We refugees

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We Refugees (German version for the first time 1986), We Refugees is a paradigmatic essay by Hannah Arendt on the political self-image of refugees, which she published in 1943 in the Jewish magazine Menorah Journal .

content

Arendt traces the life story of a “Mr. Cohn” who, as a Jewish refugee, tries hard - “150 percent” - to assimilate in the respective nation-state . But for a refugee , all efforts to be a German , a Viennese or a French and thus a political member of society are unsuccessful. As a stateless person , he remains without rights and " outlaws ". At the end of the day, Mr Cohn and Balzac determined for himself: on ne parvient pas deux fois (you cannot find happiness twice).

In this text Arendt argues against the efforts of assimilation and for a new self-confidence of the refugees to become political for their cause:

“ For them [the Jewish refugees] history is no longer a book with seven seals, and politics is no longer a privilege of non-Jews . You know that immediately after the ostracism of the Jewish people, most European nations were declared outlaws. The refugees displaced from one country to another represent the avant-garde of their peoples. "

Their analysis that the imperialism the nation states have decomposed and says people with nationalities without territorial bonds outlaws, Hannah Arendt deepened in her major work The Origins of Totalitarianism (dt. 1955). She stated the “right to have rights” and stated that the concept of human rights based on human nature or divine commandments did not affect the millions of homeless and stateless people of the 20th century. There can only be rights within a political community whose members mutually assure one another.

For Arendt, the “incapacitation” of the refugees through the “production of corpses” was a clear sign of errors in previous political theories that did not cover these facts. A theory of political action must be developed on the basis of an analysis of the legal situation of the refugees. She called the construction - even before the appearance of the essay - a Jewish army within the allied troops. Such an army is the only effective answer of the Jews to the lies that the opponents of the National Socialists more or less consciously fought for “international Judaism”. Only then was understood that " only if the Jews as Jews with fighting, the talk that others fight for them, will disappear." In addition, the National Socialists were to be persuaded to recognize the Jews as a hostile nation in terms of martial law . She also saw the right to be present at international conferences - such as a peace conference - dependent on the status as a nation.

reception

Although she represented these theses in detail in her work Elements and Origins of Total Domination , which is recognized as a standard work in political science , they have only been discussed more widely in Germany for a few years. We Refugees was translated into German and published in 1986.

According to Thomas Meyer, Arendt's formula, a »right to have rights«, is "no less than Arendt's revolution of the human rights discourse, which is summed up in a nutshell." He goes on to claim that we refugees "is one of the few political programs by a female philosopher, that has actually become effective in the daily struggle for human rights. "

expenditure

  • Hannah Arendt: We Refugees . Menorah Journal, 1943.
  • Hannah Arendt: We refugees. In: At the moment. Political essays. From the American by Eike Geisel . Edited by Marie Luise Knott . Rotbuch, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-88022-715-2 , pp. 7-21 (dtv-Taschenbuch München 1989 ISBN 3-423-11152-6 ).
  • Hannah Arendt: We Refugees , in: South As A State Of Mind , Heft 6, 2015.
  • Hannah Arendt: We refugees . Philipp Reclam jun. Verlag GmbH (Stuttgart) 2016. 64 pages. ISBN 978-3-15-019398-3 .

literature

  • Giorgio Agamben : Au-delà des droits de l'homme. In: Liberation .. v. 9/10 June 1993.
  • Giorgio Agamben: Au-delà des droits de l'homme - exile et citoyenneté européenne. In: Figures de l'Étranger. Immigrés, nomades, exiles. Numéro 5, November 1994.
  • Giorgio Agamben: Beyond human rights. In: Subtropics. Supplement to Jungle World . No. 28/01, June 21, 2002.
  • Giorgio Agamben: We Refugees , Symposium, 49: 2 (1995: Summer) p. 114
  • Thomas Meyer: From »We Refugees« to »There is only one human right« , pp. 39 to 48, in: Monika Boll, Dorlis Blume, Raphael Gross (editor): Hannah Arendt and the 20th Century , 2020, ISBN 978 -349207035-5

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Elements and origins of total domination. Anti-Semitism, imperialism, total domination. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1986 (TB). (12th edition. 2008, ISBN 978-3-492-21032-4 ), pp. 560ff, 614ff.
  2. ↑ Hannah Arendt: With your back to the wall. In: Structure. July 3, 1942, p. 19.
  3. ↑ Thomas Meyer: From »We Refugees« to »There is only one single human right« , p. 47f, in: Monika Boll, Dorlis Blume, Raphael Gross (editor): Hannah Arendt and the 20th century , 2020
  4. ↑ We Refugees (English text) , www.documenta14.de, accessed on February 8, 2016.