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Ecce Homo (without a country)
May. 18th, 2004 07:29 pmI am angry! Okay, so a few months ago I read this story for the first time, about Merhan Nasseri, a man who has been trapped in the De Gaulle Airport for over a decade. If you actually read the story, you'll see that it's tragic, in a Edward Everett Hale-meets-Kafka kind of way. [sidebar: speaking of that Hale short story that has been proliferated through every high school American fiction anthrology, it seems like in ye olde tymes people were much more hip to the idea of using ships as spaces of institutionalized liminality. The man without a country got put on a ship to live out the rest of his days landless and anchorless, and ships of fools sailed around like the seaworthy allegories that they were. Perhaps we can revive that tradition, except that I don't think there is as much international water as there was in ye olde tymes, so perhaps this administration will send all the un-Americans and the crazies, soon to be collapsed into one category by Patriot Act III: Vote For Bush Or Else, into space to orbit Earth forever and ever, as part of BushCo's Space Cowboy Program]. Anyway, Merhan Nesseri got expelled from Iran for protesting against the shah, sans passport.
Nasseri came to Europe. He bounced from capital to capital, applying for refugee status and being refused, again and again, for nearly four years. In 1981, his request for political asylum from Iran was finally granted by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Belgium. That decision gave him refugee credentials, which in turn allowed him to seek citizenship in a European country. The son of an Iranian and a Briton, Nasseri decided in 1986 on England with the hope of finding relatives there. He got as far as Paris, where in 1988 his briefcase containing his refugee documents was stolen in a train station. Nasseri boarded a plane for London anyway. But when officials at Heathrow Airport found he had no passport, they sent him back to Charles de Gaulle. At first, the French police arrested him for illegal entry. But as Nasseri had no documents, there was no country of origin to which he could be deported. So he took up residence in Terminal One. From its circular confines, he and his attorney, the Paris-based human rights lawyer Christian Bourget, battled to define his status and send him to London. In 1992, a French court finally ruled that Nasseri had entered the airport legally as a refugee and could not be expelled from it. But the court could not force the French government to allow him out of the airport onto French soil. In fact, Bourget said, French authorities refused to give Nasseri either a refugee or transit visa. "It was pure bureaucracy," said the lawyer. French immigration authorities have no comment on the case. Bourget and Nasseri then focused on Belgium, where they hoped to reclaim Nasseri's original refugee documents. But Belgian refugee officials refused to mail them to him in France. They argued that Nasseri had to present himself in person so that they could be sure he was the same man to whom they had granted political asylum years before. But, inexplicably, the Belgian government refused at that point to allow Nasseri to return there. And under Belgian law, a refugee who voluntarily leaves a country that has accepted him cannot return. In 1995, the Belgian government finally told Nasseri that he could retrieve his refugee documents if he agreed to live in Belgium under the supervision of a social worker. Nasseri refused. He said he would move only to Great Britain. And so here he has remained, year after year. At first glance, the dignified man does not appear to be a refugee who sleeps on an airport bench because he has nowhere else to go. His clothes are clean, his moustache well-trimmed. He keeps his one blazer covered with plastic wrap, hanging from an airport cart. His belongings are carefully packed in a frayed suitcase and a stack of Lufthansa boxes.
Apprently he is still there, also like an allegory. The staff have nicknamed him Alfred and there's an understanding that he ain't leaving the airport until it's his time to go to the big airport in the sky. A few years ago Belgium did finally offer him status, and in 1999 he got French papers but his years in the airport have made him understandably crazy and he stays in the airport, refusing to sign the papers on the grounds that they list his nationality as Iranian and he wants it to be British. In a way, he is a homo sacer created by Bureocracy.
Obviously, he is also a wet dream for anyone who does "human interest stories." The French made a film about him some time in the mid-90s.
I have not seen it and am thus not qualified to comment. What I do know, though, is that I just saw a commercial on TV for a new Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg spawn called The Terminal that appeared to be based on this story. So I googled it. This is what's coming soon to a theater near you,
clever promo, tres existential poster:
The Terminal tells the story of Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), a visitor to New York from Eastern Europe, whose homeland erupts in a fiery coup while he is in the air en route to America. Stranded at Kennedy Airport with a passport from nowhere, he is unauthorized to actually enter the United States and must improvise his days and nights in the terminal s international transit lounge until the war at home is over. As the weeks and months stretch on, Viktor finds the compressed universe of the terminal to be a richly complex world of absurdity, generosity, ambition, amusement, status, serendipity and even romance with a beautiful flight attendant named Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones). But Viktor has long worn out his welcome with airport official Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci), who considers him a bureaucratic glitch, a problem he cannot control but wants desperately to erase. During his accidental exile, Viktor encounters and befriends an array of airport employees, some of whom aren t very far removed from their own assimilation to America
Lovely. Just lovely. First of all, I love the fact that the Terminal Man's nationality has been changed from Iranian to ambiguously "Eastern European"--a category that stands for Alterity minus PFT (Potential For Terrorism). Also, he can be mainstream sexy because he is white. I suppose having him actually be from the Middle East would have been too confusing for the moviegoes, not to mention the fact that then he could have hardly been played by Tom Hanks, or anyone, really, since all the Middle Eastern "character actors" are too busy playing either terrorists or Token Patriotic Muslims (Homeland Security and 7th Heaven, I'm looking at you, respectively). Secondly, this completely absurd, sad story gets converted into an American Narrative with an Evil Adversary (airport official), because you can't kick the ass of vague, banal, bureocratic evil that achieves its status of evil via a quantitative leap, rather than any sort of Grand Evil Plan, and, of course, a Romantic Interest, Hollywood's appropriately ambiguously ethnic It Girl, Catherine Zeta-Jones. (I am allowed to say that, by the way, because I am ambiguously ethnic too). Third, Steven Spielberg? I mean, I know the man loves filming Rudyard Kipling's "If" in different narrative incarnations over and over again, but come on. And Tom Hanks? Yes, I am biased because Tom Hanks makes me seizure. But to be fair to me, he makes me seizure because in every role, in one way or another, he reaffirms the same project metaphorically that he undertook in Forrest Gump literally: the insane American heroism of a puritan yurodivy* trumping (and trampling all over) history with magical-realism-as-divine-grace instead of having the dignity to retreat to the overdetermined niche of existential martyrdom he shoulda been sharing with Prince Myshkin. Regardless, back to Nasseri: if this story had to be made into an American fictional film, it at least deserved to be one of the intersecting plotlines in a John Sayles context, not the Hollywood ecce homo treatment where sleek archetypes march towards a third-act resolution, reifying instead of representing, letting the minutiae of days and nights slip between the airbrushed cracks.
MERHAN KARIMI NASSERI
* Yurodivy--a "holy man." A crazy person "touched by God" in Russian Orthodoxy. Like with a medieval Fool, a gift of coded social critique in a kind of Foucauldian lucidity-via-insanity way was attributed to a yurodivy.
Nasseri came to Europe. He bounced from capital to capital, applying for refugee status and being refused, again and again, for nearly four years. In 1981, his request for political asylum from Iran was finally granted by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Belgium. That decision gave him refugee credentials, which in turn allowed him to seek citizenship in a European country. The son of an Iranian and a Briton, Nasseri decided in 1986 on England with the hope of finding relatives there. He got as far as Paris, where in 1988 his briefcase containing his refugee documents was stolen in a train station. Nasseri boarded a plane for London anyway. But when officials at Heathrow Airport found he had no passport, they sent him back to Charles de Gaulle. At first, the French police arrested him for illegal entry. But as Nasseri had no documents, there was no country of origin to which he could be deported. So he took up residence in Terminal One. From its circular confines, he and his attorney, the Paris-based human rights lawyer Christian Bourget, battled to define his status and send him to London. In 1992, a French court finally ruled that Nasseri had entered the airport legally as a refugee and could not be expelled from it. But the court could not force the French government to allow him out of the airport onto French soil. In fact, Bourget said, French authorities refused to give Nasseri either a refugee or transit visa. "It was pure bureaucracy," said the lawyer. French immigration authorities have no comment on the case. Bourget and Nasseri then focused on Belgium, where they hoped to reclaim Nasseri's original refugee documents. But Belgian refugee officials refused to mail them to him in France. They argued that Nasseri had to present himself in person so that they could be sure he was the same man to whom they had granted political asylum years before. But, inexplicably, the Belgian government refused at that point to allow Nasseri to return there. And under Belgian law, a refugee who voluntarily leaves a country that has accepted him cannot return. In 1995, the Belgian government finally told Nasseri that he could retrieve his refugee documents if he agreed to live in Belgium under the supervision of a social worker. Nasseri refused. He said he would move only to Great Britain. And so here he has remained, year after year. At first glance, the dignified man does not appear to be a refugee who sleeps on an airport bench because he has nowhere else to go. His clothes are clean, his moustache well-trimmed. He keeps his one blazer covered with plastic wrap, hanging from an airport cart. His belongings are carefully packed in a frayed suitcase and a stack of Lufthansa boxes.
Apprently he is still there, also like an allegory. The staff have nicknamed him Alfred and there's an understanding that he ain't leaving the airport until it's his time to go to the big airport in the sky. A few years ago Belgium did finally offer him status, and in 1999 he got French papers but his years in the airport have made him understandably crazy and he stays in the airport, refusing to sign the papers on the grounds that they list his nationality as Iranian and he wants it to be British. In a way, he is a homo sacer created by Bureocracy.
Obviously, he is also a wet dream for anyone who does "human interest stories." The French made a film about him some time in the mid-90s.
I have not seen it and am thus not qualified to comment. What I do know, though, is that I just saw a commercial on TV for a new Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg spawn called The Terminal that appeared to be based on this story. So I googled it. This is what's coming soon to a theater near you,
clever promo, tres existential poster:
The Terminal tells the story of Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), a visitor to New York from Eastern Europe, whose homeland erupts in a fiery coup while he is in the air en route to America. Stranded at Kennedy Airport with a passport from nowhere, he is unauthorized to actually enter the United States and must improvise his days and nights in the terminal s international transit lounge until the war at home is over. As the weeks and months stretch on, Viktor finds the compressed universe of the terminal to be a richly complex world of absurdity, generosity, ambition, amusement, status, serendipity and even romance with a beautiful flight attendant named Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones). But Viktor has long worn out his welcome with airport official Frank Dixon (Stanley Tucci), who considers him a bureaucratic glitch, a problem he cannot control but wants desperately to erase. During his accidental exile, Viktor encounters and befriends an array of airport employees, some of whom aren t very far removed from their own assimilation to America
Lovely. Just lovely. First of all, I love the fact that the Terminal Man's nationality has been changed from Iranian to ambiguously "Eastern European"--a category that stands for Alterity minus PFT (Potential For Terrorism). Also, he can be mainstream sexy because he is white. I suppose having him actually be from the Middle East would have been too confusing for the moviegoes, not to mention the fact that then he could have hardly been played by Tom Hanks, or anyone, really, since all the Middle Eastern "character actors" are too busy playing either terrorists or Token Patriotic Muslims (Homeland Security and 7th Heaven, I'm looking at you, respectively). Secondly, this completely absurd, sad story gets converted into an American Narrative with an Evil Adversary (airport official), because you can't kick the ass of vague, banal, bureocratic evil that achieves its status of evil via a quantitative leap, rather than any sort of Grand Evil Plan, and, of course, a Romantic Interest, Hollywood's appropriately ambiguously ethnic It Girl, Catherine Zeta-Jones. (I am allowed to say that, by the way, because I am ambiguously ethnic too). Third, Steven Spielberg? I mean, I know the man loves filming Rudyard Kipling's "If" in different narrative incarnations over and over again, but come on. And Tom Hanks? Yes, I am biased because Tom Hanks makes me seizure. But to be fair to me, he makes me seizure because in every role, in one way or another, he reaffirms the same project metaphorically that he undertook in Forrest Gump literally: the insane American heroism of a puritan yurodivy* trumping (and trampling all over) history with magical-realism-as-divine-grace instead of having the dignity to retreat to the overdetermined niche of existential martyrdom he shoulda been sharing with Prince Myshkin. Regardless, back to Nasseri: if this story had to be made into an American fictional film, it at least deserved to be one of the intersecting plotlines in a John Sayles context, not the Hollywood ecce homo treatment where sleek archetypes march towards a third-act resolution, reifying instead of representing, letting the minutiae of days and nights slip between the airbrushed cracks.
MERHAN KARIMI NASSERI
* Yurodivy--a "holy man." A crazy person "touched by God" in Russian Orthodoxy. Like with a medieval Fool, a gift of coded social critique in a kind of Foucauldian lucidity-via-insanity way was attributed to a yurodivy.
