60 years after the UN Convention - Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

lineages of racism in genocidal contexts 157
Stalinism under the heading of totalitarianism. Early on in her work
on the Totalitarianism book, it became clear to her that she could not
pull it together. In a letter to Karl Jaspers dated 19 November 1948,
Arendt confi ded to her friend that the project had turned into three
separate books (quoted in Tsao 2002: 580). The overarching connection
that Arendt is credited with having established between ‘antisemitism’,
‘imperialism’ and ‘totalitarianism’ remains elusive.
In this article, I shall trace where Arendt’s book productively falls
apart, and where and how we might fi nd conjunctures at which ‘elements’
of totalitarianism coalesce to provide contingent hinge points
that provide some criteria for comparative genocide studies.
Arendt herself suggests such a reading, as she explains to historians pressurising
her to defi ne her notion of ‘origins’: ‘The book…does not really
deal with “origins” at all – as its title unfortunately claims – but gives
a historical account of the elements which crystallized into totalitarianism;
this account is followed by an analysis of the elemental structure
of totalitarian movements and domination itself’ (Arendt [1953] 1994:
402). Arendt’s analysis of totalitarianism is embedded in a philosophy
of history that assumes a negative relation to both linear historiography
and experience (as Erlebnis). The underlying theme tying the strands of
the book to each other, and to her other writings, is that of the space of
the political in its displacement, in the threat of its disappearance, and
in its replacement by ideology. The threat of the disappearance of the
political is central in Arendt’s analysis of Totalitarianism and Imperialism.
Within the parameters of nationally defi ned citizenship, and with
a completely organised humanity, the loss of home and political status
has meant the loss of human rights in absolute terms; such loss has
‘become identical with expulsion from humanity altogether’ (Arendt
[1951] 1976: 297). This has become the condition of millions of people
in the dissolving European empires and nation states in the 20th century,
and in the new global political situation, with weakening nation
states and proliferating supranational ideologies. This condition threatens
the lives of those thus reduced most directly; moreover, it threatens
the very possibility of political life per se.
I will focus here on a subset of ‘elements’ that provide another level of
consistency in the constellations running through the book, viz. the
conjunction and disjunction of lineages of race-thinking and racism
that have come to play a pivotal role in one of the forms of politicide –
genocidal ideologies and mass mobilisations. In tracing particular lineages
of race-thinking and racism, I hope to show a connection, not
only between the two parts of Arendt’s book that are mainly at issue