EJ & China

[Richard Brem <llr@magnet.at>]

-- [ From: Richard Brem * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --

So Hongkong has become Chinese ... On the occasion of the British handover
of HK to China I want to draw your attention to an interview that Ernst
Juenger gave to the German newspaper "Welt am Sonntag" on  31 December 1978.


The interview starts with the following question: "Wie lautet Ihre Prognose
fuer das 21. Jahrhundert?" ["What's your prognosis for the 21st century?"]
And Juenger answers: "Das 21. Jahrhundert wird mexikanisch und chinesisch
sein. Ich meine, machtmaessig werden die Chinesen sehr zunehmen: durch ihren
Fleiss, ihr Organisations- talent, ihre Zahl." ["The 21st century will be
Mexican and Chinese. I mean in terms of power the Chinese will become very
important,
because of their assiduity, their organizational talent, their number."]
(With "Mexican" Juenger refers to sacred drugs)

In Juenger's utopian novel "Eumeswil", published in 1977, the Chinese seem
to play an important role as well. As always Juenger is not explicit, but
prefers to drop hints: he introduces the character of Kung, a cook, who is
attached to Martin (Manuel) Venator at the Casbah; and he mentions the
Yellow Khan at several occasions, who seems to be some sort of global power.


In one of the last paragraphs of the chapter "Ein Tag in der Stadt" 
("A Day in the City") Venator talks about his affection for chess: 
"Der Genuss ist archaisch; ich bewege die Bauern und Offiziere, 
den hurtigen Laeufer, den listigen Springer, den maechtigen Elefanten, den
Koenig, den Vezier." 
Now, I'm no expert in chess, but the elephant and the vizier seem to
symbolize some major cultural change here. I think I've heard somewhere that
the Chinese play their own version of chess with some of the pieces being
different. I think I've heard they use elephants instead of rooks, but I
might be completely wrong. Maybe some of the list members know more about
this. 
Btw, Joachim Neugroschel in his 1993 translation of the book has 
left out the "elephant" and the "vizier"; he translated them as "the
powerful rook" and "the queen" (p. 364 of the UK edition). 
I don't know, I think Juenger tried to indicate something here and
Neugroschel should have sticked more to the original text. 
 
Anyway, if Juenger is right with his prognosis then we should get accustomed
to the prospect of a dramatically increased Chinese hegemony over large
parts of the world. Has anyone read Humphrey Hawksley's and Simon
Holberton's "Dragonstrike: The Millenium War" yet? Juenger would probably
like it a lot. Any comments, Bertil?