Lunch With the FT: 52 Classic Interviews (37 page)

‘What is your competence, if I might say so?’ asked Attali once the orders had been given. Somewhat at a loss, I described my job on the
FT
. In return, I asked him about his brand-new book, an abstract volume called
Chemins de Sagesse
, Paths of Wisdom.

‘The book is about labyrinths globally,’ he explained. ‘In the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries ideologies ran along straight lines, but now we are back to a time where the labyrinth is the way of organizing nature, literature, management, decision making, organizations, biology.’

Are you saying that things are more complicated now? I asked, struggling to understand. He gave a Gallic shrug. ‘You can say that. But labyrinth is much more than complexity. It is a metaphor of human creation. The qualities which are needed to go through the labyrinth are the qualities needed for the 21st century. These are: 1. When you are alone you are not lost. 2. A failure is not a failure but a success. 3. Memory. 4. Minutiae. 5. Intuition. 6. Dancing.’

Not knowing how to reply to this bizarre list, I asked whether he
himself possessed these qualities. ‘I didn’t even think about it. It’s not about self!’ He seemed exasperated at the question.

How are sales going? I asked, in an attempt to shift the conversation to more solid ground. He said the book had sold 50,000 in the first 10 days, which is par for the course. Many of his 25 books, he informed me, have sold more than 100,000 copies.

People like Jacques Attali do not exist in England. The English do not believe it is possible for someone to be a world authority on any subject they turn their hand to, and distrust anyone who tries. But in France they also seem to have doubts: Attali has become almost as famous for allegations of plagiarism as for the books themselves. I watched him suck an oyster off its shell, and ask if he had developed a thick skin.

‘One of my weaknesses is that when I read something I think, “How can they say that?” And then afterwards I say, “Maybe they are right.” ’

Unable to resist, I asked if he now thinks they were right about the EBRD marble.

‘Of course not!’ he replied.

Would the same thing have happened in France?

‘Certainly not!’

He has rationalized that unhappy chapter in his life by putting it down to macroeconomics. ‘I can explain it to you. The reason is the elite is supposed to change when there is not full employment. The judges in the media play the same role as the guillotine played in the French revolution. But the guillotine was irreversible.’ He gave a broad smile, pleased with his joke.

So is it a huge relief to be a writer, and no longer a manager?

‘Writing books is a very small part of my activities,’ he corrected me. ‘I do not know how many other things I do. I cannot count them all. What I like is to create things, I create books. I launch projects. When I was with Mitterrand I launched lots of things. I launched Bangladesh. I launched La Grande Bibliothèque in Paris, which is my child.’

I had lost him.

‘I am not relieved to have left the European Bank,’ he went on. ‘I am happy to have created it. It is the difference between designing a plane and being a pilot on a commercial airline. I happened to be – unwillingly – a trial pilot. But if I was doing it again, I would do it exactly the same.’

Our main courses arrived. I had been given sea bass, whether I liked it or not. I did not dare complain: in any case the fish was delicious.

Writing may only be a small part of the whole, but no fewer than three projects are reaching completion. ‘I have just finished a play. I’m very excited about it. My next book is a novel that is almost finished. I am working on a book about futurology – the world in 50 years. And – er – that’s it. For the moment.’ He paused and added, ‘Plus, of course, some screenplays.’

A waitress asked if we would like pudding.

‘I should not because I have to lose weight,’ he said and went on to order a glace noisette, one of the most fattening dishes on the menu.

While I dithered, he leaned across the table.

‘Sorry, you have something in your hair.’ With charm he executed the potentially embarrassing task of removing a twig from my fringe.

‘I am teaching futurology at the University of Paris,’ he continued, ‘and writing. I am involved in French politics, advising governments in East Europe, Latin America, Africa. I am also advising companies on international strategy, mergers and acquisitions …’

I protested that all that is too much for one man; he attributes such disbelief to envy: ‘People are not happy to see someone who has two or three lives.’ And has he become good at dealing with so much envy? ‘Yes. Bof!’ he pouted. ‘Of course. When people realize next year that there is going to be a play …’ he paused, anticipating the reaction.

‘I will be thrilled when I see it. One of my best feelings as a creator was being backstage when a very famous French singer was singing a song I had written for her.’

Songs too! It turned out that Schumann had written the music, he only did the words.

Could he do the music too?

‘Bof!’ he said again. ‘I haven’t tried.’

He is able to do so much because he sleeps three hours a night. ‘Yesterday I worked till 2am – I got up at six to write and had a meeting on genetics at nine.’ He gave another broad grin, as if disarmed by his own energy.

During the lunch, he revealed little love of Britain or things British – they do not like ideas; they think ‘dream’ is a dirty word; our journalists lie – but would not be drawn into being openly disparaging.

‘I like London. I like the music. I wouldn’t say anything else, but music.’ His social life apparently left something to be desired when he was there.

He then expounded a theory about London being uncivilized because it lies on only one bank of the river. I demurred, but he took no notice. ‘It is a fact,’ he said.

I collected the bill and we prepared to leave.

Outside, his chauffeur was waiting to drive us a few hundred yards back to Attali’s office so that he could give me a sample of his recent books, including a promising-looking children’s story. As we parted, a look of unease crossed his face. ‘This is not another
FT
trick?’ he asked. ‘No,’ I assured him. ‘It is not.’

5 JULY 2008

Too well known in Prague to eat out, the Czech intellectual invites the
FT
to his office to discuss globalization, rampant consumerism and his almost constant craving for cigarettes

By Stefan Wagstyl

Always a shy man, Václav Havel shuffles into view as if, even in his own office, he feels uncertain of his surroundings. Years of fame as a dissident writer, anti-communist revolutionary and president of both Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic do not seem to have robbed the 71-year-old philosopher-king of his natural diffidence.

His welcome is warm but a little hesitant. His handshake is restrained. His voice, gravelled by decades of smoking that ended in lung cancer, is so gentle that it is hard to imagine him delivering the hundreds of speeches that he has made.

And yet the moment the conversation begins he comes alive. It is as if the mind inside this frail body has energy far bigger than the frame in which it is confined. He listens intently, pauses before speaking and shapes his answers with deliberate care – plus occasional flashes of the wit that brought him early acclaim as a playwright.

We sit down at a stylish cherry-red table in a space carved out of a period building in Prague’s historic centre. It is a self-consciously modern office with glass bookshelves and walls hung with contemporary art. Havel wears jeans and an open-necked blue shirt. Around him are scores of books in Czech, German and English.

Coffee is served – a mug for Havel and a delicate china cup for me – and a plate of chocolate biscuits that go untouched. I had asked to meet in a restaurant for lunch, but was told this would be difficult because Havel is so well known that we would be constantly interrupted.

I quiz Havel about his pictures. He says they are largely gifts he received as president and points to a colourful Buddhist tapestry. ‘There are small things here. But what is important is this carpet. It is a gift from the Dalai Lama, and only seven people all around the world have this kind of carpet,’ says Havel.

For many other public figures this would be a boast. But for Havel it is a statement of the obvious: his time as president transformed his life into what he calls ‘a fairytale’ in which extraordinary events such as meetings with the Dalai Lama, not to mention Pope John Paul II, the Clintons and Robert Redford, became ordinary.

This year Havel published an English edition of his recollections of his presidency, entitled
To the Castle and Back
. It is not so much a memoir as a series of commentaries, interspersed with contemporaneous office notes and entries from a diary he kept in 2005 while working on the book. President Havel worries about everything from the future of the planet to the half-cooked potatoes served to the visiting Emperor of Japan and the bat that has taken up residence in his summer house. ‘In the closet where the vacuum cleaner is kept there also lives a bat. How to get rid of it? The light bulb has been unscrewed so as not to wake it up and upset it.’

As he leaves the castle for the last time, he wonders about what happens to an ex-president in a country with little experience of ex-presidents. He writes: ‘I have to smile to myself when I realize that people don’t know how to address me. Some say “Mr President”, others say “Mr former President”, some say “Mr Havel” and it’s only a matter of time before someone addresses me as “Mr former Havel”.’

He also worries about the failure of ex-communist states to complete the revolutions of 1989 by reforming what he calls post-communism – the domination of former communists in positions of economic power. I ask him how the reform of post-communism is progressing. He says the fight is still on, with victories in popular revolts in Ukraine and Georgia and more sedate gains in central Europe. ‘As the young generation grows up, society needs to rid itself of the power of the people
deformed by communism, people who had succeeded in quickly establishing themselves in the new regimes and in occupying various powerful positions.’

Havel is, however, disappointed that ex-communist societies have followed the west in embracing globalization and rampant consumerism. At our meeting he makes clear that there is little that can be done about this in free societies. ‘But I feel there is no reason why we shouldn’t reflect upon this trend. It is a two-faced trend: on the one hand it brings people thousands of advantages and joys and pleasures; on the other, it is endangering the human race.’

I wonder whether there isn’t some intellectual snobbery hiding behind this anti-consumerism and put it to him that if people wished to use their freedom to go to McDonald’s, why shouldn’t they? He responds, ‘I don’t want to prevent anyone from being able to do that. What I want to say is something different … I get the sense that we are the first civilization in the history of mankind that is completely atheist. Human existence now isn’t metaphysically anchored in any way in a code of moral conduct, from which we could then derive a legal code.

‘That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the delicacies I can buy at the local supermarket … What I’m talking about is the underlying atheism and anti-spirituality of our civilization. We don’t know where it’s going to go from here and what it will bring for the human race.’

Pointing to a mobile phone, he says, ‘Fifty years ago, I wouldn’t have imagined this little device could be used to make calls all over the world, to make video recordings and to send images. If someone had told me about this then, I would have thought the future world would be a wonderful one when people would have these things and would be able to communicate better. But that didn’t happen. The world today is worse, and it is full of more traps and contradictions than it was 50 years ago.’

I am shocked to hear him go this far. Surely, at least in ex-communist central Europe, the world is incomparably better than it was 50 years ago? Havel answers patiently: ‘Yes, of course it is a good thing that the Iron Curtain fell and that communism ended, but that still doesn’t mean that the world is a better place. The big differences between the developed world and the developing world are deeper than ever. The unifying forces of globalization incite various forms of chauvinism or nationalism. Terrorists almost have the capacity to fire nuclear missiles. The
world is full of various dangers, including ecological ones in the form of climate change, and so on.’

He continues: ‘I’d say that it is a good thing that the world is no longer divided in two, but new superpowers are emerging, and who knows what this will bring? China today is more powerful than Russia. Russia is witnessing the rise of a strange, special sort of dictatorship with strong imperialist demands, albeit dressed more elegantly than before.’

I ask Havel why, in his book, he is so rude about his fellow Czechs. He writes of the ‘bitter provincialism’ of the ‘little Czechs’. Elsewhere he writes: ‘What they [Czechs] consider ideal is the capacity to enjoy various blessings – as far as possible with no struggle, no work and no cost.’

Although Havel does not say so, a prime exponent of ‘little Czech’ politics is the Eurosceptic Václav Klaus, his rival and successor as Czech president. Havel describes in his book how the Thatcherite Klaus made an uneasy political companion for Havel and other mainstream liberals who led 1989’s ‘Velvet Revolution’. When Havel became president and Klaus prime minister, Klaus’s well-known arrogance caused repeated conflicts even over the most trivial incidents, such as Havel’s decision to express officially his regrets at the death of Frank Zappa. Havel writes that Klaus would have been ‘happiest if I had submitted everything to him in advance for approval’.

Despite these barbs, many Czechs are disappointed the book does not say more about the Havel–Klaus relationship. Havel says, ‘I am very much opposed to reducing the last 20 years of our history to personal tiffs between myself and Václav Klaus. And I don’t like it when people get the impression that I did nothing but fight with him. I don’t like that, and it doesn’t reflect reality.’