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Citizens Without Frontiers 1st Edition
Engin F. Isin
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CITIZENS
WITHOUT
FRONTIERS
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9781441116055_FM_Final_txt_print.indd ii 8/21/2001 10:16:40 AM
CITIZENS
WITHOUT
FRONTIERS
ENGIN F. ISIN
N E W Y OR K • L ON DON • N E W DE L H I • SY DN EY
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Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
175 Fifth Avenue 50 Bedford Square

New York London
NY 10010 WC1B 3DP
USA UK
www.bloomsbury.com
First published 2012
© Engin F. Isin, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization

acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this
publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author.
‘The Unknown Citizen’, copyright 1940 and renewed 1968 by W.H. Auden,
‘Thanksgiving for a Habitat: VIII: Grub First, Then Ethics’,
copyright © 1963 by W.H. Auden and renewed 1991 by The Estate of
W.H. Auden, from COLLECTED POEMS OF W. H. AUDEN by W.H. Auden.
Used by permission of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Isin, Engin F. (EnginFahri), 1959-
Citizens without frontiers / Engin F. Isin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4411-8583-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-1-4411-1605-5
(hardcover : alk. paper) 1. World citizenship. 2. Citizenship–Philosophy.
3. Globalization. I. Title.
JZ1320.4.I85 2012
323.6–dc23
2012020484
EISBN: 978-1-4411-2742-6
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

Printed in the United States of America
9781441116055_FM_Final_txt_print.indd iv 8/21/2001 10:16:40 AM

For Evelyn
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To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word,
he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fi red,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in
every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but
left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there
was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of
his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with
their education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
—W. H. Auden, ‘The Unknown Citizen’ (1939)
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CONTENTS
Preface x
1 Of Those Whose Acts Traverse Frontiers 1

What does ‘without frontiers’ signify? 2
Professions, citizens, activists 4
Citizens without frontiers 5
Interrogating and transgressing frontiers 6
‘We, the people’ and ‘we, the connected’ 9
Making citizens activists 11
Three genres of writing 12
Act 1. Of treason: WikiLeaks 15
Act 2. Of rage: Rachel Corrie 18
Act 3. Of disobedience: Conscientious or civil? 20
2 ‘We, the People’ 28

What is called sovereignty? 28
Narrating sovereignties 30
How did the nation conquer the state? 32
The invention of ‘we, the people’ as the nation 37
Counter-narratives of other peoples, popolo, peuple and
populism 41
Sovereignty as a question of a whole and its parts 45
Act 4. Of defence: Minuteman Civil Defense Corps 47
Act 5. Of censoring: The Golden Shield Project 50
Act 6. Of espionage: Stuxnet 52
Act 7. Of assassination: Drones 54
Act 8. Of writing: Banksy 56
Act 9. Of solidarity: Strangers into Citizens 58
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viii CONTENTS
3 ‘We, the Connected’ 70

Are we all connected? 71
Of ethical and political subjectivities 75
Counter-narratives of connectivity: Cyberhackers and hacktivists 79
Genealogies, topologies, connectivity 83
Paradoxes, multiplicities, heterogeneities 86
Politics without ‘we, the people’? 87
Act 10. Of identification: We are all Khaled Said 89
Act 11. Of hacking: LulzSec 91
Act 12. Of defiance: No One Is Illegal 94
Act 13. Of staging: Climate Camp 97
4 Enacting Citizenship 108

Citizenship as political subjectivity 109
Disobedience as enacting citizenship 111
Beginning something new 113
Subjectivity, performativity, enactment 119
Acts of citizenship 130
Investigating acts 131
Activism as traversal citizenship 135
Act 14. Of speech: Waging Peace 136
Act 15. Of fury: Mariyam Manike 138
5 Citizens without Frontiers 147

Traversing frontiers 149
Why political subjectivity without frontiers? 150
Why acts of citizenship? 151
Why without frontiers? 153
Why traversing frontiers? 154
Why not global activists? 158
Act 16. Of declaration: ‘We, the Roma Nation’ 161
Act 17. Of resistance: International Solidarity Movement 164
Act 18. Of sharing: Open Rights Group 166
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CONTENTS ix
6 Emancipating (Acts of) Citizenship 174

Taking the state apart – from the nation 174
Emancipate your colonies! 176
Occupy everywhere: The enjoyment of being political 178
The shaking of nations 180
Between no longer and not yet 182
Act 19. Of enfranchisement: If the world could vote 188
Act 20. Of music: Barenboim without words 191
Bibliography 197
Index 219
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PREFACE
In the last 40 years, there has been an enormous focus on people who move
between countries for work, travel, and I should add, escape. Whether
treated as legal or illegal, these mobilities for business, education, tourism,
refuge or migration involve the relocation and sometimes permanent reset-
tlement of people. The proliferation of regimes and apparatuses to control
and regulate such mobilities has been widely discussed. Less well docu-
mented is another development that has required little or no relocation.
The growth of humanitarian politics, international volunteerism and tran-
snational activism has changed politics on a global scale. These have ena-
bled or mobilized people to act across frontiers without necessarily making
claims to mobility or resettlement. Of these, perhaps the most remarkable
has been what came to be known as ‘without frontiers’ signifying the provi-
sion of professional expertise and services without remuneration. Although
the most prominent of these has been Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF),
there have been others such as Reporters Without Borders and Lawyers
Without Borders. Moreover, although it has not been identified as such, we
could add ‘celebrities without frontiers’, as we have seen the emergence of
high-profi le entertainment figures involved in cross-border politics, such as
Madonna, Bob Geldof, Sean Penn, Bono, Angelina Jolie and many others.
Despite significant differences, their shared premise is fame converted into
professional status. It is very difficult to sift through these complex terrains
of politics that enable people to act across frontiers and articulate what
‘citizens without frontiers’ might mean. There are many activities that do
not fall under the existing categories of activism and yet possibly indicate
something just as significant about our present age. To begin with, ‘citi-
zens without frontiers’ is a paradox. By defi nition, citizens are members of
nation-states and they do not have the capacity to act under that name
outside the nation-state of which they are members. Citizenship, in other
words, does not cross frontiers. Yet, for all the reasons I already mentioned,
citizens of nation-states are either implicated or deliberately involved in all
those things that cross nation-state frontiers. But if citizens are to act across
frontiers, they always have to leave their citizenship at home and act under
the disguise of professional expertise, privilege and accreditation. To put it
another way, for those who have accumulated cultural and symbolic capital
associated with their professional fields, moving across frontiers is much
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PREFACE xi
less of an issue and is broadly accepted if not encouraged. What happens if

citizens act without disguise? What if citizens act across frontiers ‘as citi-
zens’? This happens a lot more than we realize but we have yet to recognize
and name it. Having failed to recognize and name it, we criminalize and
punish it. I aim to identify such acts, develop a vocabulary appropriate
for recognizing and investigating them, and, hopefully, contribute to our
understanding of this emerging politics without disguise; or the politics of
those whose acts traverse frontiers.
I have accumulated considerable debt to colleagues and institutions for
which I am grateful and without which this book would not be possible.
For the invitation to deliver a keynote at Royal Geographical Society with
the Institute of British Geographers (RGS–IBG) Annual International
Conference in 2003 to Luke Desforges, Rhys Jones and Mike Woods. (Until
recently, I had forgotten that it was entitled ‘citizens without frontiers’.) For
inviting me to write it as a book to Marie-Claire Antoine at Bloomsbury
and her subsequent guidance and counsel. For participating in the 17 June
2011 (London) workshop to Linda Bosniak, Enrica Rigo, Vicki Squire; for
participating in the 8 July 2011 (London) workshop to Claudia Aradau,
Stuart Elden, Sandro Mezzadra, Zaki Nahaboo and Jackie Stevens; for
participating in the 7 September 2011 (Toronto) workshop to Mariana
Valverde, Audrey Macklin, Kim Rygiel and Peter Nyers; for participating
in the 28 October 2011 (London) workshop to Alessandra Marino, Deena
Dajani, Zaki Nahaboo, Lisa Pilgram, Dana Rubin, Aya Ikegame, Leticia
Sabsay and Jack Harrington; and, for participating in the 8 December 2011
(Milton Keynes) workshop to John Allen, John Clarke, Jef Huysmans, Raia
Prokhovnik and Michael Saward. I am also grateful to Jef Huysmans and the
Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance (CCIG) in the Faculty of
Social Sciences at the Open University for providing wonderful intellectual
support and for funding these workshops. Cynthia Weber kindly read and
made sense of senseless fragments and provided critical comments. Zaki
Nahaboo provided brilliant research assistance on the acts including draft-
ing many original narratives and feedback on these acts. Kim Rygiel, Anne
McNevin and Rada Iveković asked penetrating and stimulating questions
during two interviews. I am grateful to Lisa Pilgram and Anne Paynter
for their brilliant attitude and fortitude in keeping things moving and cre-
ating spaces for me to write. For providing a brilliantly close and atten-
tive copy-editing, I thank Jack Harrington. For engaging with ‘theorizing
acts’ during Enacting European Citizenship project, I am grateful to Anaïs
Faure Atger, Ayşe Çağlar, Bahar Rumelili, Bora Isyar, Claudia Aradau,
Didier Bigo, Elspeth Guild, Fuat Keyman, Ivars Indāns, Jef Huysmans, Joe
Painter, Kristīne Krūma, Michael Saward, Paula Macioti, Prem Kumar
Rajaram, Rutvica Andrijasevic, Sandra Mantu, Sebastian Mehling, Sergio
Carrera, Vicki Squire and Zsuzsanna Arendas. I owe a debt of gratitude to
Michael Saward for being an inspiring co-investigator and co-editor during
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xii PREFACE
Enacting European Citizenship project and book. His attentive and con-
structive engagement with questions that our collaborative research raised
influenced the ideas expressed in this book significantly. I am most grateful
to Alessandra Marino, Iker Barbero, Deena Dajani, Lisa Pilgram, Helen
Arfvidsson, Stephan Scheel and Paola Macioti for engaging their research
with ‘acts of citizenship’. The book was made possible by European Research
Council (ERC) for funding Enacting European Citizenship (2008–10) and
Citizenship after Orientalism (2010–14) projects for which I am thankful.
Words fail me to express my gratitude to Evelyn Ruppert to whom this
book is dedicated.
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CHAPTER ONE
Of Those Whose Acts

Traverse Frontiers
Of all those movements with the name ‘without frontiers’ we have witnessed
since the 1970s, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is perhaps the most rec-
ognizable. What does that name signify? It is translated from French as
‘doctors without borders’. But the French word ‘frontières’ does not mean
simply borders or at least, if it does, only marginally so. Rather, it also
indicates front lines, extremities or edges of something. Used figuratively,
it implies limits (e.g. frontiers of science) and, by extension, it is used to
indicate the unknown (e.g. the fi nal frontier). Used literally, it indicates the
outer borders of a settlement or, more importantly, defending or protecting
them. So translating ‘frontières’ as ‘borders’ loses its nuance and translating
‘sans frontières’ as ‘without borders’ loses its performative force. As regards
MSF what limits are we talking about then? Is it simply that its practition-
ers – in this case doctors – declare their loyalty beyond the frontiers of the
jurisdiction that accredited and licensed them? MSF was founded in 1971
in Paris as an international aid group and evolved into an organization
whose mission ranged ‘from emergency medical assistance and healthcare
training to humanitarian assistance’.1 It is run by medical professionals but
can also be joined by professionals in other fields. That sounds very much
like a standard international non-profit organization.2 So why is the name
‘without frontiers’ used then? At fi rst glance, the limits that these profes-
sionals declare themselves ‘without’ appear to be those laws and norms that
govern their profession. Today, every profession, unlike the thirteenth- and
fourteenth-century guilds, is governed by rules that are typically made or
enforced by the authority of the state. The modern medical profession rec-
ognizes that authority. Does it mean that doctors are against the state and
want to operate regardless of its authority?3 Does it mean that doctors want
to belong to another authority that is beyond the state?
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2 CITIZENS WITHOUT FRONTIERS
What does ‘without frontiers’ signify?

Although there may be practitioners who harbour such ideals, MSF, to my
knowledge, never rejected the authority of the state as such – at least not
at the outset.4 Moreover, the limits that MSF declares itself ‘without’ are
more than an aspiration to practise medicine without rules especially not
those made by the state. Clearly, we need to look deeper into the logics of
the movement to make sense of that name ‘without frontiers’. These logics
become apparent in its practices and ethos of not only serving patients,
the ill, the victims, and the wounded, but also in creating autonomy and
authority to function beyond the limits of the state. How does MSF defi ne
those limits? It turns out that those are both the political and practical
limits of the state as such. I would like to propose that MSF is, above all,
a movement ‘traversing frontiers’. I will certainly elaborate on this phrase
but it indicates that rather than merely interrogating the rules that govern
the medical profession, it actually extends its reach beyond limits that are
imposed on its practitioners by the state.
This traversing is significant. Perhaps implicit in it is the fact that national,
corporate and religious powers are not only the causes of wars, deprivation,
oppression, violence and other forms of domination but they also actively
block assistance to those who are adversely affected by such violence. The
declaration ‘without’ acknowledges that doctors must act against frontiers,
reaching beyond the limits imposed on them by states, corporations and
religious authorities. Also implicit in its traversing is the recognition and
revelation that there are vast inequalities in the world that divide those
who have access to proper care and those who do not. Thus, for those who
have the privileges and accreditation, traversal becomes an obligation as
the foundation of their autonomy.
To avoid misunderstanding, the suggestion here is not to overlook how,
over the last 40 years, MSF has changed and grown more complex, espe-
cially with its development in several other countries.5 I will come back to
this. But I want to isolate the logics of this movement in order to under-
stand the broader appeal of the name ‘without frontiers’. As I mentioned,
over the last 40 years, we have seen academics, accountants, architects,
engineers, lawyers, reporters, teachers and other professionals organizing
or identifying themselves with that name.6 That is why we have perhaps
become accustomed to the name ‘without frontiers’. Taken together, ‘with-
out frontiers’ signifies a number of crucial issues. These movements are
radically different from business, professional and diplomatic travellers.
First, travelling business people, professionals and diplomats are protected
in the practice of their profession. Particularly in the last 20 years under the
banner ‘globalization’, the movements of such people have become much
easier, smoother and more straightforward. For them, travel and work are

OF THOSE WHOSE ACTS TRAVERSE FRONTIERS 3
increasingly asserted, claimed and obtained as of right. Second, corpora-

tions, organizations and governments remunerate professional services and
they engage in exchange and transactions. By contrast, movements without
frontiers are neither commercial nor protected. In fact, state, corporate and
religious authorities often do not endorse or support their movements and
attempt to inhibit their activities. It is in this sense that I think the founding
aspect of these movements is traversing frontiers.
It is about time I explain that phrase ‘traversing frontiers’. There are
four distinct but related senses of the word ‘traverse’.7 It fi rst refers to the
act to ‘traverse’ in a physical sense. The actions involve passing through
a gate, or crossing a river, bridge or other place forming a boundary. The
actions of ‘traverse’ also involve passing over, or going through (a region,
etc.) as well as passage or crossing from side to side and from end to end,
or in any course. In this fi rst sense, its usage closely resembles to that of
‘across’. However, its second meaning involves non-physical acts such as
opposition or thwarting: something that crosses, thwarts or obstructs; or
something that can form opposition, an obstacle or an impediment; things
that constitute a trouble, vexation, a mishap, misfortune, adversity can all
be called traverses. In fact, in law, it can mean denying an alleged misdeed
by the other side. These two meanings (physical and non-physical) com-
ing together and indicating not simply a crossing but with obstruction (or
obstructed) or thwarting (or thwarted) is one reason why I want to use tra-
versing frontiers rather than crossing to capture these frictions. Moreover,
in its third sense, ‘traverse’ denotes the way across, path, track or course.
So traverse is not only action but also that which it produces: a path, track
or trace. In this sense, it denotes the remains and traces of acts of tra-
versing frontiers as courses and paths that we can recognize, and follow.
Finally, and in a concrete sense, ‘traverse’ denotes something that is placed
or extends across, a kind of bridge or connection. With these two added
senses, ‘traverse’ not only denotes acts of crossing against but also leaving
remains or traces and building bridges. Clearly, taken together, these four
senses signify ‘without frontiers’ much more strongly than merely crossing,
across or even without or beyond frontiers.
To understand all these movements ‘without frontiers’ is a difficult task.
At the outset, it would be wrong to give only a positive image of academics,
accountants, architects, engineers, lawyers, reporters and teachers claiming
to act without frontiers. These movements raise various troubling questions
about the dominant humanitarian or human rights politics. To mark its
fortieth anniversary, for example, MSF itself recently discussed the dif-
ficult compromises that it makes to negotiate its activities.8 Marie Noelle
Rodrigue, operations director of MSF in Paris, accepted ‘. . . the price it is
necessary for an organization to pay so that you are helping the victims’
and recognized that ‘often that means making a compromise to a degree
where you are helping the authorities’.9 Clearly, although such movements,

or at least some of them, have been increasingly subsumed under human

rights politics, it is important to recognize that movements ‘without fron-
tiers’ cannot be seen only as human rights politics or as transnational (or
global) activism that is mobilized through human rights. Admittedly, they
are implicated in human rights regimes and their compromises, but they
also operate with quite distinct principles, and we ought not to see these
movements as identical or equivalent to what has come to be known as
‘global activism’ or ‘international volunteerism’.10 To be sure, movements
without frontiers share a non-commercial and non-profit ethos with activ-
ism and volunteerism. They can even be considered as a species of global
activism and perhaps share some elements with international volunteerism.
Yet, these movements indicate a new kind of politics for which we do not
yet have a name; or perhaps we have not yet taken seriously the name they
have given themselves.
Professions, citizens, activists

Going back to MSF – its ethos, concerns and limits or, more precisely, its
logics – it is well worth critical consideration.11 The claims that the move-
ment does not differentiate creed, religion, politics or race when providing
medical assistance, that it exercises ‘universal medical ethics’ and that it
maintains independence from established political, economic or religious
authorities all indicate an aspect of traversing frontiers. MSF clearly dis-
tinguishes between those norms that it accepts as given and those that it
establishes without limits. In fact, our professional lives may well consist
in managing the tension or even confl ict between direct, intentional, regu-
lated and recognizable duties and indirect, unintentional, open, indeter-
minate and yet affective obligations that implicate our lives in the lives
of others. MSF’s ethos illustrates this tension or conflict. When MSF was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999, James Orbinski, its then director,
stated this in his acceptance speech quite well. He named this tension or
confl ict as the most important thing that mobilized the movement. He said
‘. . . we push the political to assume its inescapable responsibility’.12 He
added ‘humanitarianism is not a tool to end war or to create peace. It is a
citizen’s response to political failure. It is an immediate, short term act that
cannot erase the long term necessity of political responsibility.’13 The use
of ‘citizen’ is ambiguous here. Why is it used when a professional ethos is
being discussed? What is implicit in this push for the political to assume its
responsibility is that rules and regulations that order our professional lives
do not necessarily exhaust our responsibilities towards ourselves and oth-
ers. We are answerable beyond the direct responsibilities that govern our
lives so that we can modify them. It establishes a capacity to act with cer-
tain autonomy. We, of course, learn, endorse and uphold laws and norms

under which we live and responsibilities that we must fulfil. We also engage
ourselves with others and question our relationships and the effects of our
actions or inactions on others. This engagement often implicates us in ten-
sion or confl ict with laws and norms that we uphold. That much is clear.
What is ambiguous is whether citizens have the same capacity as profes-
sionals to make these claims.
It is this tension (and conflict) that perhaps explains the proliferation of
movements called ‘without frontiers’ since the 1970s. Acting as responsible
professionals within the confines of the state that defi ne those responsibili-
ties can no longer answer our obligations to others elsewhere; nor can it
answer the consequences of the actions or inactions of our governments in
our name. These movements, despite their differences, operate with simi-
lar logics of answerability: that their obligations are principled, that such
obligations extend beyond or across frontiers and that these obligations
are not expressly authorized by established national, corporate or religious
authorities.
What we have learned from (or been reminded by) these movements with
the name ‘without frontiers’ over the last few decades is that each profession
is (or ought to be) governed by obligations that are beyond the regulations
of a jurisdiction under whose authority it is licensed. The fact that we began
with an example from the medical profession is not an accident. It is not
insignificant that the Hippocratic oath is considered a fundamental aspect
of the profession of medicine. Regardless of closed concerns, it obliges its
practitioners to open principles that are held to be common. The idea here
is to recognize that doctors are not only responsible to enclosing regula-
tions, norms, and laws that govern their profession, they are also answer-
able to their principles.14 This may sound like what is often considered as a
‘calling’ or ‘vocation’ associated with professions. But calling or vocation
indicates inward-directed orientations developed against outward-directed
pressures whereas these movements question this distinction.
Citizens without frontiers

The question I want to raise is why have we not witnessed a mobilization
called ‘citizens without frontiers’? What exactly would such a movement
involve? And here we encounter a problem. The very term ‘citizens without
frontiers’ is paradoxical. Citizenship is a bounded concept. It is bound up
with the state if not the nation that signifies its authority and limits. Unlike
academics, accountants, architects, engineers, lawyers, reporters and teach-
ers, the ‘membership’ of citizens is strictly considered within the frontiers
of the state. In fact, the very frontiers of the state become possible by defi n-
ing some people as ‘its’ citizens. That it is acquired by birth, residence or
blood and these binding it to the authority and territory of the nation-state

constitute citizenship. Without binding people into a body and bounding

them with an authority, the modern state would be inconceivable. In a way,
boundedness is the very condition of citizenship. Is ‘citizens without fron-
tiers’ not then an empty concept?15
As many scholars observe, it is this boundedness of citizenship to the
nation-state that has become problematic in the age of migration and glo-
balization.16 In the fields of migration and security studies, for example,
many have noted that with the increasing movements of people across
boundaries, there have been transnational, cosmopolitan and global forms
of citizenship where dual and multiple nationalities are being negotiated.17
Some have attempted to develop concepts of cosmopolitan or global citi-
zenship. Others have called for open borders.18 Yet, all these presuppose,
I submit, a moving subject rather than an acting subject. To put it another
way, the focus is the mobility rather than the ability to act across frontiers.
I want to turn the tables around and call all those who traverse frontiers
citizens, blurring, if not obliterating, the boundaries between migrants and
citizens. To do so, I want to draw inspiration from all those movements
with the name ‘without frontiers’ in order to use it as a foundation to artic-
ulate the concept ‘citizens without frontiers’.
Can we learn from those who do not necessarily move but traverse fron-
tiers without professional accreditation or privilege? To put it another way,
is it possible to shift our focus from the moving subject to the acting subject
traversing frontiers? These acts may involve work, travel or escape but to
focus on issues such as dual and multiple nationalities or regulation of move-
ments is to be distracted from the fact that these are acts.19 What makes
these acts of citizens without frontiers revealing is their traversal qualities:
with specific interventions, each creates concrete series of resonances, soli-
darities (or enmities), alliances and intensities across space and time and
effectively resists universalizing narratives and unifying interpretations. 20
The qualities of acts traversing frontiers such as those of WikiLeaks,
Anonymous, the Occupy, Gaza Flotilla, The Pirate Party, Climate Camp,
No One Is Illegal, Waging Peace, Open Rights, If the World Could Vote
and Banksy on the Wall are too heterogeneous to confi ne within our known
categories. These are only the most known and recognized instances. There
are literally thousands if not millions more acts such as these.
Interrogating and transgressing frontiers

The movements ‘without frontiers’ are recent; they can only be traced back
to the 1970s. There were doubtless many originary moments for these move-
ments without frontiers and the founding of MSF was certainly an important
one. I want to briefly focus on a speech Michel Foucault gave at the United
Nations headquarters in Geneva in 1981 on ‘confronting government’. It

signals something qualitatively different in that it addresses an interna-

tional public. Foucault said ‘There exists an international citizenship that
has its rights and its duties, and that obliges one to speak out against every
abuse of power, whoever its author, whoever its victims.’21 Then he added
as if it was self-evident: ‘After all, we are all members of the community
of the governed, and thereby obliged to show mutual solidarity.’ 22 Calling
this ‘international citizenship’ Foucault defi nes its duty ‘. . . to always bring
the testimony of people’s suffering to the eyes and ears of governments,
sufferings for which it’s untrue that they are not responsible. The suffering
of men must never be a silent residue of policy.’23 Foucault claims that the
suffering of other men, or rather witnessing thereof, ‘grounds an absolute
right to stand up and speak to those who hold power’.24 Insisting that we
must refuse a division of labour between those who act (governments) and
those who talk (citizens), Foucault emphasizes that ‘Amnesty International,
Terre des Hommes and Médecins du monde are initiatives that have cre-
ated this new right – that of private individuals to effectively intervene in
the sphere of international policy and strategy’. What does Foucault mean
by ‘private individuals’? Obviously, he cannot use ‘citizens’ because that
would mean ‘nationals’. The kind of right that he is claiming as new cannot
be confi ned to citizens as nationals. Yet, ‘private individuals’ is a problem-
atic phrase for a statement of solidarity that traverses frontiers. The themes
in this short and succinct statement are nonetheless quite significant. The
declaration that although we might reside under different jurisdictions we
share the same condition of being governed and claim that we have a right
to responsibility were ambitious declarations.
Those were the 1980s. It appears that Foucault was basically concerned
with ‘international citizenship as witnessing’: recognizing the suffering of
the Other and the responsibility to act against it. Or perhaps he was express-
ing the answerability of citizenship as a ground for an absolute right. Both
are plausible interpretations. But I want to contrast this with an episode
in 1979 when Foucault briefly worked as a ‘reporter without frontiers’ in
Iran. A couple of years before his speech that I just quoted, in a dialogue
with an Iranian writer Baqir Parham, Foucault was discussing why he was
visiting Iran. He insisted that he was not visiting as a ‘universal intellectual’
but as a ‘specific intellectual’ to use his skills in solidarity with those who
were revolting against an oppressive regime. 25 He did not make this claim
lightly as he had thought about it seriously. 26 Arguing that ‘engineers, law-
yers, doctors, healthcare workers and social workers, researchers in the
humanities, all form a social layer in our society whose numbers, as well
as whose economic and political significance, are constantly increasing’, he
concluded that
the role of the intellectual is perhaps not so much, or maybe not

only, to stand for the universal values of humanity. Rather, his or her
responsibility is to work on specific objective fields, the very fields in

which knowledge and sciences are involved, and to analyze and critique
the role of knowledge and technique in these areas in our present-day
society.27
Let me note that here his focus is not ‘private individuals’ but ‘specific intel-
lectuals’ acting with professional capacities. 28 Yet, there is a paradox here.
Two years later, Foucault would use ‘private individual’ as the subject of
this kind of politics traversing frontiers instead of ‘intellectual’ or, more
accurately, ‘professional’. In my view, this is not a contradiction or confu-
sion in Foucault, but simply points to the absence of a vocabulary with
which to think about the new kind of politics that ‘without frontiers’ move-
ments signify.
Since the 1970s and the 1980s, discussions and debates have subsumed
‘citizens without frontiers’ under various disguises such as global activism,
humanitarianism and even global or cosmopolitan citizenship. Much of
what can be described as acts traversing frontiers has been interpreted from
the perspective of human rights or civil society discourses. The struggles
against the apartheid regime in South Africa, the struggles against oppres-
sion in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, secessionist movements, the
environmental movement, the solidarity movements with refugees, aliens
and other ‘irregular’ migrants have all triggered a complex mixture of
interventionist, humanitarian and human-rights based forms of politics.
The most recent of these were the so-called Arab revolutions in Tunisia,
Egypt, Libya and other Middle Eastern states. There are already massive
literatures about each and every one of these political struggles and broad
interpretations under various rubrics such as ‘global social movements’,
‘global civil society’, ‘multitude’ and ‘global democracy’.
The problem with these interpretations is that the manifold events that
are shaping the worlds which we come to inhabit are multiple, complex and
heterogeneous. Grand narratives that attempt to capture them are power-
less in the face of these complexities. But, more importantly, interpreting
acts traversing frontiers as participating in the formation of a singular or
unified global or cosmopolitan society runs the risk of bounding citizen-
ship again. It is almost as if just before we understand the promises and
possibilities of acts traversing frontiers, we want to limit them to what we
already know. To my knowledge, nobody suggested that there should be
a global or supranational body regulating academics, architects, doctors
or engineers. We have learned (once again) in 2011 how difficult it is to
regulate fi nanciers or investors. As professions go about their business of
constructing transnational fields in which they acquire the capacity and
authority to act without frontiers, why should we call for cosmopolitan
or global citizenship? The significance of traversing frontiers as a field in
which we can act in our capacity as citizens cannot be underestimated.
Nor can we underestimate the damage infl icted by politics under disguise,

which occurs sometimes through so-called civil-society groups engaging in

clandestine activities and even spying operations across frontiers.
My task is to interpret these heterogeneous acts in contemporary politics
whose subjects constitute themselves as citizens beyond both the figurative
and literal frontiers that constrain them. ‘Citizens without frontiers’ signi-
fies the kind of politics and political subjects that are emerging and what
happens when they enact their political subjectivity by traversing fron-
tiers. Yet, it is not enough to think about political subjectivity traversing
frontiers. It is not enough to document acts that institute subjects without
frontiers. It is not enough to interpret these acts through histories (or by
giving them histories) that open up ways of enacting citizenship beyond the
state and nation. My aim is also to participate in creating or constructing a
field in which a new figure can acquire capacities to act as a citizen.29
‘We, the people’ and ‘we, the connected’

Contemporary states everywhere have control over the movements, life
and death of people whom they defi ne as their citizens, and control over
the entry and exit of people whom they define as non-citizens. These two
forms of control (over citizens and non-citizens) are based on, or rather
draw their legitimacy from, a history of states and nations as enclosed and
enclosing entities that are ‘self’ governed and determined. From where is
this power over life and death of subjects derived? How does this power
persist despite the increasing movement of people, ideas, images and prod-
ucts across borders that states consider as their sovereign territory? How
does this narrative exist against the fantasy of the sovereign (free) citizen?
How do people challenge and resist this narrative? How do these enclosed
and enclosing spaces appear as spaces for freedom rather than incarcera-
tion? Rather than engaging proposed ‘solutions’ (cosmopolitan democracy,
international order, federalism), theories (nationalism, cosmopolitanism,
globalism, internationalism) or proposals (cosmopolitics, empire), my task
is to investigate how those who constitute themselves as citizens without
frontiers are negotiating, interrogating and exposing the paradoxes of
enclosed and enclosing citizenship.
Yet, sovereignty is not the only dominant narrative of our times. The
other, which is becoming dominant, is the way in which we have been ‘con-
nected’ through communication media, and especially the internet-based
social media. It is fi rst necessary to understand how both these narratives
presuppose each other. There is a recognizable shift in contemporary poli-
tics of citizenship from the sovereignty narrative to the connectivity nar-
rative. But questioning nationalism and cosmopolitanism or human rights
regimes is not enough. We must develop an image of citizenship based on

what people do (acts) rather than making theoretical or practical and osten-
sibly normative proposals. 30
It is often said that citizenship is a domain of struggle. This is no less
true than any time before. Consider these examples. There are walls being
erected everywhere as separation barriers and borders. 31 There are now
also prominent firewalls which are, in effect, controlled cyberspace bub-
bles. China is censoring internet communications through such a bubble
that it calls ‘Golden Shield’. Saudi Arabia, a theocratic state, is attempting
to control all communication devices and liberal democratic states are fol-
lowing suit. Turkey is instituting a new great fi rewall. The US government
is debating birthright citizenship rights for non-citizens. It is also build-
ing a separation barrier across the Mexican border. Israel is eliminating
the rights of its Arab citizens. The United Kingdom is increasing its immi-
gration and asylum controls for non–European Union citizens. There are
numerous examples that illustrate how states are deciding who (and what)
can enter and exit their territory and what can and cannot be done within
their territories and by whom.
These issues have been discussed extensively in migration studies, eth-
nic and racial studies, diaspora studies, international studies and citizen-
ship studies. At the centre of all these debates, there have been two grand
narratives. On the one hand, we increasingly hear how the sovereignty of
the state is, depending on the interpretation, waxing or waning. On the
other hand, we also increasingly hear how everyday lives have become
connected across borders, and how this connectivity is seen to be creating
either a new rootedness or a new rootlessness. These two are grand nar-
ratives because they dominate ways of seeing and experiencing ourselves
and others. It is not that their domination is absolute and that there are
no counter-narratives producing different accounts of ourselves and oth-
ers.32 Yet, sovereignty and connectivity increasingly function as mutually
dependent narratives. That the sovereign state controls not only who can be
admitted to its territory but how that citizen conducts himself or herself as
its member is surely related to various movements whose subjects constitute
themselves beyond and across such frontiers that the sovereign states have
created. If sovereignty shapes how we approach citizenship, connectivity
shows up its limits and intensifies how it is captured. Yet, connectivity is
increasingly articulated in terms inherited from sovereignty. I submit that
sovereignty or the ‘we, the people’ narrative and connectivity or the ‘we,
the connected’ narrative depend on each other as integrating and unifying
discourses. Citizens without frontiers act through or produce interstitial
spaces between sovereignty and connectivity, and create political subjec-
tivities that traverse frontiers. It is these acts that traverse frontiers and
produce political subjectivities that are creative, inventive and autonomous
despite limits imposed upon them. The basic sources of interpretation are
the acts of those who produce such political subjectivities.

Making citizens activists

How do we understand these manifold and paradoxical acts of subjectivity,
solidarity, hostility, hospitality, belonging and rights? Consider the follow-
ing broad problem as the question of citizenship. For centuries, theorizing
about political subjectivity began with the figure of the citizen. Whether
one is for or against interpreting that line of thought that began with the
ancient Greeks and Romans as ‘occidental’, whether one sees radical breaks
between ancient Greco-Roman, ‘medieval’ or modern thought, whether
one sees the fi rst as an appropriation of the last, the fact is that there is a
line of thought that has constituted itself as an inheritor, and sees itself or
interprets itself as being a continuation, of ‘occidental’ thought. The citizen
as a figure of the political has been at the centre of that thought and has
constituted the perspective from which the political has been understood,
activated, practised and enacted. 33 This figure of the citizen has been mas-
culine, white, occidental and Christian and has dominated the spaces of
imagination and the imaginations of space. Yet, that figure of the citizen is
also bounded. It is not only that the citizen was enacted in the agora, forum,
guildhall and the assembly but also that this always took place within and
through territorialized boundaries and limits whether this is envisaged as
polis, civitas, state or nation. Since the late eighteenth century, the figure
of the citizen has been territorialized fi rst within the state-form and then
the nation-form. Since the late nineteenth century, but especially from the
middle of the twentieth century onwards, another figure of the political
has also been emerging. This figure does not yet have a name but has a
history. The dispossessed, marginalized, subjugated, subaltern, nomadic,
excluded, at least in intellectual and activist imaginaries, has become the
figure through which the political is enacted, theorized and understood.
This figure has mobilized and assembled different spaces of imagination
and imaginations of space. The agora, forum, guildhall and the assembly
are displaced and now the citizen conducts himself or herself, at least in
intellectual and activist imaginaries, in the street, square, school, hospi-
tal, asylum, prison and camp and these have become the sites and spaces
through which the political is staged and enacted. Yet, these sites are still
confined within borders. They are not only contained within the state but
also they are themselves containers of state authority. More recently, a new
figure of the citizen has emerged – one who moves across frontiers. This is
the figure of the migrant. 34
It is this figure that I want to rename by shifting the focus from the
moving subject to the acting subject. To put it differently, the figure of the
migrant needs to be displaced and this is the task that lies ahead. The fig-
ure of politics does not necessarily move across but acts (interrogates and
transgresses) against frontiers. This figure is the ‘citizen without frontiers’.
This idea evokes two imaginaries. First, it evokes an imaginary that enacts

citizens as subjects against frontiers. It imagines citizens without frontiers

as a politics against frontiers. This imaginary produces the figure of the
frontier as a generalized form of otherness that citizens destabilize. Second,
it evokes interstitial and liminal spaces in and through which strangers,
outsiders and aliens are imagined, produced and enacted. This imaginary
produces the figure of the frontier as a generalized form of otherness that
citizens create.
Those acts that Citizens without Frontiers witnesses and resignifies
interrogate and transgress borders that are imposed on political subjectivi-
ties. As we witness acts of citizens without frontiers as those of ‘activist
citizens’ across continents, namely Asia, the Americas, Africa and Europe,
we recognize that these acts are rarely protected let alone sanctioned by
dominant practices. These acts call into question two grand narratives of
our times: sovereignty, which is fading, and connectivity, which is incipient.
To put it differently, we may well be in that space (or time) of in between
‘no longer’ and ‘not yet’ that provides opportunities for thinking and acting
differently.
Three genres of writing

The book features three genres (chapters, notes and acts) to fulfi l different
functions and to perform different personas. I use conventional chapters to
discuss theoretical and political issues that are embedded in and draw from
various academic fields as a device to engage readers who may be familiar
with some but not all of these fields. I try to push contentious issues into
another genre, that of notes, although this perhaps makes these sections
less engaging for specialists in the fields concerned. It may sound odd to
claim that notes are a genre. Perhaps, notes are a dying genre in the age
of the automated simplicity of the so-called author-date significations that
are so wonderfully ambiguous that they are sometimes (perhaps often) of
questionable use. However, I use notes in both the conventional sense of
citation and elaboration and also for setting aside some controversies in
order to achieve a relatively straightforward prose.
Yet, notes are both conventional and unconventional. Their mechanics
are conventional, but it is in these notes that I describe many vexing ques-
tions that yet remain unresolved. These notes at least show that it is often
not only the questions but also the ways in which they are addressed in the
relevant literatures that trouble me.
Acts are the least conventional genre in the book. They interpret (wit-
ness and resignify) deeds of interrogation and transgression or deeds that
should make us interrogate or transgress the limits imposed upon political
subjectivities by frontiers.35 These acts focus on events such as the informa-
tion leaked about the war in Afghanistan through WikiLeaks or, to take

another example, conscientious objections to a war in a country that does

not recognize such an objection. It should be said at the outset that a fun-
damental feature of an act of citizenship is that it exercises either a right
that does not exist or a right that exists but which is enacted by a political
subject who does not exist in the eyes of the law. Not all these acts are acts
of citizenship. These acts also illustrate other aspects of theorizing acts
such as how the tension between responsibility and answerability plays out;
how subjects become actors without motives and intentions and yet create
purposeful scenes; how actions get interpreted as acts; how acts produce
sites of contention and span scales of attention and, most significantly, how
acts traverse frontiers and rupture our given habitus and practices of politi-
cal subjectivity. Each act described does not cover all these issues. This is
because I want to keep these acts as relatively short and quick illustrative
examples. But it is also because, especially taken together, these acts go
beyond my expertise and skills to provide full sociological, anthropologi-
cal and political accounts. This is both their strength and weakness. If you
accept them as invitations to think about how subjects become political by
traversing frontiers, then you may be rewarded not least because you will
have to do some thinking that I have not done. If you fi nd this approach
intriguing, there are now a number of studies that focus on acts of citizen-
ship.36 Clearly, the specific concern of this book is those acts that constitute
subjects as citizens against frontiers – citizens without frontiers. The 20 acts
that the book features do not hold together as one coherent argument. Nor
are these ‘case studies’ that constitute a body of evidence for an argument.
If you search for that one body of evidence, you will be disappointed. There
are tensions, paradoxes and aporias within and across these acts. Arguably,
what they essentially demonstrate is the impossibility of imposing any gen-
eral theory on them. Yet, writing about acts is an act of interpretation with
its own vocabulary, or analytics. It is not spontaneous or impulsive. In fact,
writing about these acts in itself has exactly the same qualities that I claim
that acts have. (This will make a lot more sense once you read Chapter 4.)
Hopefully, these acts demonstrate the value of approaching them with
a relatively robust (though still developing) vocabulary or analytics that
can enable us to trace forms of responsibility and answerability that they
traverse, and political subjectivities that they produce. In this sense, acts
exemplify a different style of practising social and political thought, which
identifies and recognizes the formation of political subjectivities across or
against frontiers that would otherwise have remained within the remit of
the grand narratives of sovereignty and connectivity.
Chapter 2 focuses on sovereignty as a narrative through which we under-
stand others and ourselves as political subjects. The chapter emphasizes
that trying to interpret sovereignty from within its assumptions leads to
intellectual and political cul-de-sacs. To put it differently, it is impossible to
answer questions such as ‘what is sovereignty?’ But if we ask ‘what is called

sovereignty?’ it opens up possibilities for understanding how, why and for

whom sovereignty has become a problem. By fi rst tracing the genealogies
of ‘we, the people’, Chapter 2 identifies people, territory and sovereignty
as the crux of the question of bounded citizenship. It also considers the
counter-narratives of ‘we, the people’ but questions whether using ‘people’
makes it possible to escape the limits that frontiers impose on citizenship
as a bounded political subjectivity. Chapter 3, using ‘topological’ insights,
signals the birth of a new grand narrative, ‘we, the connected’. It then
considers how we might imagine interstitial or traversal spaces between
connectivity and sovereignty and why citizens without frontiers might also
defi ne an interstitial or traversal citizenship. As I previously mentioned,
Chapter 4 presents the idea of ‘enacting citizenship’ – a style of theorizing
that considers citizenship as political subjectivity and its performativity.
This chapter is the latest of a series of essays on ‘acts of citizenship’ that
I have been developing as a style of theorizing political subjectivity. This
style engages literatures on performativity and supplements it with enact-
ment. It outlines how interstitial citizenship can be thought of through
performativity, enactment and activism, and as a political subjectivity tra-
versing frontiers. Chapter 5 presents various elements of ‘citizens without
frontiers’ as ‘activist citizenship’. It is in this chapter that I begin to indicate
that ‘citizens without frontiers’ traverse not only actual frontiers (borders,
boundaries, zones) but also virtual (or symbolic) frontiers by acting in place
of or against how they are supposed to act. I name this broader conception
of citizenship ‘traversing citizenship’. Chapter 6 returns to sovereignty and
connectivity narratives and suggests how citizens traversing frontiers reveal
possibilities of politics without frontiers and how citizens without frontiers
destabilize the established narratives of politics.

ACT 1. OF TREASON: WIKILEAKS
M illions of people have done it millions of times. Turn the personal computer
on, search for and select some files, and copy them to something like a CD
or DVD to share them. It has been an ordinary aspect of contemporary life for
some time (although CDs and DVDs are gradually disappearing into the cloud).
Yet, when Bradley Manning, a United States Army soldier, performed the same
routine actions, it had profound consequences. Manning was caught in an act
that for some was betrayal if not treason while for others it was patriotism if not
heroism.
What transformed these routine actions into an international event and thus
either an act of treason or heroism was the creation of an extraordinary infrastruc-
ture, WikiLeaks, a name borrowed from another ubiquitous internet infrastruc-
ture, Wikipedia. It is best to consider WikiLeaks as a form or an infrastructure
before recognizing it as an organization. As a form it claims that it enables anyone
with information on any wrongdoing to broadcast it with anonymity and security.
It is a whistleblowing infrastructure that enables people to act on information on
a wrongdoing as they understand it. While it is doubtful whether it can guarantee
such anonymity, more importantly, it depends on reasonably heavy editorial and
curatorial practices. Yet, we have learned, when the value of such information
exceeds its intentions both the anonymity and security of the subject that enacts
‘whistleblowing’ can be brought into focus by state authorities.
WikiLeaks defines itself as ‘a non-profit media organization dedicated to
bringing important news and information to the public’. As we shall see its self-
definition turned out to be not as stable as that statement calmly wishes since it
had to make numerous adjustments in its presentation. For various political and
legal reasons, WikiLeaks changed its image over the years. 37 Most recently, it
considers itself as providing, again in its words, ‘an innovative, secure and anony-
mous way for independent sources around the world to leak information to our
journalists’. It claims to ‘publish material of ethical, political and historical signifi -
cance while keeping the identity of our sources anonymous, thus providing a
universal way for the revealing of suppressed and censored injustices.’ 38 Can we
consider WikiLeaks as an organization for ‘journalists without frontiers’ with a
political intent? It expressly positions itself against oppression and injustice. But,
as ever, we are more concerned with deeds than self-descriptions. So let us take
a closer look at a couple.
The main controversies that brought WikiLeaks into the open were the dis-
closing of the Afghan War diary, Iraq War logs and later the United States diplo-
matic cables.39 Many of these documents were either classified as confidential
or secret. Since early 2010 its campaign has amassed significant legal and media
attention. One particular incident brought the organization under the radar of the
US government. Bradley Manning, employed as an intelligence analyst, breached
his professional role by operating as an activist for WikiLeaks. Manning gave to
WikiLeaks videos of American helicopters shooting at people in Baghdad (with
Reuters journalists being killed) and field reports on the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq.40 What received most attention were the diplomatic cables, of which

Bradley Manning was the source for over 150,000.41 The case is not simply that
of his violating a military code or national security laws, but it also involves the act
of breaking ordinary law.
Some commentators declare that WikiLeaks has been a ‘game changer’ and
that ‘it changed everything’.42 Beyond the giddy excitement of such rhetoric, it is
difficult to deny that the consequences of WikiLeaks as an act of disclosure are
far-reaching and yet impossible to fully comprehend – at least as yet.43 Governing
authorities are always involved, on the one hand, in amassing massive volumes of
data about subjects and citizens and, on the other, in making these data as secret
or as safe as possible for state security. The open secret also known as state
espionage (leaving aside industrial and corporate espionage) simply assumes
this principle. What renders WikiLeaks a ‘game changer’ is probably its ability to
broadcast information to vast numbers of people beyond the immediate control of
government and controlled media. It is also probably its ability to act as a conduit
to turn such acts of disclosure into a possible and imaginable, if not desirable,
repertoire. Combined together, it becomes a potent infrastructure for enactment
of disclosure of any body of secret information not just that of governments. That
is why there is considerable concern shown about WikiLeaks by banks and other
corporations.
WikiLeaks was officially launched in December 2006. Unlike conventional
media outlets, it exploits the anonymity and deterritorialization that cyberspace
provides and it purports to live by a legally unbounded journalistic philosophy for
public and legal interest. Through sophisticated encrypted dropbox technology,
‘citizen journalists’ as whistleblowers can submit information anonymously which
is then filtered, assessed for authenticity and potential impact and then distrib-
uted to media outlets.44 This has enabled a variety of people, who would other-
wise be unable, to share internationally significant and confidential diplomatic and
military information with publics. Although one may debate the motivations of the
‘core’ editorial team, the WikiLeaks conduit takes the concept of free press quite
literally. If it were to have an overarching mission it is greater accountability of gov-
ernment and private institutions. By disregarding national and industrial secrecy
laws, which restrain news reporting, it takes the United Nations Declaration of
Human Rights article 19 as an organizing principle. WikiLeaks interprets this as
the freedom to hold, express and disseminate information ‘through any media
regardless of frontiers’.45 The sources and advisory board of WikiLeaks attempt
to rebalance access to information asymmetry, which exists in the international
community at both an interstate (e.g. closed discussions between embassies
about third parties) and a public interest level (confidential documents which fail
to reach conventional media outlets or gag orders which prevent stories being
run).
With its operations and reach traversing frontiers as well as the possibilities
of protest and freedom of expression afforded by national or professional roles, it
allows a bypassing of established pathways and status requirements for holding
governments and other institutions to account. This occurs in the informal setting
of media pressure, the bolstering of existing contentious politics and sometimes-
direct impact on decision-making. An example of this is the fuelling of protest in
the January 2011 Tunisian riots where it was speculated that WikiLeaks activists
leaked remarks made by the US Embassy about the opulence of President Bin Ali

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
“Oh, don’t shout like a cheap skate,” answered Ned disgustedly.
“Go and fix yourself up, if you can, so I won’t be ashamed to go to
supper with you!”
Laurie glared, swallowed hard, and finally nodded. “Listen,” he
said slowly. “You don’t have to be seen with me if it offends your
delicate sensibilities. Get it? And, what’s more, I don’t want to be
seen with you. I’m particular, too, you big bluff. When you want to go
to supper, you go!”
Laurie grabbed wash-cloth and towel, strode across the room, and
slammed the door resoundingly behind him. Left alone, Ned
shrugged angrily. “Ugly-tempered brute,” he muttered.
When supper-time came he descended alone to the dining-hall.
Laurie had not returned to the room. Laurie arrived a few minutes
late, with Kewpie, and took the seat at Ned’s left in silence. He had
put talc powder over the abrasion on his cheek-bone, and at a little
distance it would not have been noticed. Nearer, however, the lump
was plainly visible and seemed to be still swelling. Ned caught a
glimpse of it from the corner of his eye, but his irritation still
continued, and he offered no comment.
After supper both boys returned to No. 16, although not together,
and for two hours occupied opposite sides of the table, and
crammed for their last examination, which was due at ten to-morrow.
Neither spoke once during the evening. At nine Laurie closed his
books and went out. Half an hour later Ned undressed and went to
bed. Sleep didn’t come readily, for there was to-day’s examination to
worry about, and to-morrow’s, too, for he hadn’t made much of that
two hours of preparation, he feared; and then there was this silly
quarrel with Laurie. He guessed he had been as much to blame as
his brother, but there was no sense in any one’s getting mad the way
Laurie had. When Laurie was ready to make friends, why, he’d be
ready, too, but that silly goop needn’t expect him to lick his shoes!
No, sir, if Laurie wanted to make up he could jolly well say so!
Sleep did come at last, and when he awoke it seemed hours later.
The room was in black darkness, but the squares of the wide open
windows were slightly grayer. What had awakened him he at first
didn’t know. Then his gaze caught a darker something against the
gray-black of the nearer casement opening, something that scuffled
on the stone ledge and grew larger as he wondered and watched.
He opened his mouth to speak, and then remembered that he and
Laurie were at outs. The form disappeared from sight, and footsteps
went softly across the boards, were muffled on the rug, and sounded
again by the door. The door was opened, and for a moment Ned
mentally pictured the boy peering anxiously out into the dim hall.
Then the door closed again, and after a short silence Laurie’s bed
creaked. To prove to the other that his return had not been made
unknown, Ned sat up in the blackness and thumped his pillow,
striving to express disapprobation in the thumps. Across the room
the faint stirrings ceased, and silence reigned again.
Ned smiled grimly. Laurie had probably thought that by being so
quiet he could get in without his brother’s knowing it, but he had
shown him! Then Ned’s satisfaction faded. What the dickens had
Laurie been doing out at this time of night? It must be twelve, or
even later! If he had been up to mischief—but of course he had; a
fellow didn’t climb into his room by the window unless he had
something to hide. Even being out after ten o’clock was a punishable
offense! Ned began to worry. Suppose some one had seen Laurie.
Why had Laurie gone to the door and listened unless he had
suspected some one of having seen him? The idiot! The chump! The
—
Over his head he heard a board creak. He listened. The sound
reached him again. In Elk Thurston’s room some one was up, too. Or
had he imagined it? All was quiet now. Was it possible that Laurie
and Elk had been settling their score? Surely not at this time of night.
And yet— From across the room came the unmistakable sounds of
deep and regular breathing. Laurie was asleep beyond a doubt! Ned
frowned disgustedly. Here he was worrying himself about a silly coot
that was fast asleep! He poked his head resolutely into his pillow. All
right! He guessed he could do that, too! And presently he did.
In the morning Ned waited for Laurie to break the ice, but Laurie
didn’t. Laurie went about his task of dressing in silence. There was a
sort of stern look in his face in place of the sullen expression of last
evening, and more than once Ned caught him looking across in an
oddly speculative way. The last time Ned caught him at it he began
to feel uneasy, and he wanted very much to ask what Laurie meant
by it. It was almost as if Laurie had caught him at something, instead
of its being just the other way about! But he was too stubborn to
speak first, and they went out of the room with the silence still
unbroken.
At breakfast, Mr. Brock, at whose table they sat, made the
disquieting announcement that Edward and Laurence Turner were
wanted at the Doctor’s study at 8:30. Involuntarily the gaze of the
two boys met swiftly. Each thought at once of examinations, although
further consideration told them that it was still too soon for any
shortcomings of theirs to reach the principal.
Although they had entered the dining-hall separately, now a
common uneasiness took them together to the Doctor’s, albeit in
silence. They were asked to be seated, which they accepted as a
favorable sign, but there was, nevertheless, something
unsympathetic in Dr. Hillman’s countenance. The latter swung
himself around in his chair and faced them, his head thrust forward a
little because of a near-sightedness not wholly corrected by his
spectacles. And then Laurie observed that the Doctor was gazing
intently at a point just under his left eye, and told himself that the
summons was explained. He was, though, still wondering why Ned
had been included in the party when the Doctor spoke.
“Laurence,” he asked, “how did you come by that contusion?”
Laurie hesitated, then answered, “I was having a—a little bout with
one of the fellows and he struck me, sir.”
“Who was the boy?”
“Thurston, sir.”
“Have you witnesses to prove that?”
“Yes, sir, several fellows were there. Pat—I mean Patton Browne,
and Proudtree and—”
“When did it take place, this—ah—bout?”
“Yesterday afternoon, about half-past five.”
The Doctor mused a minute. Then, “Which of you boys entered
your room by the window last night at about a quarter before twelve
o’clock?” he asked. The question was so unexpected that Laurie’s
mouth fell open widely. Then, as neither boy answered, the Doctor
continued: “Was it you, Laurence?”
“N-no, sir!” blurted Laurie.
Then, ere the words were well out, he wished them back, and in a
sudden panic he added, “I mean—”
But the Doctor had turned to Ned. “Was it you, Edward?” he
asked.
Ned’s gaze dropped from the Doctor’s, and for an instant he made
no reply. Then he raised his eyes again, and, “I’d rather not say, sir,”
he announced respectfully but firmly.
There followed another brief silence. Laurie was trying hard not to
look at Ned. The Doctor was thoughtfully rolling a pencil across the
big blotter under the palm of one hand. Ned watched him and
waited. Then the Doctor looked up again.
“You are, of course,” he said not unkindly, “privileged to refuse to
answer, Edward, but when you do there is but one construction to be
placed on your refusal. I presume that you did climb into your room
by a window last night. I confess that I don’t understand it, for this is
the first time since you came to us that your conduct has been
questioned. If you are shielding another—” his glance swept to
Laurie and away again—“you are doing wrong. Punishment that falls
on an innocent party fails of its purpose. I am, therefore, going to ask
you to reconsider, Edward. It will be better for every one if you
answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to my question.”
Ned returned the principal’s gaze straightly. “I’d rather not, sir,” he
replied.
“Very well, but I warn you that your offense is a very serious one
and that it calls for a drastic penalty. Were you alone in the—ah—
escapade?”
Ned looked puzzled. “Sir?” he asked.
“I asked you—But you need not answer that. I’ll put it another way.
There were two of you in the car according to an eye-witness. Who
was the other boy?”
“Car?” faltered Ned. “What car, sir?”
The Doctor frowned disapprovingly. “It is so futile, my boy,” he
said, “to act this way.” He turned to Laurie. “What do you know about
this, Laurence? You have said that you did not enter your room last
night by the window. At what time did you return to your room?
Where were you, for instance, at, say, a quarter to twelve?”
“I was in bed, sir.”
“What time did you go to bed?”
“About ten minutes past ten.”
“Where was Edward then?”
“In bed, sir, and asleep.”
“What? You are telling me the truth? Did you see him there?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Doctor frowned perplexedly. “Then you know nothing of any
one’s having entered your room by a window close to midnight?”
Laurie hesitated now. Then, “I went to sleep about ten minutes
after I got in bed, sir, and so I wouldn’t be likely—”
“Please answer my question,” interrupted the Doctor coldly.
“I’d rather not, sir,” said Laurie.
“One more question, then,” announced the inquisitor grimly. “Were
you in Mr. Wells’s automobile last evening when it collided with a
hydrant on Washington Street at approximately half-past eleven?”
“Why, no, sir! I didn’t know it had—had collided!”
Ned was looking rather white.
“You know nothing about the incident?”
“No, sir!”
“And you, Edward?”
“No, sir.”
“But, if you deny the automobile part of it, why not deny the rest? I
see, though. You knew that Mr. Cornish had seen you climbing in at
the window. I’m afraid you won’t get anywhere that way, Edward. Mr.
Wells’s car was taken from the front of the school last evening and
driven out Washington Street six blocks, where it was in collision with
a hydrant. It was abandoned there. A reliable witness states
positively that there were two persons in the car just before the
accident. About ten or twelve minutes later Mr. Cornish saw some
one climb up the Washington Street side of East Hall and disappear
through your window. Those are the facts, Edward. The evidence
against you is so far circumstantial, but you must acknowledge that
the incident of the car and that of your—of some one’s entrance into
your room by the window look to be more than a mere coincidence.
In other words, whoever entered your room at midnight was in the
stolen car a quarter of an hour before. That’s a fair and very natural
assumption. If I were you, I’d think the matter over carefully and see
me again before eight o’clock this evening, at which time it will come
before the faculty conference. And now, Laurence, let me have those
names once more.” He drew a scratch-pad to him and poised a
pencil. “You say Elkins Thurston struck you and that Proudtree,
Browne, and—who else was there?”
“Lew Cooper and Gordon Simkins were there when—right
afterward, sir, and I guess they saw it.”
“Thank you. That is all, then. I shall have to ask both of you to
remain in bounds until this matter is—ah—settled. Good morning.”
“But—but, Doctor, I’m—I’m on the baseball team, sir!” exclaimed
Laurie in almost horrified accents. “We play this afternoon!”
“I’m sorry, Laurence,” was the reply, “but until you are more frank
in your answers I shall have to consider you under suspicion, also.”
“Well,” said Laurie bitterly, when they were outside, “you certainly
have made a mess of things!”
“I!” exclaimed Ned incredulously, “I’ve made a mess of things?
What about you?”
“Me? What could I say?” countered Laurie hotly. “I did all I could!”
“All right,” said Ned wearily. “Let’s drop it. He won’t be able to pin
anything on you. You’ll get out of it all right.”
There was a trace of bitterness in Ned’s voice, and Laurie
scowled. “Well, he asked me so suddenly,” he muttered
apologetically, “I—I just said what came into my head. I’m sorry. I’d
have refused to answer if he hadn’t sprung it so quick.”
“It would have been rather more—rather less contemptible,”
answered Ned coldly.
Laurie flushed. “Thanks! I guess that’ll be about all from you, Ned.
When I want any more of your brotherly remarks I’ll let you know!”
He swung aside and left Ned to go on alone to No. 16.
The story of the purloining of the physical director’s blue roadster
was all over school by that time. Ned got the full details from Kewpie.
Mr. Wells had left the car in front of School Hall, as he very often did,
and was playing a game of chess with Mr. Pennington. Shortly after
half-past eleven he had looked for the car, had failed to find it, and
had hurried to the corner. There he had met a man coming down
Walnut Street who, when questioned, said that he had seen such a
car as Mr. Wells’s about five blocks east, where Washington and
Walnut Streets come together, not longer ago than five minutes.
There were two persons in it, and the car was not being driven more
than, possibly, twenty miles an hour. Mr. Wells had gone out Walnut
Street and found the car with one front wheel on the sidewalk, the
mud-guard on that side torn off, and the radiator stove in. There was
no one about. The car wasn’t very badly damaged, it was said, but
Mr. Wells was awfully mad about it. It was down in Plummer’s
Garage, and Ned could see it if he wanted to. Kewpie had seen it. It
looked fierce, but maybe it wouldn’t cost more than a hundred dollars
to fix it up again!
“Know who did it?” asked Ned.
“Me? I’ll say I don’t!” Kewpie laughed relievedly. “I guess it was
professional automobile thieves, all right, though. They were
probably heading for Windsor. That’s a dark corner up there, and I
guess they lost the road and turned too quick. They must have lost
their nerve, for Mr. Wells drove the car down to the garage and it
went all right, they say. Guess they thought it was done for and didn’t
try to see if it would still go. Sort of a joke on them, wasn’t it?”
“I suppose,” said Ned carelessly, “none of our fellows are
suspected?”
“Of course not. Why, it happened after half-past eleven! Say, you
haven’t—haven’t heard anything?” Kewpie’s eyes grew round with
excitement. “Say, Ned, what is it?” But Ned shook his head wearily.
“I know no more of the business than you do, Kewpie. Now beat it,
will you? I’ve got an exam at ten.”
CHAPTER XXIII
SUSPENDED
N ed didn’t get much studying done, though. Instead, he spent

most of the half-hour remaining before the examination in trying
to solve the mystery of the stolen car and Laurie’s part in the affair. It
wasn’t like Laurie to indulge in a prank so mischievous, and he could
scarcely believe that Laurie had taken part in the escapade. Still, he
had the evidence of his own senses. He had seen Laurie enter by
the window; and, too, he recalled the latter’s stated desire to drive
Mr. Wells’s car. At home in California Laurie was forever begging the
wheel away from his father and was never happier than when
steering the big car along the smooth roads about Santa Lucia. But,
if Laurie had taken Mr. Wells’s roadster, who had been with him? He
wished that Laurie hadn’t told a lie to the Doctor. That, too, was
something very unlike Laurie. Of course, as he had said afterward,
the question had been sudden and unexpected, and he had said the
first thing that came into his mind, but that didn’t excuse the lie.
Ned’s refusal to answer had been made in the effort to shift
suspicion from Laurie to himself, but he wondered now if it would not
have been as well to tell the truth. His self-sacrifice hadn’t helped his
brother much, after all, for Laurie was still suspected of complicity.
The affair would probably end in the suspension of them both,
perhaps in their expulsion. It was all a sorry mess, and Ned hadn’t
discovered any solution of it when ten o’clock came.
Rather to his surprise, he got through the examination, which
lasted until past twelve, very well. Then came dinner, at which
neither he nor Laurie displayed much of the exuberant spirit that
possessed their table companions. After the meal Ned went over to
the library for an hour. When he returned to No. 16 he found Laurie
standing at the window that looked southward toward the distant
ball-field, dejection in the droop of his shoulders. Ned felt very sorry
for the other just then, and he tried to find something to say but
couldn’t, though he cleared his throat twice and got as far as “Hm!”
You couldn’t see much of the baseball game from that window. The
diamond was at the far end of the field, and a corner of the football
stand hid most of it. Laurie found a book and read, and Ned began a
letter to his father. Somehow the afternoon wore away.
Kewpie burst in at a little before five, at once triumphant and
downcast. Hillman’s had won, 11 to 8, but Kewpie Proudtree had not
been allowed to pitch for even a part of an inning, and so his last
chance was gone, and if Pinky called that doing the square thing—
But Laurie broke in just then. “Can it,” he said gruffly. “You saw the
game, anyhow, and that’s more than I did!”
“That’s right,” said Kewpie, apologetically. “It’s a rotten shame,
Nod. What’s Johnny got on you, anyhow? You can tell me. I won’t
say a word.”
“He hasn’t got anything on me,” growled Laurie. “He just thinks he
has. Who pitched?”
“George started, but they got to him in the fourth—no, fifth, and
Nate finished out. Gee, they were three runs ahead of us in the
seventh!”
“Did Elk get in?”
“No, he’s got a sprained wrist or something. Pinky had Simpson, of
the scrubs, catch the last of the ninth. He dropped everything that
reached his hands, though.”
“Elk’s got a sprained wrist, you say? How’d he do it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it isn’t a wrist. He’s got something wrong,
though, for I heard Dave Brewster talking about it.” After a minute
Kewpie returned to his grievance, and, since Laurie appeared busy
with his own thoughts, he was allowed to unburden himself to his
heart’s content. Ned condoled with him somewhat abstractedly.
When he had taken himself out Laurie broke the silence.
“With Elk out of the game,” he said bitterly, “I’d have had my
chance to-day, and then this had to happen!”
Ned might have reminded Laurie that he had only himself to
blame, but he didn’t. He only said, “I’m sorry, old son.” There was
sincerity in his tone, and Laurie heard it. He made no answer,
however. But later, at supper, their feud was dead, and after supper,
in the room, they talked enough to make up for twenty-four hours of
silence. One subject, though, was not mentioned.
Sunday morning the blow fell. There was another visit to Dr.
Hillman’s study. Both boys were again questioned, but their answers
did not vary from those they had given on Saturday. The Doctor
showed genuine regret when he made known the decision of the
faculty. Laurie had been exonerated from lack of evidence against
him, although it was apparent that the Doctor considered him as
deserving of punishment as Ned. Ned was suspended. That meant
that he would not be passed in his examinations and would have to
return next year as a lower-middler again. He might, as the Doctor
reminded him, study during the summer and so make the upper-
middle class during the fall term, however. As the present term was
so nearly at an end, the Doctor continued, Ned would be permitted to
remain at school until Laurie was ready to accompany him home.
The Doctor ended the interview with the suggestion that it would be
a manly act on the part of the twins to reimburse Mr. Wells for the
damage done to his car. Ned opened his mouth as though to say
something then, but he changed his mind and closed it again very
tightly. A minute later they were outside.
“Gosh, Ned, I’m sorry!” said Laurie miserably.
Ned nodded. “Thanks. It’s all right. One of us had to get it.”
“One of us?” repeated Laurie a bit blankly. “Why, yes, I suppose
so, but—”
“Well, you’ve got your baseball to look after, and I haven’t
anything. So it’s better they picked on me, isn’t it?”
“We—ell,” began Laurie. Then he stopped and shook his head in a
puzzled way. Finally, “You’ll stick around until Thursday, won’t you?”
he asked anxiously.
The other nodded. “Might as well,” he said. “I could get out now
and wait for you in New York, but I don’t see any reason why I should
spend all that money just to act haughty.”
The blow having fallen, Ned, who had already discounted it,
cheered up quite remarkably. After all, he told himself, he had saved
Laurie, and last autumn Laurie had saved him from something very
close to disgrace, and so this sacrifice only somewhat evened
accounts. He allowed himself to be persuaded to accompany the
others on the Sunday afternoon walk, only pledging Laurie to say
nothing of his suspension. It was not until Monday noon that the
news leaked out, and not until hours after that that the school began
to connect the incident of the wrecked automobile with Ned’s fate.
Even then most of those who knew Ned intimately refused to believe
that there could be any connection between the two things.
Questioned, Ned was very uncommunicative, and by Tuesday even
his closest friends began to waver in their faith.
Laurie went back to the baseball fold on Monday. Kewpie’s report
about Elk was true. Elk was nursing a lame wrist. He had, it seemed,
hurt it in wrestling with his room-mate. It had kept him out of the
game Saturday, and it prevented his doing any catching on Monday;
but on Tuesday the injured wrist appeared as good as ever, and
Laurie, who had been temporarily elevated to the position of first
substitute catcher, again dropped into third place. The Farview game
was due on Wednesday, which was likewise Class day and the final
day of the school term. On Monday Coach Mulford was very easy
with the first-string players but gave the substitutes a hard
afternoon’s work. Laurie caught four of the five innings that the
substitutes played against the scrub team. In the final inning he gave
place to Simkins and took that youth’s berth at first base. Tuesday
saw the whole squad hard at work in the final preparation for the
enemy, and no player, from Captain Dave Brewster down to the least
of the substitutes, had a minute’s respite. “You fellows can rest all
you want to after to-morrow,” said the coach. “You can spend all
summer resting if you like. To-day you’re going to work and work
hard.” Even Kewpie, who knew that Fate held nothing for him, was
subjected to almost cruel exertion. He pitched to Laurie until his arm
almost rebelled, and he was made to “dummy pitch” from the mound
and then field the balls that Pinky batted at him and to all sides of
him. And he ran bases, too, and Kewpie considered that the final
indignity and privately thought that the least Pinky could do was to
leave him in peace to his sorrow. But before Tuesday’s practice
began other things of more importance to our story happened. While
dressing Tuesday morning Laurie let fall a remark that led to the
clearing away of mistakes and misconceptions.
“You must have gone to bed with your clothes on the other night,”
he observed. “If you didn’t, you sure made a record!”
Ned stared. “What other night?” he asked.
Laurie floundered. Neither of them had referred to the matter since
Sunday. “Why—well, you know. The night you got in the window,”
Laurie explained apologetically.
“The night I got in the window! Are you crazy?”
“Oh, well,” muttered Laurie, “all right. I didn’t mean to make you
huffy.”
He went on with his dressing, but Ned still stared at him. After a
minute Ned asked: “Look here, old son, what made you say that?
About me getting in the window, I mean.”
“Why, nothing.” Laurie wanted peace in the family. “Nothing at all.”
“You had some reason,” Ned persisted, “so out with it.”
“Well, you were so blamed quick, Ned. You went to the door and
then I heard you get into bed about thirty seconds afterward. It don’t
seem to me that you had time to undress.”
“Let’s get this right,” said Ned with what was evidently forced calm.
“Sit down there a minute, Laurie. Why do you say it was I who came
through the window?”
It was Laurie’s turn to stare. “Why, why because I saw you! I
waked up just as your head came over the sill, you chump!”
“You saw my head come— Look here, are you in earnest or just
trying to be funny?”
“Seems to me it’s you who are acting the silly ass,” answered
Laurie aggrievedly. “What’s the big idea, anyway?”
“But—but, great Scott, Laurie,” exclaimed Ned excitedly. “I saw
you come in the window!”
“Cut the comedy,” grinned Laurie. “I wasn’t out, and you know it.”
“Well, was I, you poor fish? Wasn’t I in bed and asleep when you
came in, as you told Johnny you did?”
“Sure, but— Say, do you mean to tell me I didn’t see—”
“Of course you didn’t! But—”
“Then who did I see?” asked Laurie a trifle wildly.
“Who did I see?” countered Ned. “You say it wasn’t you—”
“Me! Hang it, I went to bed at ten and wasn’t awake again until I
heard a noise and saw you—well some one coming in that window!
Look here, if it wasn’t you, why didn’t you tell Johnny so?”
“Because I thought it was you, you poor prune!”
“What! But I’d said—”
“Sure you had, but I’d seen you with my own eyes, hadn’t I?”
Laurie shook his head weakly. “This is too much for me,” he
sighed. “It wasn’t you and it wasn’t me but it was one of us! I pass!”
“But it wasn’t one of us,” exclaimed Ned. “That’s what I’m getting
at. Don’t you see what happened?” Laurie shook his head.
“Listen, then. We were both asleep, and we each heard the noise
and woke up. Some one came through the window, crossed the
room, opened the door, looked out to see that the coast was clear,
went out, and closed the door after him.”
“But I heard you get into bed!”
“No, you didn’t. You heard me sit up and punch my pillow. I wanted
you to know that you weren’t getting away with it. For that matter I
heard your bed creak and thought you were getting into it.”
“I sat up, too,” said Laurie. “Gee, that’s a queer one! All this time I
thought it was you and could have kicked myself around the block for
yelling ‘No!’ when Johnny asked me that question! Then—then who
the dickens was it, Ned?”
“That,” answered Ned grimly, “is what we’ve got to find out. Just
now it’s up to us to get out of here before we miss our breakfasts!”
“Hang breakfast!” shouted Laurie. “This is better than a hundred
breakfasts! Why—why, it means that you—that you aren’t
suspended! It means—”
“Put your collar on, and make it snappy,” laughed Ned. “We’ve got
some work ahead of us this morning!”
After breakfast they hurried back to No. 16, barred the door
against intruders, especially Kewpie, sat down at opposite sides of
the study table, and faced the problem. They continued to face it
until nearly eleven. They examined the window-sill for clues, and
found none. They leaned out and studied the ivy by means of which
the mysterious visitor had reached the second story, and it told them
nothing, or so it seemed at the moment. As they turned back to the
room Ned said idly: “It’s lucky the fellow didn’t have to get to the third
floor, for I don’t believe he could have made it. That ivy sort of peters
out above our window.”
Laurie nodded uninterestedly and silence ensued, just as silence
had ensued so frequently before in the course of morning. Then,
several minutes later, Ned said suddenly, questioningly:
“Thurston!”
Laurie shook his head. “Not likely. Besides, what reason—”
“Wait a minute. I didn’t tell you. It didn’t seem important. After I’d
settled down again that night I heard the floor up-stairs creak twice. I
wasn’t just certain then, but now I am! Elk Thurston was moving
about up there, Laurie!”
“Well, what if he was? That doesn’t prove—” He stopped and
frowned intently. “Hold on, though, Ned! What about Elk’s wrist?”
“We’ve got it!” cried Ned.
“Yes, maybe. Let’s go slow, though. You don’t happen to know
whether Elk can drive a car, do you?”
“No, but I’ll bet you anything you like that he tried to drive that one!
Look here, our window was open and it was easy to reach. He
couldn’t have made his own without chancing a fall. He trusted to our
being asleep. He—”
“What about the other fellow, though?” asked Laurie. “We didn’t
see—”
“No, but maybe he got in first. Maybe it was really he who awoke
us. Come to think of it, you said that when you woke up the fellow’s
head was just coming into sight. Well, in that case there wouldn’t
have been enough noise—”
“By jiminy, that’s so! Bet you that’s what happened. But who—
Say, maybe the other fellow was Jim Hallock!”
“Just what I was thinking,” agreed Ned. “I don’t see, though, how
we can prove anything against either of them. Look here, son, I
guess the best thing we can do is see Johnny and tell him all about
it. After that it will be up to the faculty. Come on!”
They had to wait some time for an audience, but finally they were
facing the Doctor, and Ned, as spokesman, was saying very
earnestly: “Neither Laurie nor I was out of our room after ten o’clock
Friday night, sir. Somebody did come in our window, though, and
woke us up. I thought it was Laurie and he thought it was me, and
that’s why I didn’t want to answer your question, sir.”
Now, nothing could have been clearer and simpler than that and
yet, when Ned had finished, the principal blinked behind his
spectacles, gazed a moment in silence, and then waved a hand.
“Sit down, boys,” he said. “Now, Edward I think you’d better say
that all over again.”
CHAPTER XXIV
MR. GOUPIL CALLS
A fter practice that afternoon Laurie returned to the room to find

Ned engaged in sorting things out preparatory to packing up.
When Laurie entered, however, the other paused in his effort to stuff
more rubbish into an already overloaded waste-basket and
announced in triumph, “We had it right, partner!”
“Elk Thurston?”
“Elk and Jim Hallock. Elk’s just left here.”
“Left here? You mean he was in to see you?”
Ned nodded. “Yes. It was rather decent of him, I think. Take that
idiotic expression from your face and sit down. This is how Elk tells
it. He and Jim were looking out of their window that night and saw
the lights of Mr. Wells’s car on the other side of the hedge. One of
them said something about Mr. Wells always leaving his car around
and what a joke it would be if it wasn’t there when he came back for
it. Well, that idea sort of stuck, and after a while Elk suggested that
they sneak down and run the car off around the corner. Elk says that
Jim usually wouldn’t have gone in for anything like that on a bet, but
there’d been some tough exams that day, and Jim was sort of keyed
up. Anyhow, they sneaked down-stairs after a while and got out by
one of the windows in the recreation-room. They didn’t dare try the
front way, for Cornish had his study door open. They put the brakes
off and tried to push the car toward Washington Street, but it was
heavy, and after they’d got it a little ways they decided to start it and
run it around the corner. So they did, pretty sure that it was too far off
for Mr. Wells to hear. Elk took the wheel and they went to
Washington Street. Then, he says, the thing was working so pretty
they thought they’d go on further. When they got to where
Washington joins Walnut it was pretty dark, and he swung to the
right too soon.
“That’s when they hit the hydrant. Of course, they were scared
pink, and Elk shut the motor off and they beat it as fast as they
could. When they got back here they found that some one had been
prowling around and had locked the window. Then they saw our
windows open and decided to climb up by the ivy. Elk says they
hoped we’d be asleep. If we waked up they meant to tell us and ask
us to keep mum. Jim climbed up first and made it all right, but Elk
had hurt his wrist when the car struck the hydrant, and he had a hard
time of it. They didn’t either of them know that Cornish had seen
them. For that matter, he only saw one, I guess, and that one was
probably Elk, for he says it took him two or three minutes to get to
the window because his wrist hurt him so. Seems that Jim left the
hall door open after him, but the draft closed it, and that’s what woke
us up, I guess. Well, what Elk came for was to say that neither of
them knew they’d been seen and that they hadn’t meant to throw
suspicion on us. He says if they’d known that Cornish was prowling
around they wouldn’t have entered our window. He was very
particular about making that clear. Guess he thought you might think
he had done it on purpose to get even with you. And that’s that, old
son.”
Laurie nodded thoughtfully. “Kind of too bad,” he mused. “I
suppose they didn’t intend anything but a sort of joke on Mr. Wells.
Did he tell you what they were going to get?”
“Get? Oh, they’re suspended, he says. He seemed to feel worse
about Jim than about himself. Do you know, old son, after all Elk isn’t
such a bad sort. At least, that’s the way it strikes me after hearing his
spiel. He says he’s not coming back next year. He’s going to tutor
this summer and try and make college in the fall.”
“Yeah,” said Laurie abstractedly. “Well, I’m sort of sorry for him.
And of course he didn’t mean to get us in wrong.” He lapsed into
silence. Then, abruptly, “Cas Bennett split his finger with a foul tip
about half an hour ago,” he announced.
“He did?” exclaimed Ned. “Gosh, that’s tough luck! Will it keep him
out of the game?”
“Yes,” replied Laurie.
“That is tough! Say, what are you looking so queer about?”
“Just thinking,” answered Laurie. “You try it.”
“Huh?”
“Use the old bean, son. Cas has split his finger, Elk’s suspended
—”
“Great jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! Why, then, you—you—”
“Correct,” said Laurie. “I’ll have to catch to-morrow, and—and at
the present moment, Ned, I’m scared to death!”
That had been a day of events, and it was not yet over. Attic
Society was giving its usual end-of-the-term blow-out that evening,
and both Ned and Laurie were invited. The affair began at eight, and
at half-past seven they were in No. 16 putting the finishing touches
to their toilets. Although it was a stag-party it called for best clothes
and polished shoes and carefully brushed hair, and Laurie was trying
hard to subdue a rebellious lock on the crown of his head when there
came a knock on the door. Both boys shouted “Come in!”
simultaneously. Then the door was opened, revealing Mr. Cornish,
the hall master, and a stranger. The boys grabbed for their coats,
Laurie dropping a military brush to the floor with a disconcerting
noise. Mr. Cornish ushered the stranger in but himself came no
further than the door-sill.
“Here is a gentleman to see you, Laurence,” said the instructor. “I
was quite certain you were in, and so I brought him up.”
Mr. Cornish smiled, nodded to the guest, who bowed impressively,
and departed, closing the door behind him.
“Very glad indeed—” began Laurie.
“Have a seat, won’t—” supplemented Ned.
“Thank you.” The stranger again bowed and seated himself,
placing a cane across his immaculately clad legs and balancing a
somewhat square derby hat perilously atop. “I begin by offering you
my apologies for this intrusion,” he continued.
“Not necessary,” mumbled Laurie, his gaze busy with the guest.
The latter appeared to be about fifty, was under rather than over
average height, and was very broad and thick and, like his derby,
rather square of contour. He even had a distinctly square face which
began very high up, because of the disappearance of what hair may
have adorned the front of his head at one time, and ended in an
auxiliary chin. He wore a very black mustache whose ends were
waxed to sharp points. His eyes were quite as black and almost as
sharp as his mustache. He looked foreign, and, indeed spoke with
more than a trace of accent, but he was evidently a gentleman, and
he impressed the boys very favorably.
“With your permission,” he continued, “I will introduce myself.” He
regarded Laurie. “I have the honor of addressing Mr. Laurie Turner?”
Laurie nodded. The guest carefully secured hat and stick, arose, and
bowed deeply. “I,” he announced then, “am Mr. Goupil.”
For an instant silence ensued. Then, “Mister—I beg your pardon,”
said Laurie, “but did you say Goupil?”
“Goupil,” confirmed the gentleman, bowing again and smiling very
nicely.
“You mean,” stammered Laurie, “the Mr. Goupil? Of Sioux City?
Miss Comfort’s Mr. Goupil?”
“Surely.”
“Why—why, then,” exclaimed Laurie, “I’m mighty glad to meet you,
sir.” He stepped forward with outstretched hand, and Mr. Goupil
enfolded it in a far more capacious one. “And this is my brother Ned.”
Mr. Goupil then shook hands with the amazed Ned. After that they all
sat down. Mr. Goupil arranged stick and hat with precision, cleared
his throat, and began:
“My dear sister-in-law has told me of your most kind efforts in her
behalf, and I have presented myself to make explanation and to add

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Citizens Without Frontiers 1st Edition

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175 Fifth Avenue 50 Bedford Square

First published 2012

© Engin F. Isin, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or

No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India

9781441116055_FM_Final_txt_print.indd iv 8/21/2001 10:16:40 AM

9781441116055_FM_Final_txt_print.indd v 8/21/2001 10:16:40 AM

This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State

—W. H. Auden, ‘The Unknown Citizen’ (1939)

9781441116055_FM_Final_txt_print.indd vi 8/21/2001 10:16:40 AM

1 Of Those Whose Acts Traverse Frontiers 1

2 ‘We, the People’ 28

9781441116055_FM_Final_txt_print.indd vii 8/21/2001 10:16:40 AM

3 ‘We, the Connected’ 70

4 Enacting Citizenship 108

5 Citizens without Frontiers 147

9781441116055_FM_Final_txt_print.indd viii 8/21/2001 10:16:40 AM

6 Emancipating (Acts of) Citizenship 174

9781441116055_FM_Final_txt_print.indd ix 8/21/2001 10:16:41 AM

9781441116055_FM_Final_txt_print.indd x 8/21/2001 10:16:41 AM

less of an issue and is broadly accepted if not encouraged. What happens if

9781441116055_FM_Final_txt_print.indd xi 8/21/2001 10:16:41 AM

9781441116055_FM_Final_txt_print.indd xii 8/21/2001 10:16:41 AM

Of Those Whose Acts

9781441116055_Ch01_Final_txt_print.indd 1 8/21/2001 10:07:50 AM

What does ‘without frontiers’ signify?

9781441116055_Ch01_Final_txt_print.indd 2 8/21/2001 10:07:51 AM

increasingly asserted, claimed and obtained as of right. Second, corpora-

9781441116055_Ch01_Final_txt_print.indd 3 8/21/2001 10:07:51 AM

or at least some of them, have been increasingly subsumed under human

Professions, citizens, activists

9781441116055_Ch01_Final_txt_print.indd 4 8/21/2001 10:07:51 AM

Citizens without frontiers

9781441116055_Ch01_Final_txt_print.indd 5 8/21/2001 10:07:51 AM

constitute citizenship. Without binding people into a body and bounding

Interrogating and transgressing frontiers

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signals something qualitatively different in that it addresses an interna-

the role of the intellectual is perhaps not so much, or maybe not

9781441116055_Ch01_Final_txt_print.indd 7 8/21/2001 10:07:51 AM

9781441116055_Ch01_Final_txt_print.indd 8 8/21/2001 10:07:51 AM

which occurs sometimes through so-called civil-society groups engaging in

‘We, the people’ and ‘we, the connected’

9781441116055_Ch01_Final_txt_print.indd 9 8/21/2001 10:07:51 AM

9781441116055_Ch01_Final_txt_print.indd 10 8/21/2001 10:07:52 AM

Making citizens activists

9781441116055_Ch01_Final_txt_print.indd 11 8/21/2001 10:07:52 AM

citizens as subjects against frontiers. It imagines citizens without frontiers

Three genres of writing

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