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How terra nullis and homo sacer are perfect examples of exile, landlessness, and racism
Why is it that black people are killed with seeming impunity? Why did we accept the torture of so-called “enemy combatants?” What do these situations have in common? Two things: Homo sacer and terra nullis. One example can explain this quite well. During the early days of the war in Afghanistan, President George W. Bush came under fire for sanctioning torture against enemy combatants or unlawful combatants. This designation stripped captured people of all rights they would have been afforded under the Geneva Conventions (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014). Herein lies the articulation of the idea of landlessness and exile. Torture, the denial of human rights, and anything bad you can think of regenerates under this condition because landlessness=subhumanness.
You might say, “But, no. These two ideas don’t go together. Landlessness is just a feature, it’s not part of the definition of the idea.” Let’s play with this concept for a moment, because I certainly didn’t come up with this connection on my own.
In fact, John Yoo, who wrote the “Torture Memos” justified the term enemy combatant by likening it to General Canby’s troops 1873 attack against the Modoc Indians, saying that
“All the laws and customs…
