to the head. I observe, note down the mosquito bites.”
I do not want to directly compare our time with Klemperer’s, but over the last few years the mosquitos bite more often. My notebook from last week lists a few phrases with shifting meanings, covering up new lows with euphemism:
“The voice of the people”: repeatedly cited in US Vice President J D Vance’s Munich speech. “There’s no room for firewalls”; a reference to the crumbling German post-war pact not to do business with the ascendant far Right. He warned against “disregarding your basic electorate on questions like who gets to be a part of our shared society…there is nothing more urgent than mass migration”. “Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters”. In Germany, that voice demands mass deportation.
“Citizen“: a status exploited by people from the Global South to access rights they aren’t entitled to. Last week, a family in Gaza won the right to remain in the UK. The Prime Minister promised to close the “legal loophole” that allowed it. “A Palestinian came to the UK in 2007”, said the leader of the opposition. “He is now a British citizen. This is precisely why we need to break the conveyer belt from arriving in the UK to acquiring indefinite leave to remain, and then a British passport, and now a right to bring six family members here as well.” As if he only sought citizenship to sneak his family in, a form of judicial smuggling. There’s a subtext of regret for granting people like him citizenship in the first place, a hint of the will to undo it, and a message that acceptance comes only on condition that people abandon their roots altogether.
“Good Character”: one of the criteria by which the UK government assesses citizenship claims. New guidance now recommends refusing those who have “made a dangerous journey”, doubting their “good character” because they “entered the UK illegally”.
Reading between the lines helps us to understand what brought us down this path, to see what’s coming down the road, and gives us the chance to change course.
What phrases would you note down if you were keeping Klemperer’s diary today?
