wonder if anyone has looked at the crisis surrounding illegal, virtually unchecked immigration in the US, UK, and European Union, as well as a country like South Africa, from the perspective of the notion of ‘hospitality.’ Ultimately, one could argue, such ‘immigration’ (or perhaps ‘migration’) is in fact a question of hospitality, as Immanuel Kant already indicated in the late 18th century, when he wrote (in his famous essay on ‘Perpetual Peace’), that: ‘The rights of men, as citizens of the world, shall be limited to conditions of universal hospitality.’

This is the third of the ‘Definitive Articles’ formulated by Kant, which have to be observed to promote endless peace. At the same time he emphasised that hospitality as a ‘right’ implies that a stranger entering a foreign territory peacefully has the right not to be treated with hostility, but that he or she cannot simultaneously claim the right to be treated as a ‘guest’ for a longer stay, which would require an agreement or ‘compact’ between visitors and the host country.

Kant’s claim concerning hospitality already shows that the matter is not as straightforward as may seem at first blush. In fact, although hospitality may not seem anything complex, this is precisely the case, as the poststructuralist philosopher, Jacques Derrida, has demonstrated in his inimitable manner. The theme of hospitality in particular, as explored by Derrida, lends itself to being used here, with illuminating results (Derrida, ‘The principle of hospitality,’ in Paper Machine, Stanford University Press, 2005: 66-67).

According to Derrida there are two concepts of hospitality. He calls the first one ‘aneconomic,’ which means unlimited, unconditional, excessive, and ‘generous’ to the point of the ‘self-effacement’ of the host(-ess) in favour of the guest, the stranger or foreigner. In ordinary language, this kind of hospitality consists in bending over backwards to accommodate the guest or visitor (which would include migrants entering a ‘foreign’ country); that is, giving them virtual free rein to behave as they wish, and do whatever they want to, with no regard to any code of acceptable behaviour.

By diametrical contrast, Derrida calls the other notion of hospitality ‘economic,’ which means that it is conditional, limited, even a smidgen ‘hostile’ and self-assertive in the sense of severely limiting the amenities and privileges that the migrant or guest is granted. Again, in plain language, such supposed ‘hospitality’ comes with lots of strings attached – ‘you may come in, but you may not look in the fridge, much less take anything from it, and if you use the bathroom, don’t exceed five minutes. And by the way, the lounge is out of bounds.’ Or: ‘you are allowed into this country, as long as you don’t settle in these areas, and don’t apply for work at any of the companies listed here.’ …

That the carefully orchestrated flooding of Western countries with illegal aliens is a paradigmatic instance of ‘unconditional, excessive hospitality,’ as characterised by Derrida, should be apparent from the above. The reason why specifically Western societies have been targeted should be obvious: these societies are founded on a belief in individual human rights, coupled (one would think) with a culture of resistance to totalitarian control, dating back to the Second World War. In other words, if anyone would protest the imposition of tyrannical measures of control on them, it is likely to be Western people (which did not really work out that way, as one knows from the Covid lockdown experience).

To add insult to injury, what has unfolded in the United States is not merely migrants (‘guests’) proving Derrida’s point that unconditional hospitality is likely to lead to guests taking advantage of the host’s misplaced largesse. As many people know by now, the host country – in this case, America – has leaned over backwards to aid and abet the migrants to do just that. Two instances of this concern evidence that illegals were given $5,000 gift cards by the Biden regime about a year ago, and that, around the same time, the American DHS was exposed as handing out ‘$290 million to sanctuary cities and NGOs for resettling illegal aliens.’

In light of President Trump’s appointment of Tom Homan – the ‘Border Czar’ – to address the tide of illegals streaming into America, together with efforts at their repatriation, one seems to have reason to hope that the tide may be turned, the enormity of this task notwithstanding. This, despite persistent efforts by Democrats to thwart the process.