* The complete essay is published in the book Ankersentrum (surviving in
the ruinous ruin).
The return of the wolves is not without its
history. The human’s relationship with the wolf oscillates between fascination
and competition, expressed in various myths, figures and stories. The myth of
the werewolf—the metamorphosis of a human being into a bloodthirsty
wolf(man)—is infused with fear and fascination. From the 13th to the
17th century, this belief is so strong in Europe that alleged werewolves
are burned at the stake in the course of witch-hunts.
The history of the
expulsion of wolves runs parallel to the emergence of sovereign states and the
idea of citizenship. It can be recounted on the basis of a series of divisions
and distinctions, for example between wilderness and domestication, man and
nature, being settled and freedom of movement, or possession and
possessionlessness.
The links between the figure of the wolf and
that of the Friedlos, the bandit who belongs to no community, are
revealed by Giorgio Agamben in Homo sacer: he equates the “bandit’s
liminal status”[1] with the wolf-man or werewolf, half animal, half human. Like
homo sacer, who according to Roman law cannot be sacrificed, but may
be killed without fear of punishment, he stands on the threshold between nature
and culture; he exists in both worlds at the same time, but belongs to neither.
According to Agamben, this borderline position between phýsis (i.e.
nature or the real world) and nómos (i.e. human and divine law), and
the power inherent in these two worlds, not only characterises the conditions
before the introduction of law, preceding civil rights and the social
contract. Rather, the violence that freely disposes of the “bare life” of the
exile, homo sacer, with no form of criminal liability, is a continual
prerequisite for the “authentically political,”[2] and remains a constitutive
element of the sovereign state.
This essential link between violence and
the state manifests itself most clearly in a state of emergency. In a moment of
danger, such as an interstate conflict or civil war, to which Thomas Hobbes’
anthropological formula “homo homini lupus est” (man is a wolf to men)
historically refers, sovereign power unmasks itself as fundamentally violent.
The most extreme escalation of this power, which is based on violence, takes
place in the extraterritorial space of the camp.
The paradox of
simultaneous exclusion and inclusion, inherent in both communities and states,
was recognised by Roland Barthes in the factthat the excluded individual is
enclosed within them without losing his status of exclusion.Even more so, he is
integrated as a disintegrated individual.[3] This implies that the
“moment” of the state of emergency can be extended, becoming perpetuated within
the system. Integrated exclusion provides the legitimation for the use of
violence, which can be activated again and again.
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