Identity and the Stranger (Elena Namli)

8/13/2019 Identity and the Stranger (Elena Namli)

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[PT12.6 (2011) 813-829] Political Theology (print) ISSN 1462-317Xdoi:10.1558/poth.vl2i6.813 Political Theology (online) ISSN 1473-1719

IDENTITY AND THE STRANGER:

A CHRISTOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF REFUGEE POLITICS

Elena Namli1

ProfessorinEthicsCentreforRussian Studies, Uppsala University

Box514,SE-751 20UppsalaSweden

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to suggest an interpretation of Christology

that would be an effective tool for theological critique of current refu

gee politics in Europe. The author claims that the European view on the

stranger is grounded in a particular philosophy of individualistic identitywhich can be contrasted to the traditional understanding of identity as

relational. This relational understanding is exemplified by Jewish theology

and the philosophy of Hermann Cohen and Emmanuel Lvinas. It sug

gests that identityisnotacondition of moral responsibility butaderivative

ofit.Cohen's interpretation of the meaning of monotheism is one of the

most interesting elaborations on this idea. The author of the article claims

that the traditional understanding of Christology can be revaluated by the

notion of a radical uncertainty of the identity of Christ. This uncertainty is

not an uncertainty about Christ's divine nature. The radical christological

uncertainty is about the impossibility of proving the identity of God, anidentity which calls for an act of responsibility and for a capacity to rec

ognize the very God in a stranger seeking protection and lacking evidence

for his identity.

Keywords:Christology; Hermann Cohen; identity; refugee politics; stranger.

1. Elena Namli is Professor of Ethics and Research Director at the Centre for

Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University (Sweden). She has published
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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814 Political Theology

He entered the praetorium again and said to Jesus, "Where are you

from?" But Jesus gave no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, "\bu

will not speak to me? Do you not know thatIhave power to release

you,and power to crucifyyou?"The Gospel According to John 19:9-10

Pilate's meeting with Jesus isapiece of our history. Not so muchforwhatit actually was, but for all the reflection the stories awaken. In differentages andin differentplacesthe meetingisrecreatedby thinkers andartists.Mikhail Bulgakov's novelThe Master and Margaritais my personal favourite among the stories of Pilate, the man of power, and his confrontationwithifeshua, the Jew. In the novel their meeting proves to be decisive for

Pilate's hard-won insight that the truth possesses another kind of powerthan any political power he can win and retain. It all begins with Yeshuanot being able to explain his identity, explain it in such a way that theRoman procurator can accept:

"Name?" "Mine?" enquiredtheprisonerhurriedly,hiswhole being express

ing readiness to answer sensibly and to forestall any further anger. The

Procurator said quietly: "I know my own name. Don't pretend to be stu

piderthanyou are.Yourname.""Yeshua,"replied the prisonerhastily."Sur

name?" "Ha-Notsri." "Where are you from?" "From the town Gamala,"

replied the prisoner, nodding his head to show that far over there to hisright, in the north, was the town Gamala. "Whoareyou bybirth?""Idon't

knowexactly,"promptly answered the prisoner,"Idon't remember my par

ents.Iwas told that my fatherwas aSyrian..." "Whereisyourfixedabode?"

"I have no home," said the prisoner shamefacedly, "I move from town to

town.""There isa shorter wayof saying thatina wordyouare avagrant,"

said theProcurator..?

In Bulgakov's narrative, Yeshua is unable to account for his origins at thesame time as he is astoundingly lucid when it comes to explaining hismisunderstood message to Pilate,\eshua,who at the beginning of thedialogue cannot say who his parents are, eventually philosophizes withPilate in several languages, of which Aramaic, GreekandLatin are explicitly mentioned in thestory.Bulgakov emphasizes the identity problematicby lettingafictiveRussian author, the hero of his novel, retell the biblicalstory about Yeshua. Yeshua's identity is obscured in the extreme whilethe language of truth in his message remains. Bulgakov's story of PilateandYeshua ends with Pilate the politician authorizing the crucifixion of

Yeshua thevagrant.Pilate the man has to live with the burden of guilt forauthorizing the death of the truth-loving philosopher and healer:
http://eshua/http://eshua/


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Namli Identity and the Stranger 815

Have pity on me, philosopher! Do you,aman of your intelligence, imagine

that the Procurator of Judaea would ruin his career for the sake ofaman

who had committedacrime against Caesar?

"Yes, yes..."Pilate groaned and sobbed in his sleep. Of course he would risk

ruininghiscareer.This morninghehad not beenreadyto,but nowatnight,

having thoroughly weighed the matter, he was prepared to ruin himself if

need be. He would do anything to save this crazy, innocent dreamer, this

miraculous healer, from execution.3

In thefootsteps oftheevangelists Bulgakovseems to beproblematizing theconnection between the credibility in a person's words and the certaintyof their identity. What is the meaning behind the problematization?

Even today identification is one of the most obvious markers of thesafe and reliable. Current politics in the EU and Sweden is imbued withidentity discussions, and the question "Where are you from?" is amongthe questions we are continually asking one another in political and legaldiscourse. Not being able to verify one's identitycanlead to serious legalcomplications, as refugees who make their way to Europe can attest. Tohave an identity that is considered deviant makes life difficult for manyEuropean minorities,atthe same time as the insistence of the majority tocontinue stipulatingthenorm seems to have been strengthened instead of

toned down in the age of globalization. If you happen to have a "deviantidentity" you can expect to have to explain yourself thoroughly in orderto gain acceptance. In the most serious cases it does not matter in the leastwhat the stranger (foreigner) says or does, as the majority appears to lackthe trust required for human communicationtowork.

Even considering the obvious, albeit short-term, security guaranteeafforded by investigative checks there is, in my opinion, a need for further examination oftheEuropean political culture's view ofthemean

ing and significance ofidentity.In this article I intend to approach thisissue from an ethical perspective. I begin by suggesting that there is aconnection between the common security-based view of identity andthe Cartesian beliefthatevery individual possesses an identity by virtueof self-consciousness and, therefore, independently of relations to otherpeople. Further, I contrast this understanding to another view of identity, namely the traditional relational approach, which articulates identityas aresult of human relations, in terms ofagift from another person.Identity of the other is seen as the individual's personal responsibility,

rather than an issue of political security. My claim is that such an alternative view of identity can be found in traditional ethics of Judaism and


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terms of political security in Europe. I maintain that tools foramoral cri

tique of the current European view of refugees and strangers exist within

Christian theology. Drawing on the writings of Dostoevsky and Bakhtin,

I argue in favour of a Christology of radical uncertainty which allows usto reclaim the genuine Christian view of God as revealing religious and

moral truths without securing his identity.

Meeting a Stranger: TwoWaysof Seeking Identity

The view of identity expressed in political discourse emphasizes a particular dimension of every human communication. In order to relate tosomeone's message we want to know the identity of its author. Severalpolitical philosophers use this experience in their theories. In our owntime Jrgen Habermas's analyses of communicative ethics can be mentioned. Habermas rightly argues that the subject behind a message mustemerge in order for communication to proceed. Anonymous messagesindicate a flight from responsibility and in the global situation this canlead to large disturbances, including different forms of terrorism.4That iswhy the new political rhetoric was appreciated by many when presidentObama began his speech in Cairo on4June 2009 by clearly identifying

the relevant parties in the anticipated political dialogue, and by thoroughlydescribing his own origins.

5

Identity, or rather the possibility to establish it, is therefore an important marker for secure political and other communication. It is, however,

just as important to reflect on the not at all unusual situations where suchsecurity is absent. Above all I am thinking of two forms of absence ofsecurity. The one is in situations where somebody cannot verify theiridentity, and the otheriswhere the recipient of the identity narrative is notcapable of assimilating it. Both forms of uncertainty have, in many cases,to do with powerlessness of those whose identityisin question. Refugeesoften have problems in verifying their identityasthey are afraid that theirgenuine story does not meet the criteria imposed by refugee politics. It isinteresting to note that the importance of the personal storyisrecognizedin programmatic human rights documents to be later toned down to giveway, finally and completely, to bureaucratic and police control methods.6

4. Jrgen Habermas, "Fundamentalism andTerror,"inPhilosophy in a TimeofTenor,

ed. Giovanna Borradori (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2003), 34-36.

5. BarackObama,Cairo speech,The New YorkTimes,June 4,2009.


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As far as the other form of difficulty in establishing a person's identityis concerned, the situation of European Muslims can be representative.In practically all of Europe the growing trend is to treat all Muslims as a

unified group whose cultural characteristics are presumed to be knownand considered a threat to European values. Among these Europeanvalues it is primarily democracy and gender equality that are usually seenas beingatrisk.With few exceptions it is almost impossible foraMuslimto convey the nuances in his/her own identity. The preconceived pictureof Muslims is always in the way.

Those who defend our way of demanding reliable proof of identityfrom people point to the risk of various crimes that might be committed

behind concealed identities which make identity checks necessary andtherefore legitimate.Ihave no objections to that if by identification checkwe meananactivity the purpose of which is to establish how the physicalbody which, in an identification document referred toasA is the same asthe physical body that was earlier linked toadocument issued to A. Thematter is complicated, however, when we fill the identity idea with morecontent thanapure ascertainment of whichbodywe are dealing with. Tothe degree that identity is an answer to the question "Who areyou?"thesecurity-led political way of dealing with identity is problematic. From

a philosophical point of view the difficulty lies in the pervasiveness ofan unexamined assumption, built into modern European culture, thatindividuals possess sufficient solid identity to be able to communicateit to others. Descartes' idea ofasubject that has access to its ownself-awareness and by that to its own self seems to form the basis for thisphilosophy ofidentity.As is known, the French philosopher consideredthat self-awareness alone constitutes the platform we need to obtain reliableknowledge oftheworld.Withhisstrong emphasison the significance

of 5^-awareness, Descartes abandoned the older culture that consideredidentity to be something necessarily relational.

Tothe extent that it is possible to contrast theCartesianview of the selfwith the more traditional view, where the relation to the other is decisivefor a person's identity, we should distinguish between two levels within

"approximately two-thirds of interview time was dedicated to gathering bio-data and

information on the travel route, and only one third of the interview time was dedicated to

exploringthereasons for the application. UNHCRwasconcerned to note that in some ofthe interviews observed in these Member States, questioning with regard to the reasons

for the application tended to be superficial, formalistic or insufficient to elicit all the facts


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this contrast. The one is ofamore descriptive nature and leads us intoa complex philosophical and psychological discussion of the meaning ofself-awareness and its role in the process of knowledge, including knowl

edge oftheother's self The other level is ofanormative character andconcerns the moral suppositions thatarecontained in these two differentways of understanding the self and its relation to the other. It is this nor-mativeness that is of interest here. Within the framework of our individualistic culture it is taken for granted that the individual's immediate andunmediated access to his/her own self is liberating. Regardless of how youanswer the question of whether such access is possible or to what extentit is possible, you think, on the normative level, that it is desirable. The

relational model is seen as more problematic when the individual withinthe framework for this model has no free access to his/herself,but is presumed to acquire it in his/herrelationswith others. The questionIshouldnow like to ask is what happens with this assessment if we compare theindividualistic model's normative assumptionswiththe relational model'snormative assumptions inasituation where the focus is not onafree selfthat wantsto own its identity, but on the one, who, inaposition of power,confrontsastranger.

In a situation, such as that of refugees, where someone is dependent

on the other, regarding him/herasreliable, the responsibility of the stronger party can be described in two different ways. The stronger part caneither expect the asylum seeker to prove his/her identity, or welcome thestranger and thus approve his/her existenceas afellow human being. Thelegal and political culture in the West is characterized by the first way,which stands in clear contrast toanold religious and moral norm that saysthat God tests us in our meeting withstrangers.Withinthe framework forthe existingWesternmodel the one seeking asylum must try to attenuate

his/her foreignnessby,asclearlyaspossible, showing his/her identity. Thetraditional norm marks instead a relationship between morality and thewillingness to receiveastranger simplyas astranger.

It is important to point out that the traditional norm is explicitlydirected towards the host. It says nothing about the one seeking asylumbeing weak in him- or herself at the time. It is rather the opposite, asthe Torah, the Christian Bible and the Quran describe suchavulnerablestrangeraseither God himself or an instrument of God. The moral challenge is directed towards the master of the house and amounts to being

able to meet the one who in the present situation is in his power as if itwere Godhimself.Within both Judaism and Islam, Abraham (Ibrahim) is


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of the love of God that the Quran encourages the believer to take care of

those who need his help (76:8-9).But are not the old stories about people who welcome a stranger to

their home to find that God blesses them with his presence just fairy tales

which may be beautiful but can no longer inspire political action?Iwouldlike to argue that, in our global world, it is both possible and necessary

to revive the old norm that says that the stranger's identity in the highest

degree is the responsibility of the recipient.

Unconditional Hospitality and Monotheism

In an interview that tookplacedirectly after9/11,Jacques Derrida reflectedon those features of our modern culture that in the light of those dramaticevents demanded a deeper cultural self-criticism. The French philosopherbrought to the fore particularly the problematic European view of thestranger. Derrida thought that this view among other things was reflectedin the inbuilt ambivalence of the tolerant culture:

Indeed, and so a limited tolerance is clearly preferable to an absolute intoler

ance. But tolerance remains a scrutinized hospitality, always under surveil

lance, parsimonious and protective of its sovereignty... We offer hospitality

only on the condition that the other follows our rules, our ways oflife,even

language, our culture, our political system, and so on.7

In connection with his critique of the concept of tolerance Derrida

introduces another, both familiar and "impossible" norm, namely that of

unconditional hospitality. He continues:

No state can write it into its law. But without at least the thought of this

pure and unconditional hospitality, of hospitality itself, we would have no

concept of hospitality in general and would not even be able to determine

any rules for conditional hospitality... Unconditional hospitality, which isneither juridical nor political, is nonetheless the condition of the political

and the juridical.8

In unconditional hospitality Derrida sees a necessary correction to theculture oftolerance.While tolerance, as Derrida views it, indicates thewill of the stronger party to permit the presence of the stranger, unconditional hospitality indicatesakind of abdication from the position of poweritself (cequiarrivearrive).Derrida believes the roots of the ambivalence

of tolerance can be found in the historical and, by that, reversible powerrelationships between religions when Christians tolerateJews,Catholics


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While the Christian tradition underlines the significance of the likeness between God and manthe Jewishtradition cultivates the differencebetween them, and this difference has far-reaching ethical consequenceswhen people and cultures confront a stranger. Cohen believes he is following Maimonides when it comes to explaining the meaning of God'sultimate otherness. Cohen distinguishes between the negation of something existingandthe negation ofabsence whenGod's attributesarementioned. He writes:

Maimonides becomes a classic of rationalism in the monotheistic tradition

most decisively, perhaps, through his interpretation of the crucial problem

of negative attributes. He elucidates the traditional problem of negative

attributes through theconnectionofnegationand privation.It is not the positiveattributes thatarenegated but those of privation. God is not inert.13

That God is active (negationofprivation)at the same time as he is holy,which means apart, constitutes, accordingtoCohen, the religious dimension ofmorality.Cohen refers to Lev. 19:2 ("Be holy because I, the Lordyour God, am holy") and thinks that the distance, the difference betweenGod and man, indicates the form of morality; that whichiswith God canonly beoughtwhere man is concerned. What then is thisiswith God?

In his famous interpretation of the relation between God and man as acorrelation, Cohen maintains that God isjust and loving towards man,which makes precisely justice and love towards a stranger a moral andreligious norm.

Of particular interesthere isCohen'sidea that theself(ideaof myself asan individual) comes only witharelation to the other that replacesarelation to (abstract) humankind. Accordingly it is not so that self-insight isthe basis for morality. On the contrary, morality is the only possible wayto self-insight. The moral responsibility for the other, a responsibilityperceived as mine, which is caught in the experience of guilt, gives birthto aself.14In such a perspective the demand that a stranger shall provehis identity appears problematic whereas the norm of unconditionalhospitality is regarded as a prerequisite for the experience of moralityand identity. Both morality and identity are linked to the experience ofone's own guilt. Even if Cohen himself associates experience of guiltas the religious dimension of morality with the well-known Socraticdemon, the difference between the Greek and the Jewish heritage

becomes explicit. While the first points out self-insight as decisive formorality, the second means that the moral relation to the stranger leadst lf i i ht


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Emmanuel Lvinas follows Cohen in his exposition of the Jewish ethicandwrites:

Self-consciousness inevitably surprises itselfatthe heart ofamoral consciousness. The latter cannot be added to the former, but it provides its

basic mode. To be oneself[pour sot]is already to know the fault I have

committed with regard to the Other. But the fact thatIdo not quiz myself

on the Other's rights paradoxically indicates that the Other is not anew

editionofmyself;in its Otherness it is situated in a dimension of height, in

the ideal, the Divine, and through my relation to the Other, I am in touch

with God.15

Like Cohen, Lvinas also refers to Maimonides when God's otherness is

understood throughapeculiar interpretation of God's negative attributes(negation of absence) and, like Cohen, Lvinas thinks that it is forgiveness that characterizes God's relation to man and therefore constitutes afundamental norm for religious morality.

16As is known, Lvinas further

refined and radicalized Cohen's thesis on the relation to the stranger asthe main feature of both morality and identity. In every situation wheremoral choices are made the question is raised, which in its phenomeno-logical form is the question of what I should do for the other. The moraldimension is notaresult of the existence of theself,but rather its origin.

According to my reading ofLvinasit is here that one of his pioneeringcontributions to moral philosophy lies. Lvinas namely turns around therelation between identity and responsibility, and while other Europeanphilosophers enquire afteranexisting subject before responsibilitycanbebrought to the fore Lvinas thinks thataself emerges when responsibilityis taken.

Cohen and Lvinas both challenge our view of identity by viewingidentityasoriginating from and linked to responsibility before the other

and forgiveness of the other. Forgiveness, which isacorrelation of God'sforgiveness of man, has a clear power dimension here and can thus beinterpreted as the duty of the stronger to acknowledge the one who is inhis power. In every meeting with a stranger who is seeking refuge, one'sown identity is brought out while the identity of the stranger remains, inamoral sense,anon-question. In the scope of this moral phenomenologythe meeting with the stranger becomes a pure form for moral inquirywhere one is supposed to be able to overcome uncertainty about one'sown identity through the radical risk-taking that is hospitality towards a

stranger.


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Does the Christian tradition break with the norm of unconditionalhospitality? In one way it does. All the pains Christian theologians have

taken and continue to take over seeking to prove the identity of Christ,introduce evidence that He is God's son, indicates the break with the religious traditions that explicitly problematize man's longing for security inameeting with the stranger (God). In that respect Derrida is right when he

argues that Christianity is a source of the negative European view of thestranger.17The Christian heritage strengthens and legitimizes the politicalpragmatism that permeates asylum and refugee politics.18To the extentthat the Christian tradition links belief in the divinity of Christ to proofs

of his identity, it abandons the traditional norm of unconditional hospital

ity and indirectly legitimizes politics which play down the responsibilityof the stronger and requires strangers to prove their identity. However, Iwould like to maintain that the same Christianity that tends to legitimize

this political pragmatism has effective tools for dissociating itself from it.Paradoxically these tools are also to be found in Christology, whichiscentral for the Christian identity.

Who is the Resurrected?

What resources ofitsown does the Christian traditionhavefor articulatingthe relational view oftheidentity of the stranger? To my mind Christology functions as a normative platform for the simultaneously impossibleand vitally important unconditional hospitality. This happens thanks to aparticular characteristic in the christological paradigm, namely the radicaluncertainty about the identity of Christ. In spite of countless attemptsby institutionalized Christianity to offer infallible dogmatic answers tothe question of who Jesus was (is), it is up to each and every believer to

recognize his God in the vagrant on the cross.The radical uncertainty of Christology is evident in the narratives of

the evangelists, although it is not always accessible to us. As the churchhas tried to tone down this uncertainty for centuries, replacing the story ofthe vagrant Yeshua with stories of either the son of a regal God or a sweetlittle child, we may need new supportive stories in order to bring to ournotice this thought thatwasoriginally so clear. There is a scene in FyodorDostoevsky's last novelThe Brothers Karamazovwhich brilliantly interpretsChristologyassimplyastory of fundamental uncertainty. The scene is set

17 You could see Christian anti-Semitism as a form of departure from the relational


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at the bedside ofadying boy. The boy's name is Ilyusha, and the remarkable thing about Dostoevsky's description is that Ilyusha does not appearto be afraid of his approaching death. What torments him isaguilt that heconsiders to be virtually unforgivable, namely that of badly mistreating adogandnow, approaching his own death, hefindsno comfort in thinkingabout this dog , which he fears has died. Dostoevsky resurrects the dogand liberates the boy from his guilt.

"Up,Perezvon, on your hind legs! On your hind legs!" Kolya shouted,

jumping fromhisseat,andthe dog,getting on itshind legs, stoodstraightup

right in front of Ilyusha's bed. Something took place that no one expected:

Ilyusha started,andsuddenlymade a greatlunge forward, bent downtoPer

ezvon, and, as frozen, looked at him.

"It's Zhuchka!" he cried out suddenly, his voice cracked with suffering and

happiness.19

Ilyushaishappy when hesees that the dog hassurvived. The resurrection ofthe dog frees the boy from his guiltandthe fear of death. There is howeversomething very special and significant in Dostoevsky's description of thisresurrection. At the same time as the narrator tells us that the return ofthe dog makes Ilyusha believe that he is already with God (in paradise)

the reader is uncertain whether the dog that Ilyusha recognizes really isZhuchka. In the original Russian text, the narrator alternates betweenIlyusha addressing the dogas abitch (Zhuchka) and the use of the masculine dog name (Perezvon) and the masculine pronoun (Ilyusha prizhalsiaknemu20)during his description ofthedog at Ilyusha's bedside. To mymind the confusion is due to the fact that Dostoevsky is seeking to conveythe fundamental uncertainty surrounding the identity of the resurrected.Ilyusha believesthatthe dogisZhuchka, but the readerhasto decide whathe wants to believe. The scene also representsaclear contrast to an earlierscene in the novel when Christ returns to Earth. I am alluding to perhapsthe most widely read part ofThe Brothers Karamazov,the section about thegrand inquisitor in thefifthbook of the novel. Dostoevsky's narrator doesnot hide the fact that the grand inquisitor's visitor really isJesus,but thestoryendswith the cardinal of the church dismissing the message that thetrue son of Godhasbrought. The inquisitor says:

Instead of the firm ancient law, man had henceforth to decide forhimself,

with a free heart, what is good and what is evil, having only your image

before himas aguidebut did it not occur to you that he would eventually


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reject and dispute even your image and your truth if he was oppressed by so

terrible a burden as freedom ofchoice?21

In another context I discuss Dostoevsky's thesis on the importance offreely discerning the difference between good and evil.22

Whatis interestinghere isthat,when viewed together, thestoryof theboy,Ilyusha, and thegrand inquisitor convey the significance of the christological uncertainty.Ilyusha has no proof even in the matter of whom he meets and, in spiteofthat, he accepts the message of forgiveness while the grand inquisitordemands that God, who has recently proved his identity, give certain andirrefutable answers in moral questions. It is easy to interpret the stories asa variation oftheNew Testament's contrasting oftheway the child and

the way power relate to God and the kingdom of God. The genuine wayis,"like a child," to trust the stranger while the controlled approach ofpower makes the tidings of God's kingdom inaccessible.

Amongthephilosophers whoclearlysaw the potential in whatIcall theradical christological uncertainty is the Russian philosopher and literaryscholar Mikhail Bakhtin. At the beginning ofhisliterary career Bakhtinsought to shape a phenomenological ethics, the main category of whichwas to be responsibility. Responsibility, the ought(otvetsvennost, dolzhenst-

vovanie),according to Bakhtin, arises from the form of all kinds of moralexperience that he, like Lvinas,findsin the relationality between the selfand the other. Unlike Lvinas, who sees the other as the prerequisite formorality, Bakhtin thinks that it is the fundamental incompleteness of theself that constitutes the phenomenology of the oughtandwith it morality.Bakhtin distinguishes between three basic categories, namely I-for-myself(ia-dlia-sebia)9 the other-for-me (drugoy-dlia-menia) and I-for-the-other(ia-dlia-drugogo).These categoriesarethe form for the difference betweentwo kinds of evaluative perspective, the ethical and the aesthetic. Bakhtin

writes:

The highest architectonic principle for the actual world of the performed act

and deed is the concrete and architectonically valid or operative contraposi

tion of / and theother.Life knows two value centres, that are fundamentally

and essentially different, yet are correlated with each other: myself and the

other; and it is around these centers that all of the concrete moments of

Being are distributed and arranged.23

While the other-for-me is evident in my experience and can thus be an

object of aesthetic evaluation suchasappreciationorunderstanding, I-for-


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826 PoliticalTheology

myself only existsas a constant assignment, an endless event of being(sobytiie bytiia).A self is never given, but can either be endowed by theother(Iseeyou!) or constantly constructed by the takingofresponsibility.

Bakhtin says that the consciousness that can produce morality isneces-sarily situated and embodied; itrelatesto theworldfrom oneofthe threepositions wherejustan Iformyself positions the consciousness withinmorality:

Iformyself constitutes the center from which my performed act and my

selfactivity ofaffirmingand acknowledging any value come forth or issue,

for that is the only point where I participate answerably in onceoccurrent

Being; it is the center of operations, the head quarters ofthecommander

inchief directing my possibilities and my ought in the ongoing event ofBeing.24

That an Iformyself isthe position of responsibility is one of Bakhtin'smost interesting theses.What is brought out by the discussion herehowever is Bakhtin's secondthesis,namely the one thataselfcannot beagiven object forone'sownconsciousness.Aselfisits own task,aconstantstillnotbeing while itisin the other'sawareness.According to Bakhtin,this insight is obvious inDostoevsky'swriting. Inafragment voprosam

samopoznaniia i samootsenki(On the question of selfawareness and selfevaluation) Bakhtin writes that an I always finds itselfatthe edge of theworld;itsees theworldand touches theworld,but it cannot see itselfin theworld.An I needs the other in order to obtain a picture of itself.Bakhtin writes:

This dependence on the other in every process of selfinsight and selfrec-

ognition is one ofDostoyevsky'scentralthemes,whichalsodetermines the

distinctive way he has of creating his characters. The worldis completely

before me and the otheriscompletely in it. For me itisahorizon(krugozor),

for the otherenvironment(okruzheniie).25

WithDostoevsky'shelp Bakhtin maintains that anIcan onlybeasthe giftofthe other, never as something thatexistsfor itself. Bakhtingoeson to

saythat Christology isaclear contextual articulationofthe phenomenol-ogyofethicsandaesthetics.Christ knowsasingle norm for his own part,namely radical selfsacrifice, while it is mercy (compassion) that is mani-fested in every meeting with the other. In this light it is not difficult tounderstand how Bakhtin's fascination with Christologycanbe reconciled

with his explicit anticlericalism and criticism of power. The ChristianGod who fascinates Bakhtin isaGod who renounces all power in order to


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put his fate in the hands of man, which, among other things, is manifested

in the fact that it is left to man to recognize or crucify his God.

Several established scholars26have overlooked this Bakhtinian interpre

tation of Christologyastheydesired,at anycost,to find continuity between

Bakhtin and the Russian orthodox tradition in its anchorage in the legacy

of the church fathers. I am convinced that Bakhtin is not dependent on

the church fathers; on the contrary he is clearly opposed to them, not least

because he implicitly rejects their agenda as far as it is intended to shape

dogmatics intoakind of proof that Jesus ChristisGod'sson.Asfarasproof

can exist for the divinity of Christ, itlies,for Bakhtin, in Christ's refusal to

convince the other, his refusal to liberate man from the responsibility of, at

his own risk, granting the other his divine human identity.I would like to conclude by saying that Christology possesses a special

albeit not exclusive tool for articulating a religious dimension of morality

that, like the Jewish and the Muslim tradition, singles out the meeting

with a stranger as the decisive element in morality and faith.

From Christological Dogma to a Theology of Refugees

Let us now return to the current European political discourse on asylum

and refugee politics. It is evident to me that these politics are, from apsychological point of view, rooted in an understandable endeavour tomaintain financial and political dominance without needing to acknowledge its cost. When we refuse to receive people it is easy to say that itdepends on who these people are. Their identity is uncertain, they haveinsufficient grounds for asylum, they are a security risk, etc. The focus isalways on the other, whereas what we do is explained in technical ratherthan ethical terms. Instead of referring to the UN documents, which are

written in terms of political ethics, we prefer to cultivate juridical documents that give the appearance of not requiring any ethical standpoint intheir application. Refusal of entry and discriminatoryactsstand out not asmoral injustices but as technical decisions resulting from laws that havealready been tested and therefore do not require further discussion. Thelegitimacy of demanding proof of identity from others is to my mind aneffective tool for upholding the discourse. A stranger who seeks refuge isreceived as an objectifiable danger without awakening any guilt feelingsand with them any feelings of moral responsibility.

Is it, then, possible to change the dominant inhumane view of thestranger that pervades European politics? The first step could be to recog


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immoral. It plays down or even silences our own moral responsibility.In a meeting with a vulnerable stranger the stronger party requires thatthe weaker give proof of his/her identity according to criteria defined by

the receiver. Not least, considering the global dimension and our mutualresponsibility fortheinjusticesinthe world, we oughttoproblematize andpoliticize the norm that justifies the vulnerable being expected to provethat they do not threaten the strong party. An alternative norm might saythat it is the stronger party's duty to offer the vulnerable an identity in anentirely new relation, whichiswhat hospitality reallyis.Suchamoral andpolitical norm could be anchored in various traditions and function as asort of overlapping consensus. While within the framework of Islam and

Judaism people argue by invoking the ethical potential of strict monotheism we could, within the framework of Christianity and post-Christianculture, build on christological patterns of radical uncertainty.

If Christian ethics is to be able to provideaplatform for political workto reviveahumanistic view of peopleinasylumandrefugee politicsitmustcometogrips withitsown problematic legacy.As isevident from my earlierargumentation,Ithinkthat anexcessivelystrongfocus on dogmaticproof ofChrist's divine identityhasled to the fundamental uncertaintyandwith itthe believer's own responsibility beingplayeddown.I amlooking forare-

evaluation of the theological workthat hasbeen done throughout the agesin order to secure Christ's divine nature. Christology in today's Europecan and ought to bearecognition of the responsibility of the believer andthat of the Christian church to receive GodasGod "once" chose to revealhimself to man, namelyasa homeless fellow creature of uncertain origin.However, this is not the same as playing down Christ's divine nature. It isabout reminding oneself of the relational norm that unites Christian traditions with other premodern traditions and that maintain that even God'sidentity is only established byanact of faith (will).

Sucha Christology of radical uncertainty conveys aclear moraldemand.The mediation takes place when we dare to replace the regal (or angelic)form of God's son with the refugee who today tries to flee to Europe andthen not only to save his own life, but also bring us a message of humansufferingandour responsibility for it. The message is authentic, althoughthere is no guarantee for the bearer's identity. As I see the Christologyof radical uncertainty, it asserts that the content of the message is notweakened by the recipient's fear of the unknown origin of the sender. If

anything, the character of the message is transformed from a descriptivestatement (that can be dismissed as false) to a normative statement that

i t ki l iti i ibilit


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stand out as nave when, in the presence of researchers and politicians,they try to formulate their view of the stranger. AsaChristian theologianin today's EuropeIwant to show solidaritywiththe Christians, Muslims

and Jews and those whomIam not presentlyawareof, who take the sideof the refugeeandassertthattheyarenot nave, butcarryout vital politicalwork,whichisabout showingthat thepolitics we choosetoday restsonanimmoral norm and that there are other norms that demand considerablymore, but deserve to be called moral.

In a long-term perspective it is doubtful whether the present asylumand refugeepoliticswill even serve our own pragmatic goals. Europe doesnot suffer fromalack of experience that shows that our future is jeopar

dized by replacing our own responsibility for the other with bureaucraticdehumanization of the other. Lvinas, Arendtandmany others offer clearsighted philosophicalanalysesof the traumatic experiencesthatconfrontedEurope in the middle of the twentieth centuryand whichled to the insightthat respect for all people's equal worth and rights must be guaranteedon a political level. The challenge awaiting us today is not new; it onlyrequires that we dare to see already familiar patterns and act before thetechnocratic view of humankind becomes all too pervasive.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bakhtin, M. Toward a Philosophy oftheAct, trans. Y Liapunov. Austin, TX: University of

Texas Press, 1993.

"K voprosam samopoznaniia i samootsenki." InAvtor igeroi. Bakhtin: St Petersburg,

2000.

Bulgakov, M.The Master andMargarita, trans. M. Glenny. Glasgow: Fontana, 1979.

Cohen, H. Religion of Reason out of theSources offudaism. English translation by S. Kaplan.

Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1995.

Derrida, J. "Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Suicides.'* InPhilosophy in a Time of Terror,

ed. G. Borradori. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2003.

Dostoevsky, F. The Brothers Karamazov, trans. R. Pevear and L. Volokhonsky. New York:

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990.

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moMCfx,JleHHHrpaA: Hayica1976,TOM1415.

Habermas,J."Fundamentalismand Terror."InPhilosophyin aTimeofTerror,ed. G.Borradori.

Chicago:Chicago UniversityPress, 2003.

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Identity and the Stranger (Elena Namli)

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