The Frontier of Loyalty: Political Exiles in the Age of the Nation-State

The Political Exile and the Evolution of National Loyalty

Introduction When I place myself in the hands of another, and permit him to determine the principles by which I shall guide my behavior, I repudiate the freedom and reason which give me dignity. Robert Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism, 1970 The Political Exile and the Evolution of National Loyalty This book provides a systematic overview of exile political activity in established twentieth-century nation-states, concentrating for purposes of theory on the activity of exiles who strive to overpower a native government without challenging the existence of the nationstate or its boundaries_ A study of the dimensions of exile political activity enriches our understanding of political struggle between governments and oppositions, and of competing claims to be the legitimate object of political loyalty in the nation-state. Exile opposition groups play a significant and usually unrecognized role in shaping the character of "nationalloyalty./1 Indeed, the large variety of political exiles who try to delegitimize and overthrow a native home regime include dramatic cases such as the Russian exiles in the Stalinist era, the Italian anti-Fascists, the anti-Nazi Germans , the Spanish Republicans, and the exiles from dictatorships in the Caribbean. Among significant recent examples are the Portuguese exile opposition to Antonio Salazar's dictatorship, Iranian exiles before and after the Islamic revolution, anti-Castro Cubans in the United States, Chileans in the post-Allende period, the external opposition to the former Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos, and Koreans working abroad against the government of Chun Doo Hwan. These and other cases of exile political activity, though appearing disparate and unrelated at first glance, upon close examination manifest great congruence and consistency across the span of the past century. Exile political activity has a long historical lineage, dating back to the division of the Davidic kingdom in the tenth century B.C. and to ancient Greece of the fifth century B.C., where factional strife forced 1 Introduction When I place myself in the hands of another, and permit him to determine the principles by which I shall guide my behavior, I repudiate the freedom and reason which give me dignity. Robert Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism, 1970 The Political Exile and the Evolution of National Loyalty This book provides a systematic overview of exile political activity in established twentieth-century nation-states, concentrating for purposes of theory on the activity of exiles who strive to overpower a native government without challenging the existence of the nationstate or its boundaries. A study of the dimensions of exile political activity enriches our understanding of political struggle between governments and oppositions, and of competing claims to be the legitimate object of political loyalty in the nation-state. Exile opposition groups playa significant and usually unrecognized role in shaping the character of "nationalloyalty." Indeed, the large variety of political exiles who try to delegitimize and overthrow a native home regime include dramatic cases such as the Russian exiles in the Stalinist era, the Italian anti-Fascists, the anti-Nazi Germans , the Spanish Republicans, and the exiles from dictatorships in the Caribbean. Among significant recent examples are the Portuguese exile opposition to Antonio Salazar's dictatorship, Iranian exiles before and after the Islamic revolution, anti-Castro Cubans in the United States, Chileans in the post-Allende period, the external opposition to the former Filipino president Ferdinand Marcos, and Koreans working abroad against the government of Chun Doo Hwan. These and other cases of exile political activitYJ though appearing disparate and unrelated at first glance, upon close examination manifest great congruence and consistency across the span of the past century. Exile political activity has a long historical lineage, dating back to the division of the Davidic kingdom in the tenth century B.C. and to ancient Greece of the fifth century B.C., where factional strife forced 1 2 Introduction political rivals out of their homelands. Governments born of such strife have claimed political loyalty; their claims in turn have been contested, reshaped, and advanced by the activity of exile opposition. Exiles have challenged not only the authority of regimes to define the object of politicalloyalt~ but also their right to establish criteria for inclusion in and exclusion from the polity. Political exiles have played an important role in molding the idea of political loyalty. When, in tenth century B.C., Jeroboam challenged Solomon's kingdom by claiming to represent the disenfranchised of the northern tribes, and Solomon threatened to execute him, Jeroboam sought refuge in Egypt and aligned himself there with...