The Conditions of ‘Savages’? by our unchangeable and unique nature, breaks into the political scene as the alien which in its all too obvious difference reminds us of the limitations of human equality. 72 According to Arendt, the ‘all too obvious difference’ of the ‘alien’ provokes hatred, because ‘aliens’ represent ‘the dark background of mere givenness’, 73 which has been relegated to the ‘private sphere’ by the ‘common world’ with its ‘public sphere’, its ‘political scene’ that is based on the law of equality. 74 The ‘natural’ difference of the alien must not become ‘all too obvious’ in this common world: 75 it must remain in the dark background, not break into the foreground of the political artifice where speech and action among equals is played out. To avoid this rupture, Arendt argues, ‘highly developed political communities’ such as nation-states or ancient city-states often insist on ethnic homogeneity. 76 However, Arendt recognises that the political production of equality can go too far: No doubt, wherever public life and its law of equality are completely victorious, wherever a civilization succeeds in eliminating or reducing to a minimum the dark background of difference, it will end in complete petrifaction and be punished, so to speak, for having forgotten that man is only the master, not the creator of the world. 77 What, then, is Arendt suggesting here? Is this an argument for recognising a certain ‘tragic dimension’ in politics and law, an argument that political communities should only aim to contain and disavow, but not eliminate the ‘dark background of mere difference’, 78 and that they should learn to live with the fact that the law of equality cannot extend to everyone? Or is Arendt suggesting that there is something fundamentally wrong with a conception of politics that can only recognise people as equal speaking and acting beings if they belong to the same homogeneous group? ‘Imperialism’ concludes with the former suggestion, and does not pursue the second one, even though the second suggestion would be an obvious continuation of the overall argument of ‘Imperialism’, which is, as I have shown above, first and foremost a critique of the nation-state and its principle of homogeneity. However, pursuing the second suggestion requires a critique of the categories of ‘our political life’, 79 of a conception of politics that opposes the world to nature; the citizen to the barbarian; the civilised to the savage; the territorial to the nomadic; and the European to the African. Arendt’s text offers important resources for developing such a critique, especially in its theoretical move to focus on mechanisms of political exclusion and to subject those mechanisms to a genealogical critique. Yet Arendt herself does not go there, because she seems unable to imagine a conception of politics beyond these oppositions. Consider Arendt’s example immediately preceding the passage cited in the previous paragraph: 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid. ibid 302. ibid 301. ibid. 207