Estonia. Yeltsin and the Russian eommunitiesrnin these now-independentrncountries are naturally unhappy with thernnew citizenship requirements andrnmandatory language exams. Besidesrntheir complaint that the Estonian andrnLatvian languages are too difficult tornlearn, thcv have appealed to the UnitedrnNations as victims of “discrimination”rnand “ethnic cleansing.” Yeltsin has evenrnsuspended troop withdrawals from thernregion; the Russian communities havernthreatened labor strikes; the Russiandominatedrnborder town of Narva—rnwhich pro ides Estonia with 97 percentrnof its electricity—has threatened a cutoff;rnand rumors are rife about a possiblernEstonian raid on the pivotal town.rnBaltic natives are not blind to thernhypocriss’ of their former overlords levelingrncharges of “ethnic cleansing.” ThernNew York Times, the Washington Post,rnand their internationalist ilk may wishrnthe world to “live and let live” when itrncomes to remembering Soviet tyranny,rnmass murders, and acts of cultural genocide,rnbut the natie victims and theirrnprogem- are not as forgiving. Ukrainiansrnremember the brutal and systematic suppressionrnof pan-Slavism in general and ofrntheir culture and language in particularrnby both Russian and Soviet dictators,rnand Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estoniansrnwell remember the invasion of 1940rnand the institution of Russian as the officialrnlanguage of the region, with everyonernrequired b}’ law to learn it. “Afterrnwhat the Soviets did to us,” said MartrnRannut, head of Estonia’s National LanguagernBoard, “for us to ask Russians tornlearn a little language as the cost of citizenshiprnseems not too big a price to ask.”rnItalian politics have played out in thernlinguistic realm as well. The groyvingrnsecessionist movement, in particular, hasrnspurred a revival of regional dialects. Ofrncourse, neither regionalism nor regionalrndialects ever really died in Italy, for therncountry has never been unified, linguisticallyrnor politically. The story about thernBattle of San Martino and Italy’s subsequentrn”unification” speaks volumesrnabout the country’s current linguisticrnstate. “Today wc have given the Austriansrna good thrashing,” Victor Emmanuelrnsupposedly said—in French to his officers,rnin dialect to his troops, and in ItaUanrnto Garibaldi. Eollowing in this tradition,rnthe regional constituents of the LegarnNord have attempted to revive the dialectsrnof Northern Italy; Umberto Bossirnhas called for the compilation of dictionariesrnof local dialect; and some localitiesrnhave even begun renaming their towns.rnLinguist and kghista Giancado Oli proclaimedrnthis summer that “dialect,rnrather than Italian, is the country’s truernlanguage” and urged “dialects to berntaught in primary schools.”rnSouthern Italy, too, has experienced arnrenewed interest in dialect, but underrndifferent circumstances. If the revivalrnof dialect is cause for celebration in thernNorth, it is a cathartic means of grievingrnand persevering in the violent South.rnThis spring, for example, before an overflowingrncrowd at Palermo’s cathedral, arnRequiem Mass was performed in honorrnand memory of Judge Falcone, JudgernBorsellino, and their bodyguards, all ofrnwhom were assassinated in Sicily lastrnyear. The mass was arranged by sevenrnyoung Italian composers who translatedrna Latin text by Sicilian author VineenzornConsole into Sicilian dialect and Italian,rni.e., Tuscan. Amid the thousands gatheredrnwere the yvife of Judge Borsellino,rnthe sister of Judge Falcone, and row uponrnrow of black-clad widows of murderedrncarabinieri. The Sicilian performancern”expresses the new climate not only inrnthis city but m all of Italy,” said LeolucarnOriando, leader of La Rete.rnThis “new climate,” as these many exaiuplesrnmake clear, is noticeable not onlyrnin Italy but across the whole of Europe,rnand numerous other examples could bernoffered, from the Welsh to the Catalans.rnWhat is “new” is not the tie betweenrnlanguage and rising nationalism. Thernmodern conception, after all, of languagernas an expression of regional, national,rnor cultural distinctiveness goesrnback at least as far as Herder’s Volkgcist.rnAlso not new is the rhetorical cudgelrnwielded by opponents of regionalism andrnof local autonomy. In a recent essay onrn”The Tyranny of Tongues” in History Today,rnJohn Geipel compared the currentrnoutbreak of nationalism, ethnicity, andrnlinguistic pride in Europe with “thernNazis, [who] obsessed with the Aryanrnmyth, strove to purge the German languagernof every obvious loan.” Believingrnthe “legacy of this false equation betweenrnlanguage, ‘race’ and nation hasrnpersisted to our own time,” he concludesrnthat language, “as an expression of a nation’srnsingularity, is clearly as much aliverntoday . . . and continues to carry with itrnthe sinister, irrational and xenophobicrnimplications which it always has.” That’srnright, whether consciously or unconsciously,rnthe proud people of Overijsernare really racists and xenophobes, if notrncloset admirers of Chamberlain andrnGobineau. Such epithets and canardsrnhave a familiar ring to many Americans.rnWhat is striking, however, about thisrn”new climate” in Europe is the timingrnand persistence. At the very momentrnwhen centralization, homogeneity,rntransnationalism, and universalism arernthe reigning impulses in the capitals ofrnthe West, at the very time that a commonrnmarket, a common currency, and a commonrngovernment a la Maastricht comprisernthe blueprint of Europe’s officiallyrndesignated future, wars of nationalism,rnpolitical autonom-, and ethnic identityrnarc spreading apace. The regnant eliternmay wish to believe that squabbles overrnNorwegian, Italian dialect, and localrnsovereignty are mere ephemeral remnantsrnof an unenlightened past, but suchrn”remnants” persist and hinder their planrnfor a uniform and unified Europe anyrntime in the near future. The transnationalistsrnin New York and Brussels mayrnbe speaking Esperanto, but the peoplernhave clearly opted for a “tyranny ofrntongues.”rnTheodore Pappas is the managing editorrnof Chronicles.rnLIBERAL ARTSrnQUEER REASONS FORrnASYLUMrnA growing number of aliens are citingrnpersecution of homosexuality in theirrnnative lands as their reason for seekingrnasylum in the United States. A 32-rnyear-old Iranian designer, for example,rnapplied for asylum last April to aoidrnreturning to his homeland, wherernsodom is punished by death. Accordmgrnto the Chicago Tribune, his isrnone of three test cases undertaken bvrnthe Lambda Legal Defense and EducationrnFund, a gay-rights group that isrnstriving to ease federal aslum rulesrnfor homosexuals. In addition to thernIranian, Lambda is representing arnRussian lesbian in San Francisco andrna Nicaraguan gay with AIDS in Texas.rnNOVEMBER 1993/47rnrnrn