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Home , Jacques Derrida

Theorists of hospitality Jacques Derrida’s philosophy of hospitality

In the latest of our occasional series on theorists of hospitality, Kevin O’Gorman explores how the controversial Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) contributes to our understanding of hospitality. Derrida’s meditation on the contradictions within the of hospitality are identified, along with his attempts to illuminate a variety of contemporary hospitality scenarios.

he Office of the President of announced his subsequent experiences as a young student in the death of Jacques Derrida in 2004, say- were isolated and unhappy, consisting of inter- Ting ‘in him France gave the world one of the mittent depression, nervous anxiety and a see-saw major figures of the intellectual life of our times’.1 between sleeping tablets and amphetamines resulted Internationally, Derrida was widely considered the in exam failures in the early 1950s.6 most important French philosopher of the late twen- He then studied at the University of Louvain in tieth century; he was also the subject of three ilms 2 Belgium,7 later taught at the Sorbonne, and then and a number of media controversies.3 Derrida was returned to the École Normale Supérieur as a lec- credited as the inventor of ‘decon- turer. In 1983 Derrida became the struction,’ the practice of dis- founding director of the Collège mantling texts by revealing their International de Philosophie, where assumptions and contradictions. open lecture courses were given Normally life is lived at the level by a volunteer body of philoso- where things are presumed, people phers.8 In 1967 Derrida’s interna- are accustomed to think in narrow tional reputation had been secured ways. attempts to by the publication of three books,9 highlight just how much is taken and he went on to publish 40 dif- for granted in contemporary con- ferent works. Various ceptual thought and language. have tried to attach diferent labels Derrida grew up as a Jew in to him—a pragmatist,10 a post- in the 1940s, during and Kantian transcendentalist,11 and a ater the anti-Semitic French colo- linguistic philosopher12—showing nial regime.4 He had been excluded the diiculty in locating decon- in his youth from his school ater structionism within philosophy, let it had reduced the quotas for . Confronted with alone an academic discipline. As well as one of violent racism, he avoided school during the period the most cited modern scholars in the , he

when he was obliged to attend a school for Jewish Chicago UP was undoubtedly one of the most controversial. In students and teachers. He eventually managed to 1992 a proposal to award him an honorary gain entry to study philosophy in Paris at the École at Cambridge University caused such uproar that, for Normale Supérieur.5 However the irst time in 30 years, the university was forced to

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HR_8.4_FINAL.indd 50 13/11/06 11:58:49 am put the matter to a ballot, with the degree only being ity in all hosting and hospitality, constituting what he awarded by a majority vote.13 called a certain ‘hostipitality’:21 If I say ‘Welcome’, I am not renouncing my mastery, something that becomes transparent in people whose Derrida and hospitality hospitality is a way of showing of how much they Derrida’s writings have had an impact on a wide range own or who make their guests uncomfortable and of disciplines and areas of study, including education, afraid to touch a thing.22 gender, law, , mathematics, politics, psychol- To Derrida then, the notion of having and retaining ogy, race and .14 his paper explores Derrida’s the mastery of the house underlies hospitality: contribution to the philosophy of hospitality, picking ‘Make yourself at home’, this is a self-limiting invita- up on some writers in philosophy and post- tion… it means: please feel at home, act as if you colonial theory who are either writing in the ield or were at home, but, remember, that is not true, this have developed his writing. is not your home but mine, and you are expected to Drawing on the work of Lévinas,15 Derrida ofered respect my .23 an encompassing philosophy of hospitality, clearly Telfer also explores this further when discussing the diferentiating between the ‘law of hospitality’ and motivation behind hospitality.24 here is a limitation ‘laws of hospitality’: to the amount of hospitality that ‘hosts’ can and wish he law of unlimited hospitality (to give the new to ofer. Just as important are the intentions that lie arrival all of one’s home and oneself, to give him or her one’s own, our own, without asking a name, or compen- Various philosophers have tried to attach diferent sation, or the fulilment of even the labels to him… showing the diiculty in locating smallest condition), and on the other deconstructionism within philosophy, let alone an hand, the laws (in the plural), those academic discipline rights and duties that are always conditioned and conditional, as they are deined by the Greco-Roman tradition and even behind any hospitable act: there surely is a distinc- the Judaeo-Christian one, by all of law and all phi- tion to be made between hospitality for pleasure and losophy of law up to Kant and Hegel in particular, hospitality that is born out of a sense of duty. She con- across the family, civil society, and the State.16 siders hospitality to be a moral virtue, and articulates Derrida also made a distinction between uncondi- hospitable motives to be: tional hospitality, which he considered impossible, and those in which concern for the guests’ pleasure and hospitality which in his view was always conditional. welfare, for its own sake, is predominant. hese can Derrida deined hospitality as inviting and welcoming include entertaining for pleasure where that pleasure the ‘stranger’.17 his takes place on diferent levels: the largely depends on knowing that one is pleasing the personal level where the ‘stranger’ is welcomed into guests, and sense of duty where there is also concern the home; and the level of individual countries. His for the guests themselves. And hospitable people, those interest was heightened by the of ‘hospital- who possess the trait of hospitableness, are those who ity’,18 being from a Latin root, but derived from two oten entertain from one or more of these motives, or proto-Indo-European words which have the mean- from mixed motives in which one of these motives is ings of ‘stranger’, ‘guest’ and ‘power’.19 hus, in the predominant.25 ‘destruction’ of the word, there can be seen People choose to pursue the virtue of hospitableness an essential ‘self limitation’ built right into the idea of because they are attracted by an ideal of hospitality: hospitality, which preserves the distance between one’s he ideal of hospitality, like all ideals, presents itself own and the ‘stranger’, between owning one’s own as joyful rather than onerous, and provides the property and inviting the ‘other’ into one’s home.20 inspiration for the pursuit of the virtue or virtues of So, as Derrida observed, there is always a little hostil- hospitableness.26

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HR_8.4_FINAL.indd 51 13/11/06 11:58:50 am Conditional hospitality central to the thinking of Lévinas. Lévinas considered he phenomenon of hospitality necessarily contains Heidegger’s in that ‘language is the house of the of the ‘other’ or ‘foreigner’ within it since Being’; the sheltering or housing of Being, a sheltering hospitality requires, a priori, a concept of the ‘outsid- that Lévinas and Derrida took up from the perspec- er’ or ‘guest’. In trying to imagine the extremes of a tive of hospitality to the ‘other’. 29 Derrida takes the hospitality to which no conditions are set, there is a imposition of language as an example of the irst type realisation that unconditional hospitality could never of violence that is inlicted on the guest by the host. be accomplished. It is not so much an ideal: it is an here is a law of the social relation that distinguish- impossible ideal. Derrida argued that hospitality is es between sameness and diference, which is itself conditional in the sense that the outsider or foreigner monolingual and that, therefore, extends its hospital- has to meet the criteria of the a priori ‘other’, implying ity on its own terms and not those of the foreigner. that hospitality is not given to a guest who is abso- In the British press refugees and asylum seekers are lutely unknown or anonymous because the host has oten portrayed as parasites upon the nation’s hospi- no idea of how they will respond: tality. his is a potential manifestation of what Rosello Absolute hospitality requires that I open up my home identiied as: and that I give not only to the foreigner (provided the guest is always the guest, if the host is always the with a family name, with the social status of being a host, something has probably gone wrong: hospitality has somehow been replaced by parasit- ism or charity.30 ‘Make yourself at home’, this is a self-limiting It has reached the stage where invitation… it means: please feel at home… but, guests who are forced into the systemat- remember, that is not true, this is not your home but ic position of the guest are oten accused mine, and you are expected to respect my property of parasitism, the host refusing to take responsibility for the historical position that deprives others of the pleasure and pride of taking their place.31 foreigner, etc.), but to the absolute, unknown, anony- Derrida endorsed Lévinas’ view that absolute hospi- mous other, and that I give place to them, that I let tality requires the ‘host’ to allow ‘guests’ to behave as them come, that I let them arrive, and take place they wish; there must be no pressure or obligation to in the place I ofer them, without asking of them behave in any particular manner.32 Absolute hospital- either reciprocity (entering into a pact) or even their ity does not make a demand of the ‘guest’ that would names. he law of absolute hospitality commands a force them to reciprocate by way of imposing an obli- break with hospitality by right, with law or justice gation. he language used by Derrida could be held as rights.27 to imply that making a ‘guest’ conform to any rules or Derrida also distinguished between a guest and a norms is a bad thing. Derrida went on to question in parasite: particular the restricted nature of national hospitality In principle, the diference is straightforward, but for to legal and illegal immigrants. that you need a law; hospitality, reception, the wel- We know that there are numerous what we call ‘dis- come ofered have to be submitted to a basic and lim- placed persons’ who are applying for the right to asy- iting jurisdiction. Not all new arrivals are received as lum without being citizens, without being identiied guests if they don’t have the beneit of the right to hos- as citizens. It is not for speculative or ethical reasons pitality or the right of asylum, etc. Without this right, that I am interested in unconditional hospitality, but a new arrival can only be introduced ‘in my home,’ in order to understand and to transform what is in the host’s ‘at home’, as a parasite, a guest who is going on today in our world.33 wrong, illegitimate, clandestine, liable to expulsion or A modern hospitality enigma exists where countries arrest.28 want their emigrants treated as sacred guests, but pay he concept of absolute hospitality dictated by a scant attention to their own laws of hospitality regard- law that exceeds the social contract of hospitality is ing immigrants. Countries admit a certain number of

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HR_8.4_FINAL.indd 52 13/11/06 11:58:51 am immigrants—conditionally.34 Derrida noted that to ship with itself, receptiveness and in relationship the best of his knowledge there was no country in with others: strangers, foreigners, immigrants and the world that allowed unconditional immigration.35 friends—guests. People may consider themselves to be practically hos- For pure hospitality or a pure git to occur, however, pitable, but they will not leave their doors open to all there must be an absolute surprise. he other, like the who might come, to take or do anything, without con- Messiah, must arrive whenever he or she wants. She dition or limit. Derrida argued the same can be said [sic] may even not arrive. I would oppose, therefore, about countries: conditional hospitality takes place the traditional and religious concept of ‘visitation’ to only in the shadow of the impossibility of the ideal ‘invitation’: visitation implies the arrival of someone version. who is not expected, who can show up at any time. he admission by a country, of a certain number If I am unconditionally hospitable I should welcome of immigrants in a given year, occurs because of the the visitation, not the invited guest, but the visitor. I impossibility of an absolute hospitality, a limitless must be unprepared, or prepared to be unprepared, opening of national borders in which all property for the unexpected arrival of any other. Is this pos- would be available to those who enter, and all doors sible? I don’t know. If, however, there is pure hospital- would be open. Derrida however did not consider that this impossibil- conditional hospitality takes place only in the ity is meaningless. he oicial who determines the admission quota can shadow of the impossibility of the ideal version only do so by considering whether it should be larger, or judging that it should not. Derrida ity, or a pure git, it should consist in this opening referred to statements made by former French min- without horizon, without horizon of expectation, an ister of immigration Michel Rocard who in 1993 opening to the newcomer whoever that may be. It observed, with respect to immigration quotas, that may be terrible because the newcomer may be a good France could not ofer a home to everybody in the person, or may be the devil.38 world who sufered.36 Paradoxically, in that moment his quote demonstrates Derrida’s distinction between when Rocard closes the door on unconditional hospi- messianicity and messianism, another way of read- tality, he opened up the conceptual possibility that it ing his ‘impossibility’ and related notion of ‘other- could exist. Derrida argued that the alternative abso- ness’.39 A messianism was considered by Derrida as lute of an unconditional hospitality can therefore be a kind of dogmatism, subjecting the divine other to glimpsed, momentarily, just before it is sufocated by ‘metaphysico-religious determination’;40 forcing the conditional hospitality: ultimate guest, the Messiah, to conform or at least Unconditional hospitality implies that you don’t ask converge to the ‘host’s’ preconceptions of them as the other, the newcomer, the guest to give anything ‘guest’. When imagining the coming of the Messiah back, or even to identify himself or herself. Even if the host attributes a new kind of origin and centrism the other deprives you of your mastery or your home, to a divine other and assumes the latter suits their you have to accept this. It is terrible to accept this, imaginative picture. Faith for Derrida was undecon- but that is the condition of unconditional hospital- structible, while religion, like law, is deconstructible; ity: that you give up the mastery of your space, your faith, is: home, your nation. It is unbearable. If, however, something that is presupposed by the most radical there is pure hospitality, it should be pushed to this deconstructive gesture. You cannot address the ‘other’, extreme.37 speak to the ‘other’, without an act of faith, without testimony.41 To speak to another is to ask them to trust you: Derrida, hospitality and religion As soon as you address the other, as soon as you are When considering hospitality, for Derrida the ‘oth- open to the future, as soon as you have a temporal erness’ referred to ‘the other, the newcomer, the experience of waiting for the future, of waiting for guest’; interrogating humanity’s ethical relation- someone to come; that is the opening of experience.

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HR_8.4_FINAL.indd 53 13/11/06 11:58:52 am Someone is to come, is now to come.42 relecting on the government statements that reason- he faith in the ‘someone to come’, according to able limits and reasonable conditions must be set on Derrida, was absolutely universal, and therefore the immigration, Derrida was interested in the intercon- universal structure of faith is an undeconstructible. In nection between overt institutional generosity and its contrast, Derrida suggested invoking messianicity as: implicit failure; for example, the unexpected surprise... If I could anticipate, if I had when those hosts who are apparently, and present a horizon of anticipation, if I could see what is com- themselves as being, the most generous, constitute ing or who is coming, there would be no coming.43 themselves as the most limited.44 Derrida’s view of messianicity was not limited to a President Mitterrand of France used the expression religious context, but extended to his depiction of of a ‘threshold of tolerance’ in his discussion on immi- ‘otherness’ more generally. His comments about the gration policy, considered as the point beyond which other apply to a friend, someone culturally diferent, French voters would revolt against the presence of a parent, a child; where the issue arises of whether we immigrants in France.45 France was willing to admit a are capable of recognizing them, of respecting their certain number of immigrants. Even if this was an act diference, and of how we may be surprised by them. of national generosity it is incapable of accomplishing this generosity without invoking rhetorically a spectre of impossibility; that which is beyond its threshold. Dealing with the impossibility Mireille Rosello, a postcolonial theorist, addresses of unconditional hospitality similar issues to Derrida, especially when examin- For Derrida the way in which impossibility is treat- ing France’s traditional role as the terre d’asile (land ed ofers a solution to the problem; impossibility is of sanctuary) for political refugees. She shows how an experience or an event. It is a relationship that this image of a welcoming France is now contrasted means that people could never be self-enclosed iden- with France as part of the Fortress Europe (a land tities. Impossibility is not a possibility that cannot be that seeks to close its borders to unwelcome immi- accessed; rather, people are diferentiated by impossi- grants).46 Rosello also examines the French govern- ment’s eforts to hinder illegal immi- gration throughout the 1990s.47 he hospitality may require that… both host and guest French state deined hospitality as part accept… the uncomfortable and sometimes painful of an attempt to make private citizens possibility of being changed by the other responsible for the residency status of their guests. Diferent hospitality sce- narios between groups and between bility, and this is one of the many ways in which they individuals, especially the notion of ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’ are a being in relationship with ‘otherness’. and their respective responsibilities: When a country’s borders, or the domestic domain, he very precondition of hospitality may require that, are open to guests or immigrants, conditional hos- in some ways, both the host and the guest accept, in pitality places us in relation to impossibility; failure diferent ways, the uncomfortable and sometimes to provide a greater generosity, and that impossible painful possibility of being changed by the other.48 greater generosity inhabits our act of conditional hos- Within Western Europe refugees are no longer per- pitality. When, with the best intentions, people none- ceived as honoured guests deserving of consideration: theless inevitably fail in their attempt to be open to they fall into the category of parasite; they have over- the diference of the ‘other’, that impossibility resides stayed their welcome and must be ushered out. in their attempt, and places them in a diferent kind Many of Derrida’s views are relected in the writ- of relationship with the other in question. ings of Tahar Ben Jalloun, another post-colonial theo- Impossibility mediates and contributes to the com- rist, a Moroccan who immigrated to France in 1971. plexity of people’s identity, relationships and hospital- Drawing upon his personal encounters with racism, ity. Transformation through hospitality is connected he uses the of hospitality to elucidate the with the negotiation of the impossibility. While racial divisions that plague contemporary France. Ben

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HR_8.4_FINAL.indd 54 13/11/06 11:58:53 am Jalloun states that laws of hospitality are a fundamen- example, in the writings of Ben Jelloun, in his home- tal mark of civilisation, observing that he comes from sickness and general discontent with his host coun- a poor and relatively unsophisticated country, where try. Derrida too was an immigrant to France and his the stranger’s right to protection and shelter has background could also have had a strong inluence been honoured since time immemorial.49 On mov- on his thinking and writing. his does not prove that ing to France, Ben Jalloun felt that hospitality was not either Derrida or Ben Jelloun have any political bias reciprocal, despite the beneits that France had clearly or underlying propagandist tendency; however, the gained from her former colonies. France had enjoyed fact that neither of them seems to explicitly discuss one side of the reciprocal arrangement but hospitality their potential bias does leave room for doubt. was not reciprocated to those who wished to come In investigating the hospitality of the classical as ‘guests’ to France; the former ‘hosts’ were not wel- Greco-Roman world Derrida was drawing conclu- comed as guests. Hospitality was conditional; a right sions and writing for the modern age. When under- to visit was not a right to stay. Former colonials feel taking this type of work, care must be taken to avoid abandoned by the authorities of their own countries, what is characterized as ‘the teleological fallacy’: the and in France live in fear of being returned to them: tendency to use ancient documents as ‘a springboard in France he dreams of the country he let behind. In for a modern polemic’.53 Telfer, through her treatment his own country, he dreams of France… he thumps of domestic hospitality, and Derrida, Rosello and Ben back and forth a bag full of small possessions and of Jelloun with their investigation of the state and the grand illusion.50 relationship to the individual, all to a greater or lesser Despite having lived for about 30 years in France the author himself the true gift of hospitality is an act of generosity states: experienced by the ‘guest’, which turns a stranger yet sometimes I feel I am a stranger into a friend for a limited period of time here. hat happens whenever rac- ism occurs, whether it is virulent or latent, and whenever someone lays down limits that extent seem to expect that the hospitality relationship mustn’t be transgressed.51 should be the same. here is limited consideration For current post-colonial philosophical theory, hos- given to the motivations of either the guest or the pitality is a multifaceted concept. What are commonly ‘host’, and even less recognition given to the fact that referred to as ‘laws of hospitality’ are largely unwrit- the hospitality relationship exists in dissimilar con- ten and thereby subject to lux and interpretation. texts: domestic, civic or commercial, each with their Rosello shows how this image of a welcoming France own diferent sets of laws.54 his lack of contextual is now contrasted with France as part of the Fortress consideration potentially creates the foundations for Europe. For Rosello, what makes the phenomenon of a hospitality fallacy. hospitality relevant for philosophical investigation is the potential for redeinition of the traditional roles and duties of the ‘guest’ and the ‘host’.52 Alternating Reflection between notions of duty and voluntary charity, hos- For Derrida the hospitality given to the ‘other’ is an pitality between individuals and states of diferent ethical marker, both for an individual and a coun- racial, ethnic or religious backgrounds entails its try. Everyday engagement with the ‘other’ is fraught own ramiications; Ben Jalloun argues that racism is with diiculties; sometimes the ‘other’ is devalued or caused by the breakdown of hospitality thresholds in extreme cases rejected. In the case of hospitality, and boundaries. the ‘other’ is oten forced to take on the perceptions of the ‘host’. he ‘guests’ are unable to be themselves; they must transform their ‘otherness’. For Derrida, Potential for bias being open and accepting the ‘other’ on their terms Discontentment and bias are two of the issues that opens the host to new experiences—the possibility of arise from these authors. It comes across clearly for ‘crossing thresholds of hope’.55 Even when they have

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HR_8.4_FINAL.indd 55 13/11/06 11:58:54 am the best of intentions people fail in their attempts to 8 B Stocker Derrida on Deconstruction (London, behave hospitably and this adds to the complexity of 2006) 9 Translated in English as: J Derrida the hospitality relationship. and Other Essays on Husserl’s heory of (Evanston, We do not know what hospitality is. Northwestern University Press 1973); J Derrida Of Not yet. (Baltimore, Press Not yet, but will we ever know? 56 1976); J Derrida Writing and Diference (London, Routledge 1978) From Derrida’s writings it seems that true hospitality 10 R Rorty Consequences of Pragmatism (University of is somewhat of an enigma. his is not due to any phil- Minnesota Press, Princeton 1982) osophical conundrum, but perhaps because hospital- 11 R Gasché he Tain in the Mirror (Cambridge MA, Harvard ity is not a matter of objective knowledge. Hospitality University Press 1986) exists within lived experience; it is a git given by the 12 C Norris Derrida (London, Fontana 1987); G Bennington ‘Mosaic fragment, if Derrida were an Egyptian’ in Derrida: ‘host’ to the ‘guest’, and then shared between them. A Critical Reader D Wood (ed) (Massachusetts, Blackwell Hospitality cannot be resolved on the pages of an aca- 1992) pp 97–199 demic journal; the true git of hospitality is an act of 13 he Economist op. cit. generosity experienced by the ‘guest’, which turns a 14 Deutscher op. cit. p x stranger into a friend for a limited period of time. 15 E Lévinas Totality and Ininity (Pittsburgh, Duquesne University Press 1969) From various biographies and obituaries, it is clear 16 J Derrida Of Hospitality, invites Jacques that Derrida was undoubtedly a controversial charac- Derrida to respond (Stanford, Press 2000) ter; his dramatic early failures were contrasted by the p 77 outstanding successes in later life. His work advanced 17 J Derrida ‘Hostipitality’ Angelaki: Journal of the heoretical 5 the deconstruction of ‘the very of knowl- Humanities (3) 2000 pp 3–18 18 Derrida is following the etymology of Emil Benveniste. E edge and truth,’ and provoked strong feelings within Benveniste Le Vocabulaire des Institutions Indo-européennes his readers who, just like the Senate of Cambridge (Paris, Éditions de Minuit 1969) University, are oten divided over his writings, con- 19 K O’Gorman ‘Modern Hospitality: Lessons from the past’ sidering them to be either on the one hand absurd, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 12 (2) 2005 pp 141–151 vapid and pernicious or on the other hand logical, 20 J D Caputo Deconstruction In A Nutshell: A conversation with momentous and lively.57 Jacques Derrida (New York, Fordham University Press 2002) p 110 For further reading on Derrida I would recommend J Derrida 21 J Derrida ‘Hostipitality’ op. cit. Of Hospitality, Anne Dufourmantelle invites Jacques Derrida to 22 Caputo op. cit. p 111 23 ibid. p 111 respond (Stanford University Press, Stanford 2000) 24 E Telfer ‘he philosophy of hospitableness’ in C Lashley and A Morrison (eds) In Search of Hospitality – heoretical References Perspectives and Debates (Oxford, Butterworth Heinemann 1 Jacques Derrida’s obituary in he Economist 21 October 2000) 2004 25 E Telfer Food for hought, Philosophy of Food, (London, 2 Film titles: Derrida (2002); D’ailleurs, Derrida (1999) in Routledge 1996) p 82 English as Derrida’s Elsewhere; Ghost Dance (1983) 26 ibid. p 101 3 P Deutscher How to Read Derrida (London, Granta Books 27 Derrida Of Hospitality p 25 2005) p ix 28 ibid. p 59f 4 G Bermington & J Derrida Jacques Derrida (Chicago, 29 M Heidegger ‘he letter on “Humanism” ’ (1946) in University of Chicago Press 1993) contains some auto- Pathmarks: Texts in German Philosophy W McNeill (ed) biographical material from Derrida in a piece called (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1998) p 243 ‘Circumfession’ in which an extensive chronology is dis- 30 M Rosello Postcolonial Hospitality: he Immigrant as Guest cussed with Derrida, including family photographs. (Stanford, Stanford University Press 2001) p 167 5 A French institution that specialises in training academics 31 ibid. and teachers of philosophy; it provides a high proportion of 32 J Derrida Adieu to Emmanuel Lévinas (Stanford, Stanford French university lecturers. University Press 1999) 6 Deutscher op. cit. p x 33 J Derrida ‘Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility: A Dialogue 7 Whilst in Louvain he wrote the equivalent of an MA the- with Jacques Derrida’ in R Kearney and M Dooley (eds) sis on Husserl: J Derrida he Problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Questioning : Contemporary Debates in Philosophy Philosophy (Chicago, University of Chicago Press 2003) (London Routledge 1998) p 70

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HR_8.4_FINAL.indd 56 13/11/06 11:58:54 am 34 S Wahnich ‘L’hospitalité et la Révolution française’ in D xenophobia and racism are likely to increase. he term has Fassin, A Morice, and C Quirninal (eds) Les lois de l’inhos- been widely used in French debates on immigration in what pitalité: Les politiques de l’immigration à l’épreuve des sans- Singer describes as ‘an attempt to give a scientiic pretence to papiers (Paris La Découverte 1997) the crude idea that, above a certain proportion, immigrants 35 J Derrida ‘Responsabilité et hospitalité’ in M Sefahi (ed) are no longer tolerated by the local population’ (p 380). cf D Manifeste pour l’hospitalité (Paris, Paroles l’Aube 1999) Singer ‘he resistible rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen’ Ethnic and 36 Derrida ibid. Racial Studies 14 (3) 1991 pp 368–81 37 Derrida ‘Hospitality, Justice and Responsibility’ p 71 46 M Rosello ‘Representing illegal immigrants in France: from 38 ibid. p 70 clandestins to l’afaire des sans-papiers de Saint-Bernard’ 39 Messianic structure or messianicity is considered to be ‘uni- Journal of European Studies 28 1998 pp 137–51 versal structure of the promise, of the expectation for the 47 M Rosello ‘Interpreting Immigration Laws: “Crimes of future, for the coming, and the fact that this expectation of the Hospitality” or “Crimes against Hospitality”’ Diaspora 8 (3) coming has to do with justice’. J Derrida : 1999 pp 209–24 Corrected edition (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press 1997) p 48 M Rosello Postcolonial Hospitality: he Immigrant as Guest 128. (Stanford, Stanford University Press 2001) p 170 Indeed, Derrida confesses that ‘there is no society with- 49 T Ben Jelloun (1999) French Hospitality: Racism and North out faith, without trust in the other.’ (ibid p 128) Messianisms African Immigrants, Press, New York. are identiication in time and history of the messianic struc- 50 ibid. p 116 ture; messianisms say that the Messiah has appeared in time, 51 ibid. p 133 tradition, and history. 52 Rosello op cit. 40 J Derrida : he State of the Debt, the Work of 53 M I Finley Ancient Slavery and Modern Mourning, and the New International (New York, Routledge (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books 1993) p 110 1994) 54 K D O’Gorman ‘Dimensions of hospitality: exploring ancient 41 J Derrida ‘he Villanova Roundtable: A Conversation with and classical origins’ in C Lashley, P Lynch and A Morrison Jacques Derrida’ in J D Caputo op. cit. p 120 (eds) Advances in Tourism Research, Hospitality: A Social 42 ibid. p 123 Lens (Oxford, Elsevier 2006) 43 J Derrida Deconstruction Engaged: he Sydney Seminars P 55 John Paul II Crossing the hreshold of Hope (London, Alfred Patton and T Smith (eds) (Sydney, Power Publications 2001) A Knopf 1994) p 67f 56 J Derrida ‘Hostipitality’ p 6 44 ibid. p 116 57 R Welleck ‘Destroying Literary Studies’ in D Patai and N 45 President Mitterrand argued that every country has a ‘seuil Corral (eds) heory’s Empire: An Anthology of Dissent (New de tolérance’ of immigration beyond which instances of York, Columbia University Press 2005) p 44

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