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Arendt 1951 The Decline of The Nation State and The End of The Rights of Man
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The Origins of
Totalit rianism
by HANNAH-ARENDT
Meridian Books
THE WORLD
Clove
YG COMPANY
vk Published by The World Publishing Compans
2231 West 110 Street, Cleveland 2. Ohio
First Meridian printing September 1958:
Fifth printing July 1961
Copyright 1951 hy Hannah Arendt
Second enlarged edition copyright © 1958 by Hahnah Arendt
All rights reserved
Reprinted by arrangement with Harcourt, Brace and Company
Lihrary of Congress Catalog Card Numboe: 5-119
Printed in the United States of America cuarren vive: The Decline of the Nation
State and the End of the Rights of Man
Leite imports even now to draibe what actully happened
in Europe on August 4, 1914. The days before and the days after the
first World War are separated not like the end of an old and the beginning
‘of a new period, but like the day before and the day after an explosion. Yet
this figure of speech is as inaccurate as are all others, because the quiet of
sorrow which settles down after # calustrophe has never come 10 pass. ‘The
first explosion seems to have touched off a chain reaction in which we have
been caught ever since and which nobody
terday hecause of his mere presence in this world, who had no rights what-
ever and lived under threat of deportation, or who was dispatched without
fenlence and without tral to some kind of internment because he had ttled
to work and make a living, may hecome almost a fallfledged citizen be-
‘cause of alittle theft. Even if he is penniless he can now get a lawyer, com=
plain about his jalers, and ne wall be listened to respectfully. He’ is no
“Simpson, op. cit, p. 289
DECLINE OF NATION-STATES END OF RIGHTS OF Man 287
longer the scum of the earth but important enough to be informed of all
the details of the law under which he will be «ied, He has become & te-
spectable person,
‘A much less reliable and much more dificult way 0 rise from an un:
recognized anomaly 10 the slats of recognized exception would be to De-
‘come a genius. Just as the law knows only one diference between human
beings, the difference between the normal noneriminal and the anomalous
‘criminal, s0 a conformist society has recognized oniy one torm of determined
individuatiem, the genins. Puropean hourgeots society wanted the genius to
Say outside of human laws, to be a kind of monster whose chief social
funtion was to create excitement, and it did not matter if he actually was
fn outlaw. Moreover, the loss of citizenship deprived people not only of
Protection, but also of all clearly established, officially recognized identity,
fact for which their eternal feverish efforts to obtain at least birth cert:
cates from the country that denationalized them was a very exact symbol,
cone of their problems was solved when they achieved the deeree of dis
tinction that will rescue a man from the huge and nameless crowd. Only
fame will eventually answer the repeated complaint of refugees uf all cial
strata that “nobody here knows who T am": and itis true that the chances
of the famous refugee are improved just as a dog with a name has a better
chance t0 survive than a stay dog who iy just a dog in general."
“The nation-state, incapable of providing & law for those who had lost the
protection of a national government, transferred the whole matter t0 the
police. ‘This was the frst time the police in Western Europe had received
authority to act on its own, to rule directly over people; in one sphere of
public life it was no longer an instrument to carry out and enforce the law,
Dut had become 3 ruling authority independent of government and min:
ietriae # Hs strength and its emancipation from law and government grew
in dieet proportion to the influx of refugees. The greater the rato of state-
"tm prasial terms, any sentence meted out to him willbe of small consequence
compres with a9 expivon order cancelahon of = wo perms or 8 sree sending
Fim into an interament camp. A West Coast Japanese American who was al when
the army ordered the internment of all-Americany of Japanese ancestry. would not
Om where Rew armed with Taye 1 ok after hinted i he as
fay to his former business and proteston even that of profesional ie His al
Sere uramccd ime eonara tt ing een es ot
Toyatty yd no appeuls-could hive obtained for him once hs cizensip had become
stub” °° nip ha ts
the socal posions of thee groups ate.
tn France fr intact nt me FU) Mat ander of expan
manating fom the pale nas much more serous than one which was issued “orl by
the Minisry of lnerior 2nd thatthe Minster of Interior could’ ony in rate casey
ancl u police expulsion, while the appar gorvesone sae ften merely 4 question at
bribery! Consationally he poise i under the authority of the Minty of Interior 288 pareRTAList
fess and potentially stateless wy the population at large—in prewar France
ithad reached 10 per cent of the total—the ereater the danger of a gradual
transformation into a police state.
It goes without saying that the rotalitarlan regimes, where the police
had risen to the peak of power, were especially eager to consolidate this
power through the domination over vast groups of people, who, regardless
of any offenses committed by individuals, found themselves anyway be
yond the pale of the law. In Navi Germany, the Nucembere T awe with their
Gistinction between Reich citizens (full citizens) and nationals (second-
lass citizens without political rights) had paved the way for @ development
in which eventually all nationals of “alien blood” eanld loge their nations
ality by official decree; only the outbreak of the war prevented a corre-
sponding legislation, which had been prepared in detail." On the other
hhand, the increasing groups of stateleee in the nontolitarian countries
Jed to a form of lawlessness, organized by the police, which practically
resulted in a co-ordination of the tree world with the legislation of the
totalitarian countries. That concentration camps were ultimately provided
for the same groups in all countries, even though there were considerable
differences in the treatment of their inmates, was all the more characteristic
as the selection uf the groups wis let exclusively 40 the initiative of the
‘otaltarian regimes: if the Nazis put a person in a concentestion camp
and if he made a successful escape, say, to Holland, the Dutch would put
him in an internment camp. Thus, long before the outbreak of the war
the police in a number of Western countries, under the pretext of “national
security,” had on their own initiative established close connections with
the Gestapo and the GPU, so that one might say there existed an independ-
‘ent foreign policy of the’police. This police-directed foreign policy Tunc-
tioned quite indepensenty of the oficial governments; the relations between
the Gestapo and the French police were never more cordial than at the
In February, 1938, the Reich and Prussian Ministry of Interior presented the
‘rat Of ta concerning the asqulsiton and ors of German nalonaiy: which MEOt
far beyond the Nuremberg lepton. It provided tht all children of "Jews, Jews of
‘inc blood oe persons ttre ae hood (who cul eer Sco Reh
‘zens anyway) were also no Tonecr ented to the nationality. *rven i the fuer
posses Cerman'atonty by brah "That thee measures reo longer merely
1939, by the Minster of Jose, ho suggests that “ihe words Jew apd Jew of mited
ood." or ‘persons of non German oF non-Germanic [nicht arttermandt] blood’
‘Am incieing feature I planning ths extraoroinaty expansion of the satles pope
lation in Naat Germany concerns the foundings. who are explcty retarded! ab sate
‘es, unl “an invesigauon of their racial characters can be feader Hite He
Bincple that every Indvidal is born with inalienshie ight putraneed hy
analy as een deltertly fever very invaul bra ie, namely
cite tial dose concerning the dal of this ean, nig the opinions
the'Viddst Scientific Insate in New York (G-75), hw "™ ME Areves
DECLINE OF NaTION-STATE; END OF RIOHTS OF MAN 289
fine of Leon Blum’s popular-fromt government, which was guided by x
ecidedly anti-German policy. Contrary to the governments, the various
police organizations were never overburdened with “prejudices” against any
{otaitarian regime; the information and denunciations Fecelved from GPU
fagents were just as welcome to them ax those from Fascist or Gestapo
agents. They knew about the eminent role of the police apparatus in all
{olalitarian tegimes, they knew about its elevated social status and_po:
litical importance, and they never hatheredl to ennceal their sympathies,
‘That the Nazis eventually met with so disgracefully litle resistance from
the police in the countries they occupied, and that they were able to or-
ganize terror se much as they did with the nesigtance of thece Toeal police
forces, was due at least in part (0 the powerful position which the police
hnad achieved over the years in theit Untestrictea and arbitrary domination
of stateless and refugees
Both in the history of the “nation of minorities” and in the formation of
‘stateless poople, Jews have played s significant role. They were at the head
ff the so-called minority movement because of their great need for protec-
tion (matched only by the need of the Armenians) and their excellent inter.
notional connections, but above all becouse they formed a majority in no
country and therefore could be regarded as the minorté par excellence, i
the only minority whose interests could be defended only by internationally
{guaranteed protection.
The special needs of the Jewish people were the best possible pretext
for denying that the Treaties were a compromise between the new nations’
tendency forcefully to assimilate alien peoples and nationalities who for
reasons of expediency could not be granted the right 10 national self-
determination.
‘A silat incident made the Jews pu the discussion of the sef-
ugee and statelessness problem. The first Heimatlose or apaurides, as they
were created by the Peace Treaties, were for the most part Jews who came
from the succession states and were unable or unwilling wo place dheanelyes
under the new minority protection of their homelands, Not until Germany
forced German Jewry into emigration and statelessness. did they form @
very considerable portion of the stateless people. But in the years following
Hitlers successful persecution of German Jews all the minority countries
began to think in terms of expatriating their minorities, and it was only
natural that they should start with the minorité par excellence, the only
nationality that actually had no other protection than a minority system
Which by now had become a mockery
‘The notion that statelessness is primarily Jewish problem was a pre-
On the role of the Jews in formulating the Minority Treaties, see Macartney,
fen Ewope, Paris, i932, pp. tf; Osar J, Janowsk, op.
Tas was by 90 means only pion oF Naa! Germany, though only a Naat author
dazed to expeess ite "It is true that a refugee question wl continue to ens even 290 IMPERIALISM
text used by all governments who tried to settle the problem by ignoring it
[None of the statesmen was aware that Hitler's solution of the Jewish prob-
lem, fist to reduce the German Jess 19 8 nonrecognized minority in Ger
‘many, then to drive them as stateless people across the borders, and
finally to gather them back from everywhere in order 10 ship them 10
extermination camps, was an cloquent demonstration to the seat of the
World how really to’ “liquidate” all problems concerning, minorities and
Stateless. After the war it turned out that the Jewish question, which was
considered the only insoluble one, was indeed solved—namely, by means
of a colonized and then conquered territory—but this solved neither the
problem of the minorities nor the stateless, On the contrary, like virtually
all other events of our century, the solution of the Jewish question merely
produced a new category of refugees. the Arabs. thereby inereasing the
‘number of the stateless and rightless by another 700,000 to 800,000 people.
‘And what happened in Palestine within the smallest territory and in terms
of hundreds of thousands was then repeated in India on a large scale in-
volving many millions of people. Since the Peace Treaties of 1919 and
1920 the refuyees und the stateless have attached themselves like a curse
to all the newly established states on earth which were cteated in the
image of the nation-state.
For these new states this curse bears ihe germs of a deadly sickness. For
the nation-state cannot exist once its principle nf equality before the Taw
fas broken down Without this Tegal equality, which originally was des-
{ined to replace the older laws and orders of the feudal society, the nation
dissolves into an anarchic mace of cver- and vunderprivileged indivichals
Laws that are not equal for all revert to rights and privileges, something
contradictory to the very nature of nation-states, The clearer the proot of
their inability te teeat stateless people as legal persons and the greater the
jon of arbitrary rule by police decree, the more dificult itis for states
jst the temptation to deprive all citizens of legal status and rule them
with an omnipotent police
The Perplesities of the Rights of Man
‘TH DECLARATION of the Rights of Man at the end of the cightcenth century
yas a turning point in history. It meant nothing more nor less than that
from then on Man, and not God's command or the customs of history,
should be the source of Law. Independent of the privileges which history
hhad bestowed upon certain strata of society or certain nations, the declara
tion indicated man’s emancipation from all tutelage and announced that he
hed now come of age
tof the refugees, the refugee question willbe much simplified” (Kabermann, "Das
feraalonale Fuchtingsprobem, in avec fur olin Wa. 29. Hel 1939),
DECLINE OF NATION:STATES END OF RIGHTS OF MAN 291
Beyond this, there was another implication of which the framers of the
declaration were only half aware. The proclamation of human rights was
slse meant to be a much-needed protecign in the new era where individuals
‘wore no longer secure in the estates to which they were born or sure of
their equality betore God is Clnnistians, 19 other Words, in the new secu
larized nd emancipated society, men were na longer sire of thee cocil
‘and human rights which until then had been outside the political order and
guaranteed not by government and constitution, but by social, spiritual, and
fuligious forces, Therefore throughout the nineteenth century, the consensts
fof opinion was that human rights had 10 be invoked whenever individuals
heeded protection against the new sovereignty of the state and the new
arbitrariness of sosiety
Since the Rights of Man were proclaimed to be “inalienable,” irreducible
to and undeducible from other rights or laws, no authority was invoked for
their estublishment; Man himself was their cource at well ag their ultimate
soul. No special law, moreover, was deemed necessary to protect them be-
{cause all Iaws were supposed to rest upon them. Man appeared as the only
Sovercign in matters of law as the people was proclaimed the only sovereign
in matters of government. The people's sovereignty (different from that of
the prince) was not proclaimed by the grace of God but in the name of
Man so tat i secited 0 inalienable” rights of man
‘would find their guarantee and become an inalienable part of the right of
the people to sovereign self-government
In oller words, san liad lly appeaicd as a completely emancipated,
completely isolated being who carried his diznity within himself without ref-
erence to some larger encompassing order, when he disappeared again into
a member of a people. From dre beginning the paradox i
laration of inalienable human rights was that it reckoned with an
human being who seemed to exist nowhere, for even savages
kind of a social order, Ifa tribal or other “backward community did wot
tnjoy human rights, it was obviously because as a whole it had not yet
reached that stage of civilization, the stage of popular and national sov-
ereignty, But was oppressed by foreign or native despots. The whole ques
tion of homan rights, therefore, wae quiekly and inextricably blended with
the question of national emancipation; only the emancipated sovereignty
fof the people, of one's own people, seemed to be able to insure them. AS
Imankind, since the French Revalvtion, was conceived in the image of 2
family of nations, it gradually became self-evident that the people, and not
the individual, was the image of man.
“The full implication of this identification of the rights of man with the
rights of peoples in the European nation-state system came to light only
when a growing number of people and peoples suddenly appeared whose
Glementary rights were as litle safeguarded by the ordinary functioning of
nation-states in the middle of Europe as they would have been in the heart
Of Africa, The Rights of Man, after all, had been defined as “inalienable”
‘because they were cupposed to be independent of all governments; but it 292 IMPERIALISM
tuned out thatthe moment human beings lacked their ovn government and
had fal bach yp their ium rights, no author was let to protect
them and no inatution was ling tn eusrantce them "Or shen, atin the
case of the minors, an international body srrogated to itself a nongovern
eal aso Is fale wat appre even store I measures wer
lly realized; not only were the governments mote or ete openly opposed
to this encroachment on thee sovereignty, but the concerned atineltes
Themseves dd not recognize nonnational garanes, misused everything
which was not clear-ot sopport of their “notional” (ah opposed to thet
mete “linguistic, religious, and ethnic”) rights, and preferred either, like the
Germans or Hungartans, io tun to the protection ofthe “national? mother
county, of lke the Jens, to some kind of intertritra slant.
The stateless people were ab convinced as the minority that lots of ma
tional sights was iene with los of human rights, thatthe former
evitably entailed the lates. The mire they were excded from right In any
fom, the more they tended to Took for entegration ito-9 stow nto
their own national community. The Russian refuges were only the Ast to
mvt on tir ntinaly and fo Gefene themselves funousy against attempts
to lump them together with other sntelews people Since thems not ng
roup of refugees or Displaced Persons has fled to develop a here, violent
{fou conectowenss ant fo clamor for rhs sand oly asPles or
Even worse was that all societies formed forthe protection ofthe Rights
ot Man, al atumpts to arive at «new bil of human rights were sponsered
by martnal gree by s few international orats without plc exper
ence of professional philanthropists supported by the unceftain sentiments
of professional ideals, The groups they formed, the declarations they Ts
sued, showed an uncanny simlanty in anguage ail composition to that
Of societies forthe prevention of cruety to animals. No statesman, no noe
litial figure of any importance could possibly take them seriously and
none of the liteal or radial pares tn Europe thought i necessary to
incorporate into thir pronaty & new declaration of human sighs, Nether
before nor after the second World War have the victims themselves ever
invoked these fundamental rights, which were so evidently denied ther, in
their many attempts to find away out of the barbed wire labyrinth ita which
events had driven them. On the coatary, the victims shared the disdain
{Rubee iostances of tis extsive confidence in aaa sighs were the. com
sent before the second World War. of early 78 per cent of the German minority ia
ihe igtanTyet tn tosur thr oe and rveie Germany he sooner epee
ton of German nin Slovenia which ha teen tere vie the fureesh entry
‘an Malian DP camp of an offer of mass naturalization by the Ialian povernment.
1 the fave of ihe experience of European peoples between the two wars, WOuld bE
serious mistake 10 otereet this behavior simply as another examole of fanatic
atonement the pone no lng fies thet cemetary hy i
Eugene M. Kolisher. opt wav to wash hey Salone by ee See
DECLINE OF NATION-STATE; END OF RIGHTS OF MAN 293
and indifference of the powers that be for any attempt of the marginal so-
Cieties to enforce human rights in any elementary or general sense
“The falure of ull responsible persons to mect the calamity of an ever
growing body of people forced to live outside the scope of all tangible law
With the proclamation of a new bill of rights was certainly not due to ill
wll, Never before had the Rights of Man, solemnly proctaimed by the
French and the American revolutions as the new fundament for civilized
societies, been a practical political issue. During the nineteenth century,
these rights had been invoked in a rather perfunctory way, to defend inal-
viduals agsinct the increasing power of the state and to mitigate the new
social insecurity caused by the industrial revolution. Then the meaning of
Ihuman rights acquired « new connotation: they became the standard slogan
of the protectors of the undcrprivileged, kind of additional law, a right
‘of exception necessary for those who had nothing better to fall back upon,
The teason why the concept of human rights was treated as a sort of
stepchild by nineieentirventaty political thought and why no liberal or
radical party in the twentieth century, even when an urgent need for
forcement of human rights arose, saw fit to include them in its program
seems obvious: civil righis—that isthe varying rights of citizens in diferent
countries—were supposed 19 embody and spell out in the form of tangible
laws the eternal Rights of Man, which by themselves were supposed to be
independent of citizenship and nationaliy. All human beings were citizens
ff some kind of political community; if the laws of theie country did not
live up to the demands of the Rights of Man, they were expected to change
them, by legislation in democratic countries or through revolutionary action
in deapotisms.
‘The Rights of Man, supposedly inalienable, proved to be unenforceable—
even in countries whose constitutions were based upon them—whenever
people appeased who were no longer citizens of any sovereign state. To thie
fact. disturbing enough in itself, one must add the confusion created by the
many recent attempts to frame anew bill of human rights, which have
demonstrated that no one scents able to define with any assurance what these
general human rights, as distinguished from the rights of citizens, really ae.
‘Although everyone sems to agree that the plight of these people consists
precisely in their loss of the Rights of Man, no one seems to know which
Tahte they fort when they lost these human rights.
‘The frst loss which the rightless suffered was the loss of their homes, and
this meant the los of the enlire social texture into which they were born and
in which they established for themselves a distinct place ia the world, This
calamity is far from unprecedented; in the long memory of history, forced
migrations of individuals or whole groups of people for political or economic
reasons look like everyday occurrences. What is unprecedented is not the
loss of a home but the impossibility of finding a new one. Suddenly, there
was no place on earth where migrants could go without the severest restric
tions, no country wire they would be assimilated, no teretory where they
cenld found a new community of their own. This, moreover, had next to 208 nereniaisne
nothing to do with any material problem of overpopulation; it was @ probe
lem not of space but of politcal organization. Nobody had been aware that
mankind, for so long a time considered under the image of a family of na-
tions, had reached the stage where whoever was thiawn out of one of these
tightly organized closed communities found himself thrown out of the family
of nations altogether."
‘The second loss which the sightess suered way the lens uf government
protection, and this didnot imply just the loss of legal status in their own,
bout in all’ countries. Treaties of reciprocity and international ugreements
Ihave woven a web around the custh that mighes it possible for Ue witieen Of
every country to take his leral status with him no matter where he goes (so
that, for instance, a German citizen under the Nazi regime might not be
able to enter a snised marriage abioad because of the Nuremberg hiv)
Yet, whoever is no longer caught init finds himself out of legality altogether
(thas during the last war stateless people were invariably in a worse position
than enemy aliens who wete sill indirectly protected By their governments
through international agreements.
By itself the loss of government protection is no more unprecedented than
the loss of a ome. Civilized countries did offer the eight of asylum 10 those
‘who, for political reasons, had been persecuted hy their powernments, and
this practice, though never officially incorporated into any constitution, has
functioned well enough throughout the nineteenth and even in our century
The trouble arose when it appeared that the new categories of erected
were far too numerous to be handled by an unofficial practice destined for
‘exceptional cases. Moreover, the majority could hardly qualify for the right
fof agylum, which implicitly’ presuppnced political or religious convictions
which were not outlawed in the country of refuge. The new refugees were
Persecuted not because of what they had done oF thought, but because of
What they sinchangesbly were—horn into the ‘wrong kind of race or the
wrong kind of class or drafted by the wrong kind of government (as in the
case of the Spanish Kepublican Army).
‘The more the number of cightlest people increwsed, the greater became
the temptation to pay less attention to the deeds of the persecuting govern=
‘ments than to the status of the persecuted. And the fist glaring fact was
that these people, though persecuted under some politcal pretent, were no
nie eaonaty Spun teagen for itence: wee weaned To's cols eet
i which each naomi sady represented nthe county feed. to speak he
oe ica oF ed eae aeraceet cd
row dtngerous i can Be to be innocent fron the point of view of the pes.
Sromts ofced aisha ai Wore Gera ices who were tuca
Shar the ppican could prove that he bed done someting Spin the Nae seine
‘ery Sian te. sangly enough war nt The people who were mon denser
DECLINE OF NaTION:STATR END OF RIGHTS OF Max 29s
longer, a the persecuted had been Uhroughout history, a Hability and an
image of shame for the persecutors: that they were not considered and
hhardly pretended to be active enemies (the few thousand Soviet citizens who
voluntarily left Soviet Russia after the second World War and found asylum
in democratic countries did more damage to the prestige of the Soviet Union
than millions of refugees in the twenties who belonged to the wrong class),
but that they were and appeared to be nothing but human beings whose very
innocence—fram euery point of view, snd especially that of the persecuting
government—was their greatest misfortune. Innocence, in the sense of com
plete lack of responsibility, was the mark of thelr righessness as it was the
eal of their lose of political stats
‘Only in appearance therefore do the needs for a reinforcement of human
rights touch upon the fate of the authentic political refugee. Political ret-
Ugees, of necenity few in umber, sill enjay the right to asylum in many
‘countries, and this right sets, in an informal way, 28 a genuine substitute for
national faw.
‘One of the eurprsing aspects of our experience with stateless people who
benefit legally from committing a crime has been the fact that it seems to
be easier to deprive completely innocent person of legalty than someone
who has committed an offense, Anatole France's famous quip, “If 1am
jecused of stealing the towers of Notre Dame, I can only fle the country,”
hhas assumed a horrible reality. Jursts are so used to thinking of law in terms
‘of punishment, which indeed always deprives us of certain rights that they
‘may find iteven more dificult than the layman to recognize that the depriva-
tion of legality, ofall rights, no longer has a connection with specific
“This situation illust
human rights, No matter how they have once been defined (life, liberty,
thre pursuit of happiness, accovding to the American formule, or as equal
before the law, liberty, protection of property, and national sovereignty,
according to the French); no matter how One may attempt to improve an
Ambiguous formulation Uke the pursuit of happiness, or an antiquated onc
like unqualifed right {0 property: the real situation of those whom the
twentieth century has driven outside the pale of the law shows that these are
Fights of citizens whose loss does not entail absolute rigtlessuess. The sol-
tier during the war is deprived of his right to life, the eriminal of his right
to freedom, all citizens during an emergency of thei right to the pursuit of
happiness, but nobody would ever claim that in any Of these instances a
Togs af human ighte hac taken place. These rights. on the other hand, ean
be granted (though hardly enjoyed) even under eonditions of fundamental
righilessness
"The calamity of the rightlys is not that they are deprived af fife, heey,
and the pursuit of happiness, or of equality before the law and freedom of
opinion—formulas which were designed to solve problems within gwen
Communities but that they no longer belong to any community whatso-
fever. Their plight is not that they are not equal before the law, but that no
es the many peeplexties inherent in the concept of
nd 296 mmreniatise
Jaw exists for them, wot that they ae oppressed but that nobody wants even
to oppress them. Only in the fast stage of a rather lengthy process is their
right to live threatened; only if they remain perfectly “superfluous,” if no-
body can be found to “claim” them, may thelr lives be in danger, Even the
[Nazis stated their extermination of Jews hy frst depriving them of all legal
status (the status of second-class citizenship) and cutting them off from the
world of the living by herding them into ghettos and concentration camps;
and before they set the exe chamhers into: mation they had carefully tested
the ground and found out to their satisfaction that no. country would claim
these people. The point is that a condition ot complete rightlessness. Was
created hefore the right to live was challenged,
‘The same is true even to an ironical extent with regard to the right of
treedom which is sometimes considered to be the very essence of human
rights. There is no question that thoce outside the pale of the law may have
more freedom of movement than a lawfully imprisoned criminal or that
they enjoy more freedom of opinion in the internment camps of democratic
‘countries than they would in any ordinary despotism, not to mention in
totalitarian country. But neither physical safety—being fed by some state
‘or private welfare agency—nor freedom of opinion changes in the least their
fundamental situation of rightlessncss, The prolongation of their lives is due
to charity and not to right, for no law exiss which could force the nations
to feed them; their freedom of movement, if they have it at al, gives them
zo right to residence which even the jailed criminal enjoys as a anatter of
course; and their freedom of opinion is a fool's freedom, for nothing they
think matters anyhow.
‘These last points aie ciuvial. The fundamental deprivation of human
rights is manifested fist and above all in the deprivation of a place in the
world which makes opinions significant and actions effective. Something
uch more fundamental than freedom and Justice, Which are rights of
izens, is at stake when belonging to the community into which ane ie horn
is no longer a matter of course and not belonging no longer a matter of
choice, of when one Is placed in a situation where, unless he commits a
crime, hit treatment hy athers does nat depend on what he does or does not
do. This extremity, and nothing else, is the situation of people deprived of
hhuman rights. ‘They are deprived, not of the right to freedom, but of the
right to action; not of the right to think whatever they please, but of the
right to opinion, Privileges in some cases, injustices in most. blessings and
doom are meted out to them according to accident and without any relation
whtsvever wo what they do, did, or may do.
We became aware of the existence of a right to have rights (and that
‘means to live in a framework where one is judged by one's actions and
“ Even under the conditions of realitaian error, concentration camps sometimes
rave Been the oaly place where certain remmans of ficedon of thought and deasion
Al existed, See David Rouset Ler Journ de Novre Mart, Pare 1087” parsin for
freedom of gicunion tn Bucenwald, and Aton Ci, The Kustan Enigma, London,
aha ie fry ihe reed of nda seed soe
DECLINE OF NaTION-STATES END OF RICIITS OF MAK 207
Lpinions) and a sight to belong to some kind of organized community, only
‘when millions of people emerged who had lost and could not regain ‘these
Tights because of the new global political situation. The trouble is that this
calamity arose not frou any lack of civilization, backwerdness, or mere
tyranny, but, on the contrary, that it could not be repaired, because there
‘was no Tonger any “uncivilized” spot on earth, because whether we like it
fr not we have really started 10 live in One World. Only with a completely
frganized humanity could the loss of home and political status become
identical with expulsion from humanity altogether,
Before this, what we must call a "human right” wday would have been
thought of 5 general characteristic of the human condition which no
tyrant could take away. 11s loss entails the loss of the relevance of speech
(find man, since Arstotle, has been defined as a being commanding the
power of speech and thought). and the loss of all human relationship (and
fan, again since Aristotle, has been thought of as the “political animal,”
that is one who by definition lives in @ community), the loss, in other words,
fof some of the most essential characteristics of human life Thie wne to a
certain extent the plight of slaves, whom Aristotle therefore did not count
‘among human beings. Slavery’s fundamental offense against human nights
was not that it took liberty away (which cam happen in many other situa
tions), but that it excluded a certain category of people even from the pos-
sibility of fighting for freedom-—a fight possible under tyranny, and even
under the desperate conditions of modern terror (but not under any condi-
tions of concentration-camp life), Slavery's crime against humanity did not
begin when one people defeated and enslaved its enemies (though of course
this was bad enough), but when slavery became an institution in which
some men were “born” free and others slave, when it was forgotten that it
‘was man who had deprived his fellow-men of freedom, and when the sanc-
tion for the erlme was utribuied iw nature. Yet in the light of recent events
it ie powsile to say that even slaves stil belonged to some sort of human
community; their Tabor was needed, used, and exploited, and this kept them
‘within the pale of humanity, To be a slave was after all i have « distintive
character, 2 place in sociely—move than the abstract nakedness of being
hhuman and nothing but human. Not the loss of specific rights, then, but
the loss of a community willing and able fo guarantee any rights whatsoever,
hos been the calamity which has befallen ever-increasing numbers of people
‘Man, it turns out, can lose all so-called Rights of Man without losing his
essential quality #s man, his human dignity. Only the loss of @ polity itself
expels him from humanity
"The right that corresponds to this loss and that was never even men
tioned among the human rights cannot be expressed in the categories of
the eighteenth century because they presume that rights spring immediately
from the “nature” of man—whereby it makes relatively litle difference
whether this nature is visualized in terms of the natural Iaw or in terms of
2 being created in the image of God, whether it concerns “aatueal” rights or
flivine commands, The decisive factor is that these rights and the human
dignity they bestow should remain valid and real even if only a single human Ea IMPERIALISM
‘being existed on earth; they are independent of human plurality and showld
remain valid even i @ human being is expelled fom the human community
‘Whew the Rights of Man were prociaimed for the fist time, they were
regarded as being independent of history and the privileges which history
had accorded certain stata of society. The new independence constituted
the newly discovered dignity of man, From the beginning, this new dignity
was of a rather ambiguous nature. Hieovical rights were replaced by natural
rights, “nature” took the place of history, and it was tacitly assumed that
‘nuture was less allen than history to the essence ot man, The very language
of the Declaration of Independence as well at of the Declaration des Dros
de !Homme—inalienable,” “given with birth,” “sell-evident truths’—in-
piles the betiet in a kind ‘ot human “nature” which would be subject to
the same laws of growth as that of the individval and from which rights ond
Jaws could be deduced. Today we are perhaps better qualified to judge
exactly what this human “nature” amounts to; in any event it has shown
1s potentialities that were neither recognized nor even suspected by West
temn philosophy and religion, which for more than three thousand years have
sehined and redefined this “nature.” But itis not only the, as it were, human
aspect of nature that has become questionable to us, Ever since mat leaned
{fo master it to such an extent that the destruction of all organic life on
carth with man-made instruments has become conceivable and technically
‘possible, he has been alienated from nature. Ever sine a Ueeper knowledge
‘of natural processes instilled serious doubts about the existence of natural
laws at all, nature itself has assumed a sinister aspect. How should one be
able to deduce laws and rights fom a universe which spparently knows
neither the one nor the other category?
Man of the twentieth century has become just_ as emancipated from
nature as cightcenth-ecutury man was from history. History and nature have
become equally alien to us, namely, in the sense that the eccenre of man
can no longer be comprehcnded in terms of either category. On the other
hhand, humanity, whieh for dhe elghweenth century, in Kantian terminology,
Was no more than a regulative idea. has torlay hecame an inescapable fact.
This new situation, in which “humanity” has in effect assumed the role
formerly sacribed (o nature oF history, would mean in ts context that
the right to have rights, or the right of every individual 10 belong to hu
‘manity, should be guarenteed by humanity itself. It is by no means certain
lteter this is possible. For, contrary to the bestintentioned humanitarian
attempts to obtain new declarations of homan rights from international oF
ganizations, it should be understood that this idea transcends the present
sphere of international law which sll operates in terms of reciprocal agree
ments and treaties hetween sovereign states; and, for the time boing, a
sphere that is above the nations does not exist, Furthermore, this dilemma
Would by no means be eliminated by the establishment of & “world gov
ferment.” Such a woeld government ix indeed within the realm of possibilty,
‘but one may suspect that in realty it might difer considerably from the ver~
sion promoted by idealstic-minded organizations. The crimes against hu
rman rights, which have become « epeialty of totalitarian regimes, ean always
299
DECLINE OF NATION-STATE: END OF RIGHTS OF MAW
be justified by the pretext tht ritht is equivalent to being good oF useful
techie initiation oi prs (Hers moto that Rg is what
{good far the German poopie" only the vulgriecd form ofa conception
‘in which came found everywhere and which in practice al remain
ireffectul only so longs older tradions that are stil effective In the
Gmtttins prevent this) concepion fiw which ienien what is
Sigh withthe sion of what god For-—for the indivi, r the Family,
Sri peopl, or tne Largest mamiber—ecomes inevitable once the absolute
Gnd tanaeendemt measurements of religion or the aw of nature have fst
their authoriy. Ant this pricament& by no means solved if the unit to
Stich the “Wood for” applies isos Farge as mankind itsel. For itis quite
onceivables and even sth the realm of praccal polal pois,
{hat one fie doy highly organed and echanined humaaity wil conelade
Guite democraally--namely by msjorty decison—that for humanity as
MMhote t would be beter to hquidate certain pars tereot Here, im he
potlems ef factual reali, we ae confronted sith ane of the oldest pet
Fleuites of poles! philosophy which could remain undetected only 30
Tong asa stable Christian theology provided the framework forall poiical
sek ptesophial problems ut which long ago caored Pato to say" "Not
man’ but nods mint be the measore of ll things
‘These facts and reflections offer what seems an ironical, bitter, and be-
lated confirmation of the famous arguments with which Edmund Burke
opposed the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Mat. They
Sppeor to buttrus his assertion that human rights were an “abstraction.
‘that it was much wiser to rely on an “entailed inheritance” of rights which
‘one transmits to one’s children like Ife itself, and to claim one’s rights wo be
the “rights of an Englishman” rather than the inalienable rights of man.
‘According to Burke, the rights which we enjoy spring “from within the na-
tion,” so that neither aatural law, nor divine commanc, nor any concept of
Iankind such as Robespierre’s “human race,” “the sovereign of the earth
fre needed as a source of law.*
“The pragmatic soundness of Burke's concept seems to be beyond doubt in
the light uf our manifold experiences. Not only did loss of national rights in
fll instances entail the los of human rights; the restoration of human rights,
fs the recent example of the State of Israel proves, has been achieved $0
far only through the restoation or the establishment of national rights. The
coneeption of human righis, based upon the assumed existence of a human
being as such, broke down at the very moment when those who professed
to believe in it were for the fist ine confronted with people sho had in-
‘deed lt all other qualities and specific celationships—except that they were
sill human, The world found nothing sacred in the abstract nakedness of
being human. And in view of objective political vonditions, itis hard to say
how the concepts af man upon which human rights are based—that he is
Ednnind RuckeRefletons on the Revlon in France, 1790, edited by BJ
vaype. Everyman's iby ae 300 IMPERIALISM
‘reated In the image of God (in the American formula), of that he is the
representative of mankind, oF that he harbore within himself the sucred de~
‘mands of natural law (in the French formula)—could have helped to find
Solution to the problem.
‘The eurvivors of the extermination camps, the iamates of vonveniration
and internment camps, and even the comparatively happy stateless people
‘could see without Burke's arguments that the abstract nakedness of being
nothing but human was divir greatest danger. Because of It they were fe
sarded as savages and. afraid that they might end by heing considered beasts,
they insisted on their nationality, the last sign of their former citizenship, as
thelr only remaining and recognized tie with humanity. Iheir distrust of
natural, their preference for national, rights comes preciasly from theit real
ization that natural rights are granted even to savages, Burke had already
feared that natural “inalienable” rights would confirm only the “right of the
naked savage,"* and thorefore reduce civilized nations to the status of sav
agery. Because only savages have nothing more to fall back upon than the
‘minimum fact of their human origin, people cling to their nationality all the
‘more desperately when they have Tost the rights and. prutestion Unat sucl,
nationality once gave them. Only their past with its “entailed inheritance”
Seems to attest to the fact that they sill belong to the civilized world
I human being loses his polial status, he should, according to the
implications ofthe inborn and inalienable righic of man, came under exactly
the situation for which the declarations of such general rights provided.
‘Actually the opposite is the case, It seems that a man who is nothing but a
iman hat lost the very qualities which make it possible for other people to
treat him as a fellow-man. This is one of the reasons why it is far more dif
Ncult to destroy the legal personality of a criminal, that if of a man who has
taken upon himself the responsibilty for an aet whose consequences now
determine his fate, than of a man who has been disallowed all common hu-
‘man responsibilities.
Durke's arguments thevefove gain an added significance if we look only
at the general human condition of those who have heen forced out of all
Political communities. Regardless of treatment, independent of liberties or
‘oppression, justice or injustice, they have lost all those parts of the world
and all those aspects af hnman existence which are the result of our common
labor, the outcome of the human artifice. If the tragedy of savage tribes is
‘that they inhabit an unchanged nature which they cannot master, yet upon
\whose abundance or frugality they depend for their livelihood, that they live
and die without leaving any trace, without having contributed anything to &
‘common world, then these rightless people ate indeed thrown back into a
peculiar state of nature. Certainly they sre not barbarians; some of teu,
indeed, belong to the most educated strata of their respective countries:
neverthicless, in 2 world that has almost liquidated savagery, they appear as
the fist signs of a possible repression funn civilization,
‘The more highly developed civilization. the more accomplished the
°Incoduction by Pavae to Barks oP.
DECLINE OF NALIUNSSIATE; END OF KIUHIS UF MAN 301
World it has produced, the more at home men fee! within the human artice
—the more they will retent everything they have not produced, everything
that is merely and mysteriously given them. The human being who has lost
his place in a community, his political status in the struggle of his time, and
the legal personality which makes his actions and part of his destiny a’ con.
sistent whole, is left with those qualities which usually can become articulate
only in the sphere of private life and must remain unqualified, mete exist~
tence in all matters uf public voncein. This anete existence, that is, all that
Which is mysteriously given us by birth and which includes the shape of
‘our bodies and the talents of our minds, can be adequately dealt with only
by the unpredictable hazards of friendship and sympathy, or by the great
and incalculable grace of love, which «ays with Augastine, “Volo ur sie
‘want you to be),” without being uble to give any particular reason for such
supreme and unsurpassable afhtmation,
‘Singe the Greeks, we have known that highly developed political life
breeds a deep-rooted suspicion of this private sphere, a deep resentment
against the disturbing miracle contained in the fact that each of us is made
fa be is—single, unique, unchangeable. This whole sphere of the merely
fiven, relerated to private life in eivilized society, is a permanent threat to
the public sphere, because the public sphere is a8 consistently based on the
law of equality as the private yphete i based on the law of universal dif-
ference and differentiation. Equality. in contrast to all that is involved in
rere existence, is not given us, but isthe result of human organization inso-
far a8 it i8 guided by the principle of Justice, We are not born equal; we
become equal at members of « group on the strength af our decision to
guarantee ourselves mutually equal rights.
‘Our politcal life rests on the assumption that we can produce equality
through organization, becouse man can act in and change and build a com-
mon world, together with his equals and only with his equals. The dark
background of mere givenness, the background formed by our unchange-
able sind unique natuie, breaks into the political scene as the alien which
in its all too obvious difference reminds us of the limitations of human
activity —which are identical with the limitations of human equality. The
reason why highly developed political communities, suc as the ancient city
States or modern nation-ctates, so often insist on ethnic homogeneity is
that they hope to eliminate as far as possible those natural and always pres-
‘ent diferences and ciferentiations which by themselves arouse dumb hatred,
Imistrust, and discrimination because they indicate all too clearly those
spheres where men cannot act and change at will, Ze. the limitations of the
human artifice. The “alien” is a frightening symbol of the fact of difference
as such, of inividuality x» such, and indicates those realms in which man
cannot change and cannot act und in which, therefore. he has a distinct
tendency to destroy. If a Negro in & white community is considered a Negro
and nothing else, be loses along with bis right to equality thet freedom of
‘activn which is specifeslly humen all his deeds are now explained as “nec
essary” consequences of some “Negro” qualities: he has become some speci- men of an animal species, called man, Much the same thing happens to
those who ave lost all distinctive politcal qualiies and have become Bum
beings and nothing else. No doubt, wherever public life and its law of
quality are completcly vietorious, wherever a civilization suceseds in ctim
inating or reducing to a minimum the dark background of difference, it
will end in complete petrifaction and be punished. so to speak, for having
forgotten that man is only the master, not the creator of the world
The great danger arising from the existence of people forced to live out-
side the common world is that they are thrown back, in the must of er
ization, on their natural givenness, on their mere differentiation. They lack
that tremendous equalizing of difercnecs which comes from being citizens
of some commonwealth and yet, since they are no longer allowed to par
take in the human artifice. they begin to belong to the human race in
much the same way as animals belong to a specific animal species. The par
‘adox involved in the loss of human rights is that such loss coincides wit
the instant when 2 person becomes human being in general—without 3
profession, without a citizenship, without an opinion, without a deed by
twhich to identify and specify himeclf-—wuf different in gencral, representing
rothing but his own absolutely unique individuality which, deprived of
expression within and action upon a common word, lose all siificance
‘The danger in the existence of such people is twofold: first and more
obviously, their ever-increasing numbers thveaten our political life, our
human artifice, the world which is the result of our common and co-ordi-
nated effort in much the same, perhaps even more tertfying. way as the
wild elements of nature once threatened the existence of mancmade cities
dand countrysides. Deadly danger to any civilization is no longer Ukely to
ome from without. Nature has been mastered and aa harharians threaten to
destroy what they cannot understand, as the Mongolians threatened Europe
for centuries. Even the emergence of totalitarian governments is a phe
nomenon within, Not outside, our citifization, The danger i that a global,
universally interrelated civilization may produce barbarians from its own
midst by forcing millions of people into conditions which, despite all ap
pearances, ate the conditions Of savages."
Ts modern expulsion from nimansy his mush more raul consequent than
the ancient and medieval custom of pulses)” Outlanty cerunly the sos Tearfl
fate which primitive lw could infit.” placing the Ico} the outlawed peron at he
Haw enforcemeat and was ally replaced hy ce i
had been primarily » subwitte for 9 pole
“The early Middle Ages sem to have bem atte
fn “tl death" Excormmonication inthe ti
AMToter respecte Escltstical and civil deh
{ary withdrawal or suspensvon of the righ of membership which might be fegained
See the aril “Outliwey” ad “Escormonscsion” in the Em srhpeder of Sova
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