Sanctuary and Asylum Linda Rabben Published by University of Washington Press Rabben, L.. Sanctuary and Asylum: A Social and Political History. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016. Project MUSE., https://muse.jhu.edu/. For additional information about this book https://muse.jhu.edu/book/47599 Access provided by University of Washington @ Seattle (5 Jan 2017 18:10 GMT) 2 Sanctuary’s Beginnings I was a stranger, and ye took me in. —Matthew 25:35 Homo sapiens is a migrating species. Scientists have traced our wanderings across continents and oceans through a history that stretches back more than two million years. During this long process, we have adapted to our varied surroundings by developing diverse practices and beliefs, as well as forms of behavior that distinguish us from our primate relatives. And in the hundreds of thousands of years during which we have had language, we have evolved further, from discrete, isolated communities into a worldwide community. According to anthropologist Adam Kuper, “Five hundred years ago, the history of the human population began to come together again into a single process, for the first time since the origin of modern humans. After a history of dispersal and differentiation that lasted perhaps a quarter of a million years, there is once more something approaching a single world economy, culture and political system” (1994: 95). A highly sociable species characterized by sharing, exchange, cooperation, and hospitality, we are also quarrelsome and violent, excluding and rejecting those we define as different from ourselves. Many social commentators have argued that conflict and competition for scarce resources, such as food, status, and mates, characterize human societies. Yet anthropologists have studied societies in which food, status, and mates are not particularly scarce; the only general- ization one can make with assurance about human beings is that our circumstances and actions vary considerably—within certain broad limits determined by biology, environment, and culture. 27 28 ChaPteR 2 As both anthropologists and biologists acknowledge, we have in common with other species a tendency to act altruistically. The great primatologist Frans de Waal observes, “Aiding others at a cost or risk to oneself is widespread in the animal world.” Like other primates, humans extend help not only to their biological kin but also to unre- lated individuals or groups. “Helpful acts that are costly in the short run may produce long-term benefits if recipients return the favor,” de Waal notes (1996: 12). Such reciprocal altruism follows rules laid out by biologist Robert Trivers in 1972: 1. The exchanged acts, while beneficial to the recipient, are costly to the performer. 2. There is a time lag between giving and receiving. 3. Giving is contingent on receiving. (de Waal 1996: 24) De Waal links reciprocal altruism among primates to the evolution of morality, “a tendency to develop social norms and enforce them, the capacity for empathy and sympathy, mutual aid and a sense of fairness, the mechanisms of conflict resolution, and so on” (2001: 34). Morality among humans extends beyond single communities, as disparate groups meet to socialize, trade, court, and perform. Anthro- pologists have documented how the social relationships that develop at such gatherings endure over long periods and great distances. De Waal points out that human societies differ from those of chimpan- zees in that kin bonds extend well beyond the group’s boundaries, partly through exchange of females in marriage (34). De Waal goes much further when he writes: “Early human societies must have been optimal breeding grounds for survival-of-the-kindest aimed at families and potential reciprocators. Once this sensibility had come into existence, its range expanded. At some point, sympathy for others became a goal in and of itself: the centerpiece of human moral- ity and an essential aspect of religion. It is good to realize, though, that in stressing kindness, our moral systems are enforcing what is already part of our heritage” (2006: 181). Thus giving asylum or sanctuary may be seen as one of the basic manifestations of altruistic behavior and human morality. In the sanCtUaRy’s beginnings 29 face of conflict, humans wander or even flee, sometimes thousands of miles from home, seeking safety among strangers who may have little apparent reason to welcome us. We seek sanctuary from pursu- ers and offer asylum to strangers in this richly contradictory context. Sanctuary and asylum are ancient, perhaps primordial, institutions, part of the foundation of our species. Why should that be so? Aside from saving the lives of those fleeing persecution, what larger pur- poses does sanctuary serve? Other primates’ social lives may be suggestive. Homo sapiens is not the only species whose members offer or seek sanctuary. Among our closest primate relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, females often move from one group to another, fleeing sexual overtures or attacks by local males they do not want to mate with, perhaps because they are related to them.1 According to primatologists, female primates are more averse to incest than males and therefore more likely to leave home to avoid it. About chimpanzees, primatologist Lynne Isbell writes: “Because inbreeding is more costly to females than to males, selection should favor females that minimize incestuous matings. Males disperse because limited mating opportunities in their natal groups or home ranges create greater mating opportunities in other groups or home ranges, all else being equal” (2004: 96). Chimpanzees manage to find shelter in groups where they have no relatives, even though their social life is characterized by chronic conflicts, including raids and killings, between communities. Perhaps sanctuary or asy- lum could even be considered an integral part of intergroup hostility within a species, since it can be defined as the reception and protec- tion of a fleeing member of a strange or “enemy” group. However one chooses to interpret primate migration, it is a deli- cate business to extrapolate from other primates’ behavior to our own. Humans differ from chimpanzees and other primates in important ways. Most strikingly, we form enduring nuclear and extended fami- lies; we keep in touch with distant relatives; unrelated humans become friends and maintain those friendships for long periods; we maintain elaborate kinship groups, based on social as well as biological ties; we socialize and trade with hundreds or even thousands of other humans, creating huge communities that span continents; we make war, but 30 ChaPteR 2 we also make peace; we codify and change social rules; and we give refuge to unrelated individuals and groups on a scale unknown to other primates. As a result, our sociability is far more complex than theirs, and to a far greater extent we are an unfinished species. We have tried to take our evolution into our own hands through whole- sale alterations of the natural environment, with unforeseen and as yet unknown results. Our evolution is still going on. Kuper warns us “not to expect to learn very much about our pres- ent nature from a study of remote ancestors scratching a living some 40,000 years ago” (1994: 101). Nonetheless, it is instructive to look at the long history of human groups to find the commonalities that define us as members of one species. Nineteenth-century theorists disagreed about the mechanisms of human evolution on the basis of their observations of other species, ancient Greek and Roman sources, and reports on recently contacted human groups. In his 1865 book Primitive Marriage, John McLennan speculated that early human males had avoided incest by seizing women from outside their local group. Darwin played down ideas about generalized promiscuity among early humans by pointing out that mating is never random, but Freud apparently believed that such promiscuity had existed. In contrast, early twentieth-century anthropologists, including Westermarck and Malinowski, theorized that incest was the first human taboo. Westermarck went further, proposing that association with close relatives during childhood inhibits later sexual attraction in humans and other primates; this has come to be known as the Westermarck effect. Evolutionary biologists’ research over the past hundred years has proven him right. They have also found that in some primate species, such as chimps and bonobos, males tend to be philopatric (remaining in their birth communities), while females migrate to other communities to mate. Thus primates, including humans, prac- tice exogamy (mating outside their family or community) to avoid incest, which has damaging effects on reproductive fitness over time. In the process, humans create and maintain trade and other rela- tionships outside their home community. Relations with other com- munities may be friendly, antagonistic, or both: strangers may be seen as important sources of information or potential exchange partners sanCtUaRy’s beginnings 31 rather than dangerous interlopers or deadly assailants, but which of these cannot be known in advance (Chapais and Berman 2004: 401). For this system of communication and exchange to work, communi- ties must take in strangers at least some of the time. Furthermore, “social inclusion is absolutely central to human morality, commonly cast in terms of how we should or should not behave in order to be valued as members of society. Universally, human communities are moral communities; a morally neutral exis- tence is as impossible for us as a completely solitary existence,” de Waal maintains (1996: 10). However, he insists, our sympathy for others is not boundless. We give it most readily to our own family and clan, less to other members of the community, and least of all to outsiders (88). Accepting strangers makes them part of the moral community. That is the basis of sanctuary. But the ever-present ten- sion between incorporating and rejecting strangers limits humans’ willingness to bestow it. In many societies, sanctuary is only temporary or is hedged with restrictions.