"Hello, I'm a European"

In George Orwell's dark vision, the year 1984 would see the triumph of totalitarianism in Europe--an era of Newspeak and Doublethink, of dictatorial cruelty and dehumanizing coercion. That fateful year is now little more than a decade away, and it seems less and less plausible that Orwell's grim prophecy will be proved correct. William Davis, German-born editor of Britain's national humor magazine Punch, has a somewhat cheerier view of what 1984 will really be like. His imaginary scenario, written for TIME:

HE was a very ordinary young man--quiet, soberly dressed, dull. He did not take much interest in politics, or international affairs, or indeed anything except sex and the weather. His name was Franco, and his passport said he was a European. It did not sound as odd as it had done eleven years earlier; in 1973 no one would have thought of introducing himself at a cocktail party with "Hello, I'm a European." People were French, or English, or German, or Italian. Never European. The only people who used the word in those days were Americans, who invested geographical proximity with more importance than it deserved.

Ironically, the Americans in 1973 looked and acted more like Europeans than the natives themselves. They did not argue about the past, squabble about sovereignty, or insist on defending national interests. They worked just as willingly in London as in Paris or Rome. They dressed alike, talked alike, used the same business techniques. Their corporations had broken down the traditional barriers to a far greater extent than had European ones. The Hilton was better established than any other hotel chain, Hertz and Avis were ubiquitous, and TIME had a more diverse readership than its European rivals.

Today, it was hard to tell the difference between a European and an American city. Most of the old, narrow streets that once gave Paris and Rome their distinctive character had been pulled down by property developers and replaced with neat, strictly functional office blocks. Franco worked in a modest room on the 18th floor of a building that looked like an upturned matchbox. From his window he had a splendid view of an identical building opposite: all the office buildings in Europe were identical.

Franco's first job had been with the Fiat-General Motors-Leyland-Renault combine, but life in a company town had not appealed to him. Based on the Japanese system, the company towns had been built with one purpose--to ensure loyalty to the combine, rather than to country or family. Inbreeding was not only allowed but actively encouraged. Few people escaped, because mergers had drastically reduced one's choice of multinationals. One could work for the combine's branch in Italy or France, but it was difficult to switch to another industry. Apart from anything else, technology had advanced to a point where it was simply impossible to learn another trade in less than 20 years.

Franco, though, had been lucky. After six months with the combine, he had been offered a job by an American bank. Banking was one field in which no great knowledge or experience seemed to be required, and the Americans liked to have a few genuine Europeans on their staff. Now he commuted from his suburban home in Coventry (London's phenomenal growth had extended the suburbs out for a hundred miles or more) to the financial district.

On the train that morning he had tried to read the new, compact, modern Mail-Express-Mirror, edited by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, but had soon turned to his customary European Times. The headlines, on this sunny day in 1984, were depressingly familiar. Europe's trade gap was still widening (there was another warning from Brussels that Europe must "export or die"). Enoch Powell, a sprightly 72-year-old eccentric who lived in the South of France, had made a speech in Nice warning, yet again, that Europe would collapse unless something was done about the rising tide of Japanese immigration. There was a new row about sex education. The leading article dealt with the recent alarming increase in Eurostrikes.

Franco sighed. Problems, problems. No one ever seemed to have time to relax and be happy these days. Not like the '60s and '70s that Father liked to talk about. It was wonderful then, by all accounts.

Father was a Sicilian from Palermo who had come to London 20 years ago. He was still loyal to his native country, passionately defending its dignity against all challengers. Franco thought him amusingly oldfashioned, but on the whole harmless. He simply belonged to a different era. Patriotism meant nothing to the young people of today. There had been an attempt, some years earlier, to popularize a European an them and a European flag but neither had been taken seriously. People moved freely across national frontiers, there was a common European currency and members of the European Parliament were elected by direct vote. There were European trade unions, multinational political parties, and even a European football team. But it was hard to feel as emo tional about this vast conglomerate as Father still seemed to be about his native Sicily.

The greater concentration of power in centers like Brus sels had put more emphasis on loyalty to regions, rather than to nation-states or Europe as a whole. But even this did not matter much, because people were moving around so much more. It was quite common for the better-off to have a second home somewhere in the sun. The British had deserted their own seaside towns and moved to areas like Caabria; the Italians, less concerned with holiday sunshine, had bought houses and apartments in Cornwall and Ireland.

Franco bitterly reflected that if he had been born twelve years earlier, he would have found it relatively simple to do the same. It was his dearest wish to have a small apartment in Calabria; what else was there after you had installed three color television sets, two refrigerators, and all the other necessities? What else would you dream about after each member of your family had acquired his own single-color, single-shape Eurocar? But a lot of Europe's beaches had been acquired by holiday camps, and seaside property had become hideously expensive. If only Father had remembered Mark Twain's excellent advice on how to make money: "Buy land; they've stopped making it." Even a modest plot, bought in 1973, was worth 20 times its original price.

Franco's attractive Dutch secretary broke into his thoughts. "The computer," she said, "has been on the phone again." Franco cursed. Damn the computer. Orwell had been right: the wretched things were taking over. You rarely talked to business contacts these days--you made your deal directly with a computer. No more business lunches, no more cocktail parties. It was all very efficient, of course, and productivity had speeded up enormously. But where was the fun?

Computers had taken over in many other fields. When one went for a medical checkup, for example, one was closely questioned by one of these monsters. Hypochondriacs were having a hard time, because the wretched thing was both accurate and ruthless. Then there was the computer at Mario's school. (Mario was his younger brother.) It had replaced the old order several years ago. Computers, it was argued, were far better at teaching mathematics, physics and foreign languages than people--and, of course, they lasted longer.

But you could not argue with a computer, or play tricks on it, or even bring it an apple.

Franco sighed. It was a computer, no doubt, that had standardized all the food in Europe to the point where everything tasted like frozen fish-fingers. Computers wrote songs and turned out plays and musicals by simply juggling with all previously successful formulas. They produced nearly all political speeches in the same cold-blooded manner, and they were soon to take over the actual selection of candidates for office.

Just about the only area where they had not made much progress was sex. Oh, it had been tried. There was that scheme in 1980 under which each family in Europe was to be allocated permits for a certain number of children, and which compelled everyone with an IQ of less than 100 to be sterilized. The IQ tests, of course, were to be administered by computers. There had been an enormous row about it in the European Parliament, and the proposal had been only narrowly defeated.

Just as well. There had already been quite enough changes in this particular area. At one time, if Father was to be believed, sex was a relatively simple matter. You just got on with it. Not today. The puritanical backlash in the late '70s, which followed the so-called age of permissiveness, had produced all kinds of rules and regulations. Necking in public was prohibited throughout Europe and trial marriages were out. All the strip clubs had been closed in 1977, and there were no more shows like Oh! Calcutta! Women's lib had also changed the whole male-female relationship. All over Europe now, women were the aggressors. Even Italians, Spaniards and Frenchmen, who had held out the longest, readily acknowledged the fact.

Franco's Danish-born wife had proposed to him, fixed their wedding date, and bought their house. She earned more money than he did, and paid most of the bills. She decided when, and where, they were to have sex and, no doubt, kept a lover on the side. When he had remonstrated--once--she had told him that as the breadwinner, she was entitled to call the tune. She had gone on to suggest that his job was irrelevant: Why didn't he stay at home and become a househusband?

Well, he wasn't going to. At least, not yet. Indeed, tonight he would take the initiative for once. For years he had promised to take his wife to see The Mousetrap, which had opened in 1952. He had finally managed to get some tickets --she would be glad to see it before it closed. Afterward they would go to that new American restaurant in Soho--it was said to be splendidly successful in recapturing the mood of old England. Life could be worse.

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