Lidia

One of those who attacked Zamenhof was a Lithuanian Catholic priest who was an Esperantist. He claimed Homaranismo was an attempt to replace Christ with Hillel, who, in fact, had been a contemporary ofjesus. To this Zamenhof replied that Homaranismo was not intended to be a new religion but a 'bridge which could peacefully link all the existing religions and later, little by little, fuse them together. That Christ dreamed of the brotherhood of mankind, none of us doubt; but also the founders of other religions dreamed of the same. If Christ and the other great teachers of mankind were now living together, surely they would easily agree among themselves, they certainly would place the "actual requirements of God" above differing forms, and we would now have not many religions but one religion for humanity.'

The most ferocious opponent of Homaranismo was Louis de Beaufront, a highly influential French Esperantist. Esperanto was only a language, de Beaufront claimed; connecting it to Homaranismo would only harm the cause. He published a letter mocking the author of Homaranismo and suggested sarcastically that while they were waiting for Homaranist temples to open, rituals could be performed in green forests, wearing green robes covered with gold stars.

Zamenhof had planned to present his proposal for Homaranismo at the Second Universal Congress of Esperanto in Geneva in 1906. But the storm of antagonism against the idea was so strong that some advised Zamenhof not to go to Geneva. Although he abandoned the idea of formally presenting Homaranismo, he resolved to speak openly of his beliefs at the congress. Zamenhof had been profoundly dismayed by the vicious opposition to what he felt were universal ethical ideals, and by claims that Esperanto was 'only a language'. To Zamenhof, Esperanto had never been only a language. He had created it for the unification of mankind.

On 28 August at 8 p. m., Geneva's Victoria Hall was filled. This year there were nearly twice as many in attendance as there had been in Boulogne. The Esperantists anxiously awaited Dr Zamenhofs speech. The trip had been hard on him. He was weakened by his heart condition and the bitter mental anguish of the attacks against him.

'Ladies and gentlemen!' he began. 'At the opening of our Congress you expect some kind of speech from me; perhaps you are expecting something official, indifferent, pale and without content, such as official speeches generally are. However, I cannot give you a speech like that. In general, I do not like such speeches, but especially now, this year, such a colourless official speech would be a great sin on my part. I come to you from a country where now many millions are having a difficult struggle for their freedom, for the most elementary human freedom, for the rights of man.' But Zamenhof would not speak of that: the congress could have nothing to do with politics. Another struggle was also going on, he said, 'a cruel struggle between the races . . . The state of things is fearful in the many-languaged Caucasus, fearful in West Russia. Accursed, a thousand times accursed, be racial hatred!

'When I was still a child in the town of Bialystok, I gazed with sorrow on the mutual hostility which divided the natural sons of the same land and the same town. And I dreamed then that after some years everything would be changed for the better. And the years have passed; but instead of my beautiful dream I have seen a terrible reality; in the streets of my unhappy native town savages with axes and iron stakes have flung themselves, like the fiercest wild beasts, against the quiet town-dwellers, whose sole crime was that they spoke another language and practiced another racial religion than that of the savage brutes . . . I do not want to tell you the dreadful details ofthe butchery in Bialystok; to you as Esperantists I want to say only that the walls between the peoples, the walls against which we fight, are still fearfully high and thick.'

Ifonly the different peoples knew one another well, the stirring up of passions through lies and slander would not have such dreadful results, Zamenhof told them. If only they could communicate, they would come to realize their common humanity and the ethics and ideas they shared. 'Break down, break down the walls between the peoples,' he cried, 'give them the possibility of meeting and communicating on a neutral basis, and only then those atrocities which we now see in various places will come to an end . . .

'Now, when in various parts of the world the struggle between the races has become so cruel, we, the Esperantists, must work harder than ever. But in order that our work may be fruitful, we must first of all explain thoroughly to ourselves the irtner idea of Esperantism . . .