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«Eine Immigrantin ist weder Reisende noch Gast. Der Körper weiß es». Verena Stefan, Fremdschläfer
«Der wahre Weg geht über ein Seil, das nicht in der Höhe gespannt ist, sondern knapp über dem Boden. Es scheint mehr bestimmt stolpern zu machen, als begangen zu werden». Franz Kafka
First I’d like to say - because I believe it - that literature comes from life, but I also believe that it should go back to it, somehow. Now, the path to integration is a line, and once you cross it there is another line: integration is a perfect design of thresholds and obstacles. Integration is then two lines: one of it is disposed horizontally and the other vertically, both of them placed against those who are outside its disposition, integration is then, and by all means, an impasse. In their constitution integration laws make obvious that their main goal is to support and continue ways of living that are in its core contrary, or at least conflictive, to the so called «integrating party». There is no integration without a complete make over by the foreigner at- tempting it, integration - and this has already been stated in the introduction to this series of essays - is a one way road. As a lawful entity it enunciates a harsh compendium of lessons: we are already here, we are just waiting for you; you can come in, but you cant play with our toys; please participate, just do it on our terms; etc… Thus integration is a negative de/reterritorialization of its finish line, a constant movement of the goal that it also set out to be its border. Integration, like Kafka’s literature, is a never ending transit of failures imposed on the other.
«No hay diferencia entre los aldeanos y el castillo—dijo el maestro». Franz Kafka, el castillo.
There is a question of availability: are we able to separate the artist from the work? And in the case we agree to do so, how do we proceed? It is the work of the law to sanction. Sanctioning is a paradoxical disposition of the law, meaning that sanctions can both punish and allow, forbid or permit. I propose, through Kafka, a series of questions that might help us navigate the bureaucratic labyrinth that is the law. Is it possible to separate the legislators from the law? Is it possible to separate the legislators from those who elect them, and place upon them the power draft laws that will affect the life of those upon whom these laws will be executed? if the answer is yes, then it is correct to state that legislators, the law and the commons are representative of a specific idiosyncrasy, one that relies on sameness. An equality built upon and into - what for the lack of a better term I’ll call - the national character. One of the most interesting things about Kafka’s literature, one of the things that makes it contemporary, is that it›s populated by beings that are trying to, and/or being forced to integrate into spaces in which no one wants them to be, least of all the inviting party. This is a fact that backbones the entire narrative of the Castle. Life - on the contrary - is not the same as literature, and integration is but the final tool of a state that failed to secure its borders from uninvited guests. As an apparatus — and it is one by all means, a dispositif in the sense in which it operates in/as the intersection and the transit space of elements like the law; work; family; culture and language, just to name a few of the most important thought machines that dialogue and fight inside of it — integration is expected to delay, obstruct and difficult the process of migration once it is officially, im talking legally, operative. This is the main reason why it appears to be static yet moves covertly as soon as it starts to feel desired.
Integration is a stealth vehicle that uses language as a legal decoy to beat the intruder in the castle. One can never forget that the success, or the failure of it is that relies on the citizenry to be fully successful, and that as a democratic device its application involves the people that first forwarded it and that are later responsible for executing it, and since it works as a sort of conceptual gadget, or in any case as an unnoticeable actualisation of the law through the people, integration is precisely the perverse side of the double binding that sanctioning implies.
Der umgekehrte Seiltänzer
As a child my father forbade me to read Kafka’s castle. It is one of those unforgetful «growing up» moments in my (literary) life, and from time to time i still look for its meaning: what did he meant with such a precise prohibition? As i publish, thisi know that he knew I’d figure it out at the right time. He was trying to protect me from the mirroring effect of a book that would expose my condition; that of displacement. He wanted to keep me away from the reflection that reminds us, foreigners, that we are not only chasers, but we are also being chased.
