Jean-Christophe Rufin - Globalia

Besides 'coming of age' stories I love the 'future/Utopia' novels the best. For example Brave New World by Huxley, ofcourse 1984 by Orwell and the not well-known Democrats 2100 by Robert Heinlein.
The co-founder of Doctors without Borders, Jean-Christophe Rufin has written the best novel in this category I've read in years.

Globalia describes the end-station of the technological project which Rufin casts in an enthralling literary mould. It is the totalitarian form which has asserted itself in the ‘protected’ zones of Globalia. Globalia makes excessive use of the rhetoric of freedom, human rights and, above all, absolute security, while the unquestionability of these absolute, almost religiously transfigured concepts means at the same time the end of any genuine public debate about the political substance of Globalia’s democracy. It is accepted. There are no alternatives left anyway. People who express themselves politically incorrectly in Globalia do not receive visitations from dark figures, their careers are simply “accelerated a little”.

Globalia cannot defeat any enemy, it is threatened only from within. In Globalia, boredom is the price and the prevailing mood of nihilistic existence. Rufin recounts a trekking tour in South Africa which inspired him to write Globalia. After walking a long way through the wilderness he came upon a policeman who asked him for his entry card with a barcode. Rufin protested. The officer explained to him that without the coded entry card, they could neither search for him nor find him. The start of the Globalia theme had found Rufin.

Baikal and Kate, the heroes of the novel, attempt to break out of the security zones while on a trekking tour, longing for love, adventure and exceptional experiences. The immediate social contact with people outside the artificial dome under which Globalia is situated, whether enemies or not, lifts their mood straight away. They can breath again, despite the desolation of the non-zones. They are not terrorists, nor politicians, they are without nationality or citizenship, but within them there still audibly beats an ‘adventurous heart’. That suffices.

Change in Globalia can no longer be cast in the mould of political programmes. Baikal and Kate save their youth by an intuitive flight which must at first succeed without a definite objective, but which finds its meaning in its nature as a path, as a new beginning. Rufin continuously plays on the – necessary – relation between poetic and political perception. Kate and Baikal are neither sensible nor pragmatic, and are thus original figures. Not until they act together do they discover the possibility of love. Both want one thing above all else: to break out of Globalia and have a destiny at last.

There is no doubt that Globalia is a European book. It reflects the European mistrust of the leviathan and the scepticism regarding technology. “Within the Gestell (framework), everything becomes stock,” perceived Martin Heidegger in his early and striking description of the integrative nature of planetary technology. The ‘Old’ Europe may be spiritually tired, but it is under no illusions, remains dangerous, and doubts the irrational thesis of our parties promising endless growth and global wellbeing. But where to? With his depiction of Globalia, Rufin dares cautiously to question the meaning of our historical existence.

Globalia shows how it might end, but not how it must end. Because one understands every side and can recognise all the motives of modern life in Globalia, this end appears possible. In Globalia, history itself ends. Who, after all, can still make history? The former bearers of political sovereignty, be they nations, peoples, civil movements or trade unions, have long dispersed. Man lives atomised. Globalia is full of abundance, and yet it is an eternal, aimless building site.