Milan kundera

political kitsch.
The fantasy of the Grand March that Franz was so intoxicated by is the political kitsch 
joining leftists of all times and tendencies. The Grand March is the splendid march on 
the road to brotherhood, equality, justice, happiness; it goes on and on, obstacles 
notwithstanding, for obstacles there must be if the march is to be the Grand March. 
The dictatorship of the proletariat or democracy? Rejection of the consumer society or 
demands for increased productivity? The guillotine or an end to the death penalty? It is 
all beside the point. What makes a leftist a leftist is not this or that theory but his ability 
to integrate any theory into the kitsch called the Grand March. 
Franz was obviously not a devotee of kitsch. The fantasy of the Grand March played 
more or less the same role in his life as the mawkish song about the two brightly lit 
windows in Sabina's. What political party did Franz vote for? I am afraid he did not vote 
at all; he preferred to spend Election Day hiking in the mountains. Which does not, of 
course, imply that he was no longer touched by the Grand March. It is always nice to 
dream that we are part of a jubilant throng marching through the centuries, and Franz 
never quite forgot the dream. 
One day, some friends phoned him from Paris. They were planning a march on 
Cambodia and invited him to join them. 
Cambodia had recently been through American bombardment, a civil war, a paroxysm 
of carnage by local Communists that reduced the small nation by a fifth, and finally 
occupation by neighboring Vietnam, which by then was a mere vassal of Russia. 
Cambodia was racked by famine, and people were dying for want of medical care. An 
international medical committee had repeatedly requested permission to enter the 
country, but the Vietnamese had turned them down. The idea was for a group of 
important Western intellectuals to march to the Cambodian border and by means of this 
great spectacle performed before the eyes of the world to force the occupied country to 
allow the doctors in. 
The friend who spoke to Franz was one he had marched with through the streets of 
Paris. At first Franz was thrilled by the invitation, but then his eye fell on his student-
mistress sitting across the room in an armchair. She was looking up at him, her eyes 
magnified by the big round lenses in her glasses. Franz had the feeling those eyes 
were begging him not to go. And so he apologetically declined. 
No sooner had he hung up than he regretted his decision. True, he had taken care of 
his earthly mistress, but he had neglected his unearthly love. Wasn't Cambodia the 
same as Sabina's country? A country occupied by its neighbor's Communist army! A 
country that had felt the brunt of Russia's fist! All at once, Franz felt that his half-
forgotten friend had contacted him at Sabina's secret bidding. 
Heavenly bodies know all and see all. If he went on the march, Sabina would gaze 
down on him enraptured; she would understand that he had remained faithful to her. 

---

"The Unbearable Lightness Of Being" By Milan Kundera
 
136
Would you be terribly upset if I went on the march? he asked the girl with the glasses, 
who counted every day away from him a loss, yet could not deny him a thing. 
Several days later he was in a large jet taking off from Paris with twenty doctors and 
about fifty intellectuals (professors, writers, diplomats, singers, actors, and mayors) as 
well as four hundred reporters and photographers. 
The plane landed in Bangkok. Four hundred and seventy doctors, intellectuals, and 
reporters made their way to the large ballroom of an international hotel, where more 
doctors, actors, singers, and professors of linguistics had gathered with several 
hundred journalists bearing notebooks, tape recorders, and cameras, still and video. On 
the podium, a group of twenty or so Americans sitting at a long table were presiding 
over the proceedings. 
The French intellectuals with whom Franz had entered the ballroom felt slighted and 
humiliated. The march on Cambodia had been their idea, and here the Americans, 
supremely unabashed as usual, had not only taken over, but had taken over in English 
without a thought that a Dane or a Frenchman might not understand them. And 
because the Danes had long since forgotten that they once formed a nation of their 
own, the French were the only Europeans capable of protest. So high were their 
principles that they refused to protest in English, and made their case to the Americans 
on the podium in their mother tongue. The Americans, not understanding a word, 
reacted with friendly, agreeing smiles. In the end, the French had no choice but to 
frame their objection in English: Why is this meeting in English when there are 
Frenchmen present?
Though amazed at so curious an objection, the Americans, still smiling, acquiesced: the 
meeting would be run bilingually. Before it could resume, however, a suitable interpreter 
had to be found. Then, every sentence had to resound in both English and French, 
which made the discussion take twice as long, or rather more than twice as long, since 
all the French had some English and kept interrupting the interpreter to correct him, 
disputing every word. 
The meeting reached its peak when a famous American actress rose to speak. 
Because of her, even more photographers and cameramen streamed into the 
auditorium, and every syllable she pronounced was accompanied by the click of 
another camera. The actress spoke about suffering children, about the barbarity of 
Communist dictatorship, the human right to security, the current threat to the traditional 
values of civilized society, the inalienable freedom of the human individual, and 
President Carter, who was deeply sorrowed by the events in Cambodia. By the time 
she had pronounced her closing words, she was in tears. 
Then up jumped a young French doctor with a red mustache and shouted, We're here 
to cure dying people, not to pay homage to President Carter! Let's not turn this into an 
American propaganda circus! We're not here to protest against Communism! We're 
here to save lives!
He was immediately seconded by several other Frenchmen. 

---

"The Unbearable Lightness Of Being" By Milan Kundera
 
137
The interpreter was frightened and did not dare translate what they said. So the twenty 
Americans on the podium looked on once more with smiles full of good will, many 
nodding agreement. One of them even lifted his fist in the air because he knew 
Europeans liked to raise their fists in times of collective euphoria. 
How can it be that leftist intellectuals (because the doctor with the mustache was 
nothing if not a leftist intellectual) are willing to march against the interests of a 
Communist country when Communism has always been considered the left's domain? 
When the crimes of the country called the Soviet Union became too scandalous, a 
leftist had two choices: either to spit on his former life and stop marching or (more or 
less sheepishly) to reclassify the Soviet Union as an obstacle to the Grand March and 
march on. 
Have I not said that what makes a leftist a leftist is the kitsch of the Grand March? The 
identity of kitsch comes not from a political strategy but from images, metaphors, and 
vocabulary. It is therefore possible to break the habit and march against the interests of 
a Communist country. What is impossible, however, is to substitute one word for others. 
It is possible to threaten the Vietnamese army with one's fist. It is impossible to shout 
Down with Communism! Down with Communism! is a slogan belonging to the enemies 
of the Grand March, and anyone worried about losing face must remain faithful to the 
purity of his own kitsch. 
The only reason I bring all this up is to explain the misunderstanding between the 
French doctor and the American actress, who, egocentric as she was, imagined herself 
the victim of envy or misogyny. In point of fact, the French doctor displayed a finely 
honed aesthetic sensibility: the phrases President Carter, our traditional values, the 
barbarity of Communism all belong to the vocabulary of