Impolitic

Reading back over the previous thread, Applebaum's piece - and wanting to think more about the relation between Jack Straw's remarks about the niqab being a "visible statement of separation and of difference" and the propriety/property nexus - it occurs to me that I've been meaning to post something here about Roberto Esposito's discussion of the impolitical.

I won't reiterate introductory remarks on Esposito - suffice perhaps to point to previous considerations: there's been some brief mention of Esposito's work here and elsewhere, as well as some emphasis given to the discussion of the impolitical in this essay.

But for the most part, Esposito's work is largely, and unfortunately I think, unavailable in English (though a plug for the upcoming edition of Diacritics, which is on Esposito).  Recently, though, Brett posted a reading of Esposito's earlier work, Categorie dell’ impolitico, which should be read in full.  What I did want to do here is bring Esposito's concept of the impolitical into the discussion about the recent sacking of the teaching assistant in the UK.

Applebaum indeed runs tourism and citizenship together, as Jodi argued. But what does the work of the conflation if not the analogy between the Balinese temples and schools/workplaces, an overtly religious building and, on the other hand, a putatively secular institution (school) and economic activity (work).  What she deems proper in the temples she visits is abstractly equated with, and thereby deemed appropriate for, the school/workplace in the UK - namely: the installation (and banning) of a dress code that for some has religious significance, and on terrains that are widely supposed be secular.

Yet it's Applebaum's insistence that wearing a niqab in a UK school/workplace is "impolite" alongside Straw's remark that the niqab is a "visible statement of separation and of difference" that really gives me pause. And despite my fleetingly getting caught up in the debate over whether someone is, by wearing a niqab, hiding or not, I think that what is at stake here is not whether one can hide one's face but, on the contrary, whether one can visibly show one's difference from the norm, be - to sharpen the point - impolitic. There's little doubt that many young women are donning the niqab as a public statement of that separation and difference - coming out of the closet, as it were, and at a time of war, no less. It is indeed a challenge, provocative. It provokes racism to show its face, among other things - even while being swathed from head to toe in liberalism.

But in explicitly extending theological norms beyond the temple, and into the school and workplace, Applebaum gives the game away: it's not about any given (religious) institution, but about an entire territory, the jurisdiction and confluence of  - as J-L Nancy might awkwardly put it - the theologico-political and the juridico-commercial.  Less awkwardly, it's about the border, that particular line which meshes property and propriety, national economy and nationalism, wage contract and social contract:

The more the modern state cedes its sovereign power to technics and economic forces, the more it clings to the theological supplement that animates its claims to autonomy. [+]