critiquing the violence of guantanamo

7/31/2019 Critiquing the Violence of Guantanamo

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III 1III 11 I200607067

Critiquing theViolence ofGuantanamoResisting the Monopolization of the Future

Jess Whyte

In his Critique of Violence Waiter Benjamin attests to theimpossibility of subordinating power to law by demonstrating thatlaw is both founded and preserved by violence. Law thereforerelies on the state's monopolization of the use of violence, amonopolization which stems from the acknowledgement thatviolence contains the possibility of modifying or founding legalorders. When individuals use violence outside the law, then, thestate is not purely concerned with their individual ends, but withthe very means they have used and the possibilities inherent inthese means to destabilize the enti re existing legal order. 'Thispossibility ensures the necessity for law to strip individuals of allviolence, even that which is used purely for their own individualgain. What the state fears in each individual use of violence is thelaw-making power inherent in it and the possibility that the statewill be forced to relinquish its monopoly on this power. In thisarticle Iwant to reflect on Benjamin's Critique ofViolence and on thisnecessity for law to strip individuals of their ability to use violence

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to see if i t might help us understand something of the existence ofGuantanamo Bay. To do this, I will trace some aspects of therelation between law, violence and the American project. Morespecifically, I will reflect on the US doctrine of pre-emption -which I believe is fundamental to an understanding not only of thewar on terror but also of Guantanamo Bay - and argue that whatis at stake in pre-empt ion is a par ticular form of law-foundingviolence that aims to monopolize the use of violence in the future.In trying to understand Guantanamo Bay as what GiorgioAgamben has referred to as a localization of a state of exception,1 Ibelieve it is necessary to examine the temporality, and the vision ofhistory and of the future, that this space seeks to enable.

In the Critique of Violence, Benjamin distinguishes between twotypes of violence as means, which he calls law-founding and law-preserving violence. Law-founding violence refers to the originaryviolence that establishes a new law, and is thus bound by therequirement that it 'prove itself in battle' , overcoming all hosti lecounter-violence in order to achieve a stable situation that can thenbe codified in law. Law-preserving violence in contrast relies onprecisely the stability and monopolization of the use of violencethat law-founding violence brings about . Through foundingviolence we see the establishment of a legal order which then reliesfor its preservation on the representation of this originary violence.To represent founding violence in preserving violence, however, isto degrade that founding violence, Benjamin tells us, as 'al l law-preserving violence in its duration indirectly weakens the law-making violence represented by it th rough the suppression ofhostile counter-violence'.2 .

The truth of this can be grasped with reference to the institution ofcapital punishment which, in Benjamin's view, exists 'not to punishthe infringement of law but to establish new law'.3 In capitalpunishment it would appear that the preservation of law occurs notthrough the representation of positing but through its repetition -through a re-foundation. What the recourse to capital punishmentsignals - and this explains its 'disproportionate' use in 'primitive'legal systems - is the fact that the state has not yet successfully1. See G. Agamben, State of Exception, trans. K. Attell, Chicago and London, University ofChicago Press, 2005.2. W. Benjamin, 'On the Critique of Violence', in One-Way Street and Other Writings, trans. E.jephcott and K. Shorter, London and New York, Verso, 1997, p. 153.3. Benjamin, 'On the Critique of Violence', p. 145.


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Critiquing the Violence of Guantanamo 125monopolized the use of law-making violence, and thus is forcedconstantly to repeat its own violent foundation and to remain awareof the violence represented in its legal institutions. In contrast, it is inthose situations in which the state has successfully monopolized theuse ofviolence to such an extent that it need no longer rely on the rightto k i l l - that is, in situations where it has successfully suppressed allhostile counter-violence - that it is most vulnerable to thereappearance of this counter-violence. This is so because in suchapparently pacified social conditions the state loses sight of its ownviolent origins and of the violence that lies latent in its legalinstitutions. 'This lasts,' says Benjamin, 'until either new forces orthose earlier suppressed t riumph over the hitherto law-makingviolence and thus found a new law, destined in its turn to decay'.4This, as Werner Hamacher points out, is precisely the dialectical

oscillation between preservation and positing that all legal violenceis condemned to in advance.5 When founding violence isrepresented in preserving violence it immediately begins to decay,until such time as this decay opens a space for suppressed counter-violences to assert themselves in founding a new law. In this historyevery act of posit ing and every law that is established and thenpreserved is subject to a more powerful law - a law of 'historicalchange and internal structural transformation' perceived on themodel of a dialectical oscillation between law-founding and law-preserving violence - in which the degradation ofone is bound upwith the continuation of the other. This is perhaps most clearlyrevealed in military action that, while aiming at natural ends, likepillage or the annexing of lands, is also a tool to legal ends as itestablishes the 'normal' situation and the monopoly of violence thatenables the establishment of a new law. When this force dissipates,however, it is the military which is called upon to preserve the lawby suppressing that counter-violence which threatens to produce anemergency situation. Importantly, for Benjamin it is with theestablishment of law thatwe see the establishment of guilt; as in theancient proverb, ' there is no guilt without rule',6 guilt does notprecede law but is its product. Guilt is originarily a juridicalconcept, a concept which, as Agamben points out, inscribes natural4. Benjamin, 'On the Critique of Violence', p. 153.5. W. Hamacher, 'Afformative, Strike: Benjamin's "Critique of Violence"', in A. Benjamin and

P. Osbome (eds), WaIter Benjamin's Philosophy. Destruction and Experience, Manchester,Clinamen Press, 2000, pp. 108-36.6. See G. Agamben, Homo Sacer - Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford, Stanford UniversityPress, 1995, p. 28.


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126 Jess Whytelife in the realm of the law? 'Law condemns,' Benjamin argues, 'notto punishment, but to guilt'.8 Thus the abolition of law would alsobring about the expiation of guilt.

If, in the Critique of Violence, guilt is conceptualized as a creationof law, what can we make of the supposed guilt of those inGuantanamo Bay, a guilt that exists without relation to any legalprocess? A recent case in the High Court ofAustralia illuminates aconception of guilt that is detached from legal determination. Inthis case the court argued about the possibility of guilt outside law.In the views of the majority of the full court, the concept of gui ltwas only meaningful, as Benjamin argues, in relation to law. I t isonly in relation to law that a fact becomes the fact of guilt, and it isonly through a legal process that the existence of this guilt can beestablished. Arguing on behalf of the Department of PublicProsecutions, however, Buchanan elaborated a different conceptionof guilt - a conception in which guilt exists independently of anylegal determination, and in which it is the role of the jury not toestablish guilt bu t to discover whether or not this guilt exists.When asked 'When you say "exist" what do you mean by exist, insome sensory sense?', Buchanan gave the following reply: 'I t is astate of being. It is a fact. It is a state of being or a fact and thequestion is: does the fact exist in respect of a particular person?'9When we reflect on this exchange in a context in which individuals

are detained in spaces likeGuantanamo Bay for years on end withouthaving ever been convicted of an offence, several questions arise.Firstly, we must ask: if guilt exists independently of any legal process,of what exactly is an individual guilty? What is the content of theirtransgression? What order have they violated? Secondly, if inGuantanamo Bay individuals are presumed to be guilty, if their guiltis ontological and not procedural, then how is this guilt related to thatguilt which Benjamin sees as produced by law, and to the oscillationof law-making and law-preserving violence? I believe that theassumed guilt of the Guantanamo detainee exists prior to legaldetermination, but also prior to any act. To establish guilt prior to anact, and to work to ensure that the emergent act can never materialize- this is the basis for the US doctrine of pre-emption. In GuantanamoBay this doctrine of pre-emption is extended to individuals.7. Agamben, Homo Saeer, p. 28.8. W. Benjamin, 'Fate and Character', in a/le-Way Street alld Other Writings, p. 127.9. Eastman V Director of Public Prosecutions (ACT) & Ors Cll/2002 (5 March 2003), p. 45,

.


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Critiquing the Violence of Guantanamo 127So what is pre-emption, and how does it differ from earlier

doctrines such as deterrence and containment? Central to thedoctrine of pre-emption is the belief that threats must be defeatedbefore they are actualized. The military, in Rumsfeld's words, musthave the capacity to 'deter and defeat enemies that have not yetemerged'.lO Pre-emption is predicated on the idea that we inhabitan increasingly unpredictable world, one which no longer offersthe stability provided by the well-known enemies of the Cold War.There are two fundamental ramifications of this apparent decreasein the efficacy of prediction: first, planning is an increasinglyinadequate strategy for dealing with the future; as in Rumsfeld 'sinfamous distinction between the known-knowns, the known-unknowns and the unknown-unknowns, the future increasinglytakes the form of an unknown-unknown. The second is that thosewho are considered enemies are no longer states - conceived asrational actors with an obvious desire for self-preservation - butmust be conceived as willing to risk all, even annihilation. Againstthe model of the suicide bomber, deterrence - the threat ofmassive retaliation - is obviously useless.Pre-emption, then, occurs not at the level of actions but at the

level of intent. Pre-emption is necessary, we are told, because'rogue states' and terror networks are seeking to acquire weapons ofmass destruction. These groups have expressed an intention, theyare seeking a capacity. These groups are deserving of pre-emptiveattack not because of actions they have already taken, but becausethey desire the abili ty to act and must be frustrated in that desire.Pre-emption, then, aims to monopolize the use of violence in thefuture. It aims to act now to ensure a sovereign future in which theUnited States is the sole party with this capacity to use violence.This is stated quite explicitly. Pre-emption aims to ensure absoluteUS military dominance in the future - a dominance so profoundthat other part ies will give up all p lans to use force, or even todevelop the capacity to do so. Pre-emption, then, is a particularform of law-founding violence - one which extends the temporalbounds of the monopolization of violence into the future.To understand the doctrine of pre-emption, we need to examine

its justification through a teleological historical project. Thedoctrine of pre-emption is justified through a notion of historical10. D. Rumsfeld, '21st Century Transformations of US Armed Forces', Transcript of address to

Nati onal Defense University, Fort McNair, Washingt on DC, 31 January 2002,. p. 3.


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progress which is conceived as at once inevitable and fragile - asthe path of history itself, and as a path that could be terrifyinglydisrupted. If the United States is able to justify its ownmonopolization of force in the future, it is because it paints itself asthe bearer of a necessary future - as the very embodiment ofhistorical progress. In Bush's words:

The 20th century ended with a single surviving model ofhuman progress, based on non-negotiable demands ofhuman dignity, the rule of law, limits on the power of thestate, respect for women and private property and freespeech and equal justice and religious tolerance. Americacannot impose this vision . .. [but] we will defend the peacethat makes progress possible. 11

This model of progress is conceived as the spread across the globeof freedom and democracy, understood as the free market and theballot box. Central to the perpetuation of such a vision of the futureis a limiting of the political imagination: its success relies on thebelief that, as Margaret Thatcher said, 'there is no alternative'. InFredric Jameson's terminology, the Bush Administration's notionof progress is less a vision of a bright new future inhabited by anew humanity and more the product of a 'systemic, cultural andideological closure'12 that strips us of the ability to thinkalternatives to the present and leaves us with a vision of the futurethat is simply an extension of the capitalist present. The BushAdministration presents us with a vision of the future that isconceived as inevitable, the expression of a single telos, as a 'waveof liberty' that is fundamentally the wave of capital.Against those who seek to challenge this historical narrative or to

reveal the interests it serves, the Bush Administration insists thatthis single model of progress is a universal history, a history thatexpresses the aspirat ions of all of humanity and that enables thepossibility of a better future for all people. 'When i t comes to thecommon rights and needs of men and women,' Bush argues, 'thereis no clash of civilizations. The requirements of freedom apply fully11. G. W. Bush, 'Remarks by the President at 2002 Graduation Exercise of the United StatesMilitary Academy, West Point , New York' (The West Point Speech), 1 June 2002,.12. F. Jameson, Archae%gies of the Fl/tl/re: The Desire Called Utopia alld Other Sciellce Fictiolls,London, Verso, 2005, p. 289.


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Critiquing the Violence of Guantanamo 129to Africa and Latin America and the entire Islamic world ...Mothers and fathers and children across the Islamic world, and allthe world, share the same fears and aspirations'.B 'This model ofprogress, we are told, is ushering in a future in which all of'humanity's aspirations' will be fulfilled. Despite Bush's claim thatthe United States 'has no empire to extend or utopia to establish',in fact, this universal history is conceived as a utopia at which theUnited States has already arrived, and now seeks to extend to therest of the globe.14

If this future is inevitable, if it expresses all of humanity'saspirations and is conceived of as the unfolding of a telos, then whythe need for pre-emption? Hannah Arendt has argued that everyprediction for the future is a prediction as to what will occur ifpeople do not act, if there are no accidents. Every action, everyaccident, Arendt argues, could 'destroy the whole pattern in whoseframe the prediction moves and where it finds its evidence'.IS Thishelps explain the combination of inevitability and desperation thatmarks the historical discourse of the Bush Administration. On theone hand, they are the bearers ofa universal history, a single modelof progress, which is unfolding independently ofhuman action. Onthe other, this progress is incredibly fragile, facing horrific andunpredictable threats. If September 11 threw doubt on the notionthat we had reached the end of history, it did not suggest to thosewho saw themselves as bearers of this history that the end could bedifferent to that which had been heralded prematurely - theglobal spread of liberal democracy, technology and instrumentalrationality - let alone that the teleological view of history shouldbe abandoned. Rather it suggested that history needed some help.With its superior military power, and its al ignment to the goal ofthis universal history, the United States would act, in the name ofhistory itself, to eradicate every action and every accident whichthreatens to destabilize this end of history. What the United Stateswould pre-empt would be threats to the course of history itself.With the doctrine of pre-emption, the United States has taken i tupon itself to ensure that no act is possible, no contingencyremains, nothing can prevent the future from unfolding accordingto its telos, By waging war on contingency, the United States isengaged inwhat Jameson has referred to as 'an attempt to colonize13. Bush, 'Remarks by the President at 2002 Graduation Exercise'.14. Bush, 'Remarksby the President at 2002 Graduation Exercise'.15. H. Arendt, 'On Violence', in Crisis of the Republic, New York, Harcourt, 1972, p. 105.


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the future, to draw the unforeseeable back into tangible realities inwhich one can invest and on which one can bank, verymuch in thespirit of stock market futures'.16 This dual conception of history, asinevitable yet threatened, is epitomized in Bush's most recent stateof the union address, which ends with the words: 'The road ofProvidence is uneven and unpredictable - yet we know where itleads: It leads to freedom'J7

It is with this vision of history as the unfolding of a single modelof progress inmind that we can return to the question of guilt, andmore specifically to the guilt of the Guantanamo detainee. Guilt,we will then see, is the transgression of the 'law of history'. To beguilty - according to this totalitarian vision of freedom - is toimagine the possibility of action, to attempt to hold the futureopen, or to imagine a future other than that which apparentlyexpresses all humanity's aspirations. Therefore this guilt is notconcerned with past acts, but with the possibility of future ones -hence the obsessive focus on terrorist training camps. Those inGuantanamo Bay are guilty of imagining different futures - manyof which may be just as dystopian as Bush's version, but whichnonetheless posit the notion that the future could be other than theneo-conservative vision - and of attempting to disrupt themonopoly on violence that would guarantee this future.An individual's capacity to use violence, however, as the doctrine

of pre-emption implicitly recognizes, is not predicated on militaryhardware, or the backing of states, but simply on the existence of awill and a belief in the possible efficacy of one's actions. Thus inGuantanamo Bay detainees are understood to be guilty as long asthey are still convinced of their own capacity to act. They are guiltyas long as they potentially represent a threat. And this is howAdministration spokesman Paul Butler explains the purpose of thecombatant s tatus review tribunals: 'What we're doing is we'rereviewing people to see if they're still a threat. And if they aredetermined to be a threat then we will continue to hold them untilthey are no longer a threat anymore'.18 This is the sense in whichthese tribunals are precisely not trials: they are not concerned withpast acts, bu t with possible future ones. If these reviews can occuron an annual basis, it is precisely because this ontological guilt isalways projected into the future, and therefore it cannot be judged16. )ameson, Archaeologies of the Future, p. 228.17 . G . W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 2004.18. M. Ratner and E. Ray, Guantanamo: Wha//he World Should Know, Melbourne, Scribe, 2004, p. 143.


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Critiquing the Violence of Guantanamo 131once and for all, bu t must be eradicated over time. That thispossibility of eradicating guilt is seen as fundamental to theCombatant Status Review Tribunal process is demonstrated in theassertion by Secretary England - who heads t he DetaineeAdministrative Review Processes at Guantanamo - that 'a CSRT[combatant status review tribunal] determination that a detaineeno longer mee ts the criteria for classification as an enemycombatant does no t necessarily mean that the prior classification asEC [enemy combatant] was wrong'.19 An enemy combatant then,can cease to be an enemy combatant, or as recently announcedterminology has it, can become a 'No Longer Enemy Combatant':the gui lty can become no t guilty. To be no longer guilty is to nolonger be a threat - to have been stripped of the power to act, tobe absolutely resigned to the onslaught of the universal history forwhich the United States acts as bodyguard.In a statement on his time in Guantanamo Bay, released British

detainee Asif Iqbal tells that immediately before his release he wasasked to s ign a statement. '1 don't remember exactly what it said,'he says, 'but it was along the lines that I was a member of theTaliban and Al-Qaeda, however I have since changed . In o therwords I had changed my mind since I was detained atGuantanamo Bay'.20 In interrogator language, changing is morecommonly referred to as breaking - a terminology which refers tothe point at which detainees lose all resolve and begin to talk. Whatis necessary to break an individual, and what is at stake in strippingan individual of a guilt that consists solely in the capacity to act , isrevealed most clearly in the f oll owing excerpt s f rom theinterrogation log of detainee 063, Mohammed al-Qatani:

11 December 2002. 0100: Detainee was reminded that no oneloved, cared or remembered him. He was reminded tha t hewas less than human and that animals had more freedomand love than he does, He was taken outside to see a familyof banana rats. The banana rats were moving around freely,playing, eating, showing concern for one another. Detaineewas compared to the family of banana rats and reinforced

19 . G . England (Secretary of the Navy), 'Defense Department Special Briefing on CombatantStatus Review Tribunals', Tuesday 29 March 2005, .20. S. Rasul, A. Iqbal and R. Ahmed, 'Composite Statement: Detention in Afghanistan andGuantanamo Bay', New York, Centre for Constitutional Rights, 2004, p . 85.


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that they had more love, freedom and concern than he had.Detainee began to cry during this comparison.21

20 December 2002. 1115: Detainee offered water - refused.Corpsman changed ankle bandages to prevent chafing.Interrogator began by reminding the detainee about thelessons in respect and how the detainee had disrespected theinterrogators. Told detainee that a dog is held in higher esteembecause dogs know right from wrong and know to protectinnocent people from bad people. Began teaching the detaineelessons such as stay, come, and bark to elevate his social statusup to that of a dog. Detainee became very agitated.22

If to be guilty is to retain the capacity to act, to be no longer guiltyis to have been absolutely de-subjectified, to have lost the power toresist or to act. While this de-subjectification is an individualizedand tailored process - constructed with the assistance of doctorsand psychologists - its importance is not simply in its impact onthe individual, but in its ability to provide a spectacle of absolute de-subjectification and dehumanization, in which an individual life isabsolutely instrumentalized.According to the doctrine of pre-emption, the importance of pre-

emption lies in its ability to provide a demonstration of US powerwhich will motivate others to alter their calculations and give upany plans they may have held to challenge this power. The test ofpre-emption in Iraq for instance, lies in whether Iran, North Koreaand Libya give up their plans to acquire weapons of massdestruction. Similarly, Guantanamo Bay aims to provide aspectacle of absolute US dominance that is in strong contrast to thereality of US power across the globe. Guantanamo Bay is themarketing campaign for US power. It is not just states and terrororganizations that are supposed, upon seeing manifestations ofpre-emptive force, to abandon their desires to challenge US globaldominance. When pre-empt ion is extended to individuals, itinstrumentalizes the lives of some in order to interpolate all thosewho would imagine they could resist, or act to introduce21. Excerpt from interrogation log of 'Detainee 063' - Mohammed al-Qahtani, quoted in A.Zagorin and M. Duffy, 'Inside the Interrogation of Detainee 063', Time Magazine, 20 June

2005, p. 18.22. Zagorin and Duffy, 'Inside the Interrogation of Detainee 063', p. 23.


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Critiquing the Violence of Guantanamo 133contingency into the course of history. It is for this reason that wehave seen the 'inadvertent de-classification' of masses ofdocuments detailing the regime of terror within Guantanamo. Weare supposed to know what occurs in Guantanamo Bay. We aresupposed to know that the US military has the power to teachthose who once resisted to bark like dogs. We are supposed toknow this, because we must be faced with the image of an absolutesovereign power, a power that is so absolute, even againstintentions themselves, that we too will alter our calculations andrenounce any desire to challenge the future that the United Statesis attempting to bequeath the world. This is the process by which,in Jameson's words, large zones of the future 'are consigned torubble and sterility owing to the systematic neutralization in themof trends and tendencies that might otherwise have produced verydifferent outcomes'.23

I f we read pre-emption through the lens of Benjamin's Critique ofViolence, we see that pre-emption - as evidenced in spaces likeGuantanamo Bay - is a form of law-founding violence. Throughthe monopolization of violence, pre-emption aims to ensure thetype of stable future to which some form of law could be reapplied.This means that Guantanamo Bay is not a space outs ide the law,but rather a space enmeshed in the oscillation of law-founding andlaw-preserving violence. And yet, while pre-emption is a form oflaw-founding violence, we must nonetheless recognize that therelation between the violence which creates a factual order towhich law could be applied and law itself has been transformed,such that it is no longer possible to assume that law-foundingviolence will lead to the imposit ion of a new legal order. Nor canwe assume today that the United States has an interest in theestablishment of a global order which would see it bound by thelegal constraints it admonishes other states for overstepping. Thiscoincidence of an increasing difficulty in establishing a factualorder to which law could apply, as seen currently in Iraq, and thelack of willingness by neo-conservative members of the BushAdministrat ion to see the United States bound by internationallaws, militates against the establishment of a new global order inwhich law plays a primary regulating role, and in which violenceappears most regularly in its legal guise.23. Jameson, Archaeo[ogies of the Future, p. 228.


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What today's extra-legal pre-emptive violence testifies to is notthe unity of law-founding and law-preserving violence, but thevery separation of law from force of law, whichAgamben describesas the normalization of the state of exception. In the context of thewar on terror, force of law - that which gives law its force, orenforceability - is increasingly separated from law, such thatPresidential decrees or edicts take on this force, while the law itselfremains 'i n force' but is not applied.24 While this situation hastraditionallymarked the state of exception, in which the legal orderis suspended, and the unmediated actions of the sovereign carrythe force of law, what distinguishes the current 'exception' is itslack of temporal boundaries. The war on terror and the emergencyit represents is projected into the future in a manner that seems topreclude the re-establishment of a normal legal order. The UnitedStates, in Assistant Attorney General J. S. Bybee's words, has theright 'to continue using force until such time as the threat posed byal Qaeda and other terrorist groups connected to the September 11attacks is completely ended'.25 Such a formulation is essentially arecipe for endless war, which assimilates the existence of groupsand individuals with the capacity to threaten the United States tothe status of a global emergency, justifying unmitigated sovereignforce and the infinite postponement of normality.Despite this continuous recourse to force, the United States doesnot herald itself as waging an unending war, but as guaranteeing

the peace, and the future of a secure humanity. What is important,however, is that just as peace, internally to the nation-state, isconceived of as that absence of civil war or disorder premised onthe state's monopolization of violence, so too the 'end-of-history'utopia of peace and liberty proclaimed by Bush is finally reducibleto a globe where no power can challenge US hegemony, and whereno act can disrupt the telos of capital. The future as conceived in thedoctrine of pre-emption would be a sovereign future, guaranteedby the absolute power of the US state.That this vision of the future is both megalomaniacal - with itsgreatly extended spatial and temporal aspirations - and

unachievable - in its desire to strip the globe entirely of subjectswith the capacity to act - seems obvious. What this vision enables,24. See Agamben, State of Exaption.25. J. S. Bybee, 'Standard of Conduct for Interrogation', 1 August 2002, in K. Greenberg and J.Oratel (edsl, The Tortllre Papers: The Road to Abll Graihb, Cambridge, Cambridge UniversityPress, 2005, p. 213.


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Critiquing the Violence of Guantanamo 135however , is the constant rejuvenation of the violence thatunderpins law, as degeneration iswarded off through the constantact of violent re-foundation and the totalitarian suppression ofevery counter-violence. From the perspective of those who seek toresist this vision, to reinstate contingency and leave the futureopen, this vision of progress - conceived of as the eradication ofaction and the depol itic izat ion of the globe - appears as it does toBenjamin's angel of history: as a single catastrophe, which pileswreckage upon wreckage.26

26. W. Benjamin, 'Theses on the Philosophy of History' IX, in Benjamin, lrans. H. Zohn,IIluminations, London, Fontana, 1973, p. 2-19.

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