Arts & International Affairs: 2.3: Autumn/Winter 2017 | Page 38
ARTS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
such. At the same time, the influence of Marxism in Balibar’s work leads him to consider
how this performative process is related to global power imbalances (most evident in the
figure of the refugee). Discussing the difference between symbolic and formal equality
in “A Hyperbolic Proposition” (2016), the author writes that “civic equality is indissocia-
ble from universality but separates it from community” (Balibar 2016). Indeed,
either equality is “symbolic,” which means that each individual, whatev-
er his [sic] strengths, his power, and his property, is reputed to be equiv-
alent to every individual in his capacity as citizen [...]. Or equality is
“real,” which means that citizenship will not exist unless the conditions
of all individuals are equal. (Balibar 2016)
This highlights the existence of a problem within representative international politics,
which not only is in tension with the idea of citizenship as a universal promise (as Balibar
suggests) but also hasn’t sufficiently expanded to reflect global changes in mobility and
lifestyle (as pUN demonstrates). Additionally, and most crucially, this issue brings me
to the tension between the UN’s promise of equality and the separation of the global
population according to political entities through which it acquires its rights. As the phi-
losopher writes, “equality in fact cannot be limited [...]. In order to speak of “all citizens,”
it is necessary that somebody not be a citizen of said polity” (Balibar 2016). In light of
Balibar’s analysis, it becomes clear that, in exchange for being given a voice in pUN’s per-
formance, the participants had to represent only one UN member state, which may have
come at a symbolic cost to some of them—foregrounding as well the tension between
the cosmopolitan values and aspirations of the UN and its modus operandi, which does
not give permanent institutional representation to those who are refugees and stateless.
Indeed, as is well known, the political ideal of cosmopolitanism (a form of belonging
that does not assume the nation state as the bearer of rights and obligations) originated
in Immanuel Kant’s seminal essay “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” (1795).
Among the several principles identified by Kant as necessary to achieve such global pe-
ace, the third definitive article states that “the law of world citizenship shall be limited
to conditions of universal hospitality” (1795:105). The latter is here to be understood
as the right of a stranger not to be treated as an enemy in a land that isn’t her own. The
nation-centric nature of the United Nations, which treats as equals states that welcome
and respect the human rights of refugees and those that don’t, reveals the organisation’s
limited enactment of this ideal.
Additionally, the opposition between the rigidity of the UN and the difficulty of access-
ing its fora on the one hand, and the open call for participants on the other hand, can be
seen as highlighting the limits of the rhetorical claims of the UN—that is, the tension
between its promise (to represent all individuals—“We, the People”) and its structures
(an organisation in which the member states are represented by individuals who are po-
litically nominated, not elected—leading to debates that, like the blank speech-bubbles
of the Colloquium sculpture, are not always characterised by the exchange of ideas). In
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