Derrida and Parle-Ment (Parliament)

Abstract

Recent scholarship on Jacques Derrida’s work has turned toward his political and institutional engagements. I further this body of research by outlining a twofold problematic regarding the issue of “parliament.” Its first dimension concerns what I call a poli-technic of lying, which denotes that politically impactful techniques of lying demand we follow the lacunae of the polis, the phenomenality of an international public sphere and technologies of public circulation, and the relationship between the construction of categories of “peoples,” “nations,” “borders,” and their “authorities” with practices of force or violence. In the following, I consider Derrida’s relation to the International Parliament of Writers (IPW) as a supplementary institution from which examination of this problematic might be situated in light of alternative traditions predicated on hospitality, and on sheltering the other as a practice inextricable from a “frank concept of truth.” I also consider the emergent possibilities this approach opens for responding to immediate conditions – attacks on the lives of writers around the world, accelerating global displacement, intensifying border closures, and unchecked police enforcement. I look toward the political unit Derrida identifies as crucial for these actions: the city as a space for frank and open speech – the ville franche.

Keywords:

• Jacques Derrida
• parliament
• International Parliament of Writers
• poli-technic of lying
• ville franche

disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 See Derrida, Right to Philosophy, vols. 1 and 2; Rogues; The Politics of Friendship; Kelly; Naas; Ó Fathaigh; Wortham.

2 The polos is the axle of a wheel (Heidegger 89–90).

3 Derrida recounts: “Along with others, I lost and then gained back French citizenship. I lost it for years without having another […] And then, one day, one ‘fine day,’ without, once again, my asking for anything […] I found the aforementioned citizenship again” (Monolingualism 15). This resembles Derrida’s solidarity with the sans-papier of France who, often having lived in France for a decade or more, were not authorized to work, seek shelter, or access public services as “non-citizens” (see “Derelictions”).

4 See Derrida’s text, Limited Inc, for discussion of iterability and speech-acts.

5 See the Foucauldian model of parrhesia as risking to contradict power to speak a truth of oneself (Foucault 56).

6 See Maurice Blanchot’s attempts to establish an international literary-political association, including the most successful (if short-lived) Revue Internationale. The intent of the Revue was to disrupt national insularity through a discontinuous and international community (Blanchot 39–55, 56–66).

7 Documents referenced here include the 1995 Report on the Charter of Cities of Refuge and subsequent passing of Resolution 17, as well as the 1996 First Congress of Cities of Asylum. The latter contains the statement by Christian Salmon, and a copy of the primary text of Jacques Derrida’s “Cosmopolites de tous les pays, encore un effort!” Some further discussion is found in Autodafé, the literary journal published by the IPW from 2000 to 2003. The IPW, in its original form, no longer exists, but the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) continues the work of organizing a global asylum-cities network. Further statements on behalf of the IPW can be found in Derrida’s collection, Negotiations. Adjacent writings are included in Paper Machine.