Brian SmallNo paradox of contemporary politics is filled with a more poignant irony than the discrepancy between the efforts of well-meaning idealists who stubbornly insist on regarding as “inalienable” those human rights, which are enjoyed only by citizens of the most prosperous and civilized countries, and the situation of the rightless themselves. Their situation has deteriorated just as stubbornly, until the internment camp—prior to the second World War the exception rather than the rule for the stateless—has become the routine solution for the problem of domicile of the “displaced persons.” #HannahArendt in #OnImperialism about #HumanRIghts and #StatelessPeople #DisplacedPersons
bs2> Denationalization became a powerful weapon of totalitarian politics, and the constitutional inability of European nation-states to guarantee #HumanRights to those who had lost nationally guaranteed rights, made it possible for the persecuting governments to impose their standard of values even upon their opponents. Those whom the persecutor had singled out as scum of the earth.. actually were received as scum of the earth everywhere..
#HannahArendt in #OnImperialism on #StatelessPeople