Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suffer exile, but sometimes social entities like institutions (e.g. the Pope or a government) are forced from their homeland.
In Roman law, exsilium denoted both voluntary exile and banishment as a capital punishment alternative to death. Deportation was forced exile, and entailed the lifelong loss of citizenship and property. was a milder form of deportation, which preserved the subject's citizenship and property.
The term diaspora describes group exile, both voluntary and forced. "Government in exile" describes a government of a country that has relocated and argues its legitimacy from outside that country. Voluntary exile is often depicted as a form of protest by the person who claims it, to avoid persecution and prosecution (such as tax or criminal allegations), an act of shame or repentance, or isolating oneself to be able to devote time to a particular pursuit.
Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."
Internal exile
Internal exile is a form of banishment within the boundaries of one's homeland, but far away from home. An example is the system of
Katorga in Russia.
For individuals
History
Banishment was used as a punishment in ancient societies such as
Babylonia,
Ancient Greece and
Ancient Rome.
It is stipulated as the punishment for
incest with one's daughter in the Code of Hammurabi,
for
manslaughter in
Mosaic Law, for murder in
Classical Athens according to Draco's homicide law,
and for rape according to the ancient Indian text
Manusmriti.
A special form of banishment known as
ostracism was practiced in Athens, in which citizens could vote for the expulsion of any citizen for ten years. Ostracism did not entail the loss of property or citizenship, and the ostracized person could return after ten years without disgrace or further penalty.
Banishment was the punishment for a variety of offenses in Ancient Rome.
In
Roman law, exsilium denoted both voluntary exile and banishment as an alternative to capital punishment.
When allowed as an alternative to death, it was accompanied by an administrative decree called interdictio aquae et ignis ("interdiction of water and fire"), which declared the offender an
outlaw, allowing any person who encountered him or her within the borders of the country to kill him or her.
During the
Late Republic, there was consensus among the public and legislators to reduce the incidence of capital punishment by allowing condemned persons to go into voluntary exile.
was forced exile, and entailed the lifelong loss of citizenship and property.
was a milder form of deportation, which preserved the subject's citizenship and property.
The
Tang Code of 7th-century China lists a number of crimes punishable by banishment.
Exile was also imposed as a punishment in many societies in medieval Europe. Germanic peoples such as the Franks and Danes are known to have used it.
Banishment was frequently used as a punishment in the Thirteen Colonies, but it fell into disfavor under the United States. There is no federal law in the United States controlling banishment as a punishment. In the case Cooper v. Telfair (1800), the US Supreme Court established that legislatures have the right to confiscate the property of and banish individuals who take up arms against the United States. At least one legal scholar has argued that this Supreme Court ruling "offered a definitive ruling on the legality of banishment." However, another scholar has argued that this reasoning cannot be easily used in the case of ordinary offenses, "where the security of the country is not at stake." Some US states allow intrastate banishment, although the practice is rare and its legality and constitutionality in many US jurisdictions has been described as "still an open question" by one scholar. Interstate banishment (i.e., expulsion from one US state to another) has been allowed in the United States only in isolated instances.
International law and contemporary use
Denaturalization, or depriving a person of their citizenship, can be viewed as a modern form of banishment.
Denaturalization does not necessarily result in an individual losing the right of
legal residence in the country that revokes their citizenship, but it often does.
Modern international law severely limits the circumstances under which a person can be deprived of their citizenship. Countries which permit the deprivation of citizenship after a criminal conviction for a serious offense include the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Most states only allow the deprivation of citizenship if it will not cause the person to become
Statelessness.
Exiled heads of state
In some cases the deposed head of state is allowed to go into exile following a coup or other change of government, allowing a more peaceful transition to take place or to escape justice.
Avoiding tax or legal matters
A wealthy citizen who moves to a jurisdiction with lower taxes is termed a
tax exile. Creative people such as authors and musicians who achieve sudden wealth sometimes choose this. Examples include the British-Canadian writer
Arthur Hailey, who moved to the Bahamas to avoid taxes following the runaway success of his novels
Hotel and
Airport,
[Stevie Cameron, Blue Trust: The Author, The Lawyer, His Wife, And Her Money, 1998] and the English rock band the
Rolling Stones who, in the spring of 1971, owed more in taxes than they could pay and left Britain before the government could seize their assets. Members of the band all moved to France for a period of time where they recorded music for the album that came to be called
Exile on Main Street, the Main Street of the title referring to the French Riviera.
[Robert Greenfield, Exile on Main Street: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones, 2008.] In 2012,
Eduardo Saverin, one of the founders of Facebook, made headlines by renouncing his U.S. citizenship before his company's IPO.
The dual Brazilian/U.S. citizen's decision to move to Singapore and renounce his citizenship spurred a bill in the U.S. Senate, the
Ex-PATRIOT Act, which would have forced such wealthy
tax exiles to pay a special tax in order to re-enter the United States.
In some cases a person voluntarily lives in exile to avoid legal issues, such as litigation or criminal prosecution. An example of this is Asil Nadir, who fled to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus for 17 years rather than face prosecution in connection with the failed £1.7 bn company Polly Peck in the United Kingdom.
Avoiding violence or persecution, or in the aftermath of war
Examples include:
-
academics asked to return home "from exile" to help rebuild Iraq in 2009
-
People undertaking a religious or civil liberties role in society may be forced into exile due to threat of persecution. For example, in Czechoslovakia, were internally exiled to small villages along the northern border that had been stripped of their original German populations (such as Bílá Voda) following the Communism coup d'état of 1948.
-
Thibaw Min and Supayalat were exiled to India after Third Anglo-Burmese War, named Pataw Mu.
Euphemism for convict
Exile,
government man and
assigned servant were all
used in the 19th century for convicts under sentence who had been transported from Britain to
Australia.
[Morris, Edward E., (1898, reprinted 1973), A dictionary of Austral English, Sydney, Sydney University Press, pp. 140, 166. ]
For groups, nations, and governments
Nation in exile
When a large group, or occasionally a whole people or
nation is exiled, it can be said that this nation is in exile, or "diaspora". Nations that have been in exile for substantial periods include the Israelites by the Assyrian king
Sargon II in 720 BCE, the Judeans who were deported by
king Nebuchadnezzar II in 586 BC, and the
Jews following the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70. Jewish prayers include a yearning to return to
Jerusalem and the Land of Israel,
[Peter Richardson, Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans, Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1996, p.98-99] such as "Next Year in Jerusalem".
After the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, and following the uprisings (like Kościuszko Uprising, November Uprising and January Uprising) against the partitioning powers (Russian Empire, Prussia and Austria), many Poles have chosen – or been forced – to go into exile, forming large diasporas (known as Polish diaspora), especially in France and Polish Americans.
Since the Cuban Revolution, over a million Cubans have left Cuba. Most of these self-identified as exiles as their motivation for leaving the island is political in nature. At the time of the Cuban Revolution, Cuba only had a population of 6.5 million, and was not a country that had a history of significant emigration, it being the sixth largest recipient of immigrants in the world as of 1958. Most of the exiles' children also consider themselves to be . Under Cuban law, children of Cubans born abroad are considered Cuban citizens.
Government in exile
During a foreign occupation or after a coup d'état, a
government in exile of a such afflicted country may be established abroad. One of the most well-known instances of this is the Polish government-in-exile, a government in exile that commanded Polish armed forces operating outside Poland, and the African-based Free French Forces government of Charles de Gaulle during the German Occupation of Poland and France in WWII. Other post-war examples include the client All Palestine Government established by the Egyptian Kingdom, and the Central Tibetan Administration, commonly known as the Tibetan government-in-exile, and headed by the 14th Dalai Lama.
For inanimate objects
Ivan the Terrible once exiled to Siberia an inanimate object: a bell.
[Salisbury, Harrison, "The Key to Moscow," J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and New York, 1963, page 52.] "When the inhabitants of the town of
Uglich rang their bell to rally a demonstration against Ivan the Terrible, the cruel Czar executed two hundred (nobles), and exiled the Uglich bell to Siberia, where it remained for two hundred years."
[Salisbury, Harrison, "The Key to Moscow," J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and New York, Copyright 1963, page 52.]
In popular culture
Drama
Exile is an early motif in
Ancient Greece tragedy. In the ancient Greek world, this was seen as a fate worse than death. The motif reaches its peak on the play
Medea, written by
Euripides in the fifth century BC, and rooted in the very old oral traditions of Greek mythology. Euripides'
Medea has remained the most frequently performed Greek tragedy through the 20th century.
[Cf. Helene P. Foley: Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage. University of California Press, 2012, p. 190]
Art
After
Medea was abandoned by
Jason and had become a murderess out of revenge, she fled to Athens and married king
Aigeus there, and became the stepmother of the hero
Theseus. Due to a conflict with him, she must leave the
Polis and go away into exile. John William Waterhouse (1849–1917), the English
Pre-Raphaelite painter's famous picture
Jason and Medea shows a key moment before, when Medea tries to poison Theseus.
[Cf. Elisabeth Prettejohn: Art of the Pre-Raphaelites. Princeton University Press, London 2000, pp. 165–207. ]
Literature
In ancient Rome, the Roman Senate had the power to declare the exile to individuals, families or even entire regions. One of the Roman victims was the poet
Ovid, who lived during the reign of
Augustus. He was forced to leave Rome and move away to the city of Tomis on the Black Sea, now Constanța. There he wrote his famous work
Tristia (Sorrows) about his bitter feelings in exile.
Another, at least in a temporary exile, was
Dante.
The German-language writer Franz Kafka described the exile of Karl Rossmann in the posthumously published novel Amerika.[Cf. an unabridged reading by Sven Regener: Amerika, Roof Music, Bochum 2014.]
During the period of National Socialism in the first few years after 1933, many Jews, as well as a significant number of German artists and intellectuals fled into exile; for instance, the authors Klaus Mann and Anna Seghers. So Germany's own exile literature emerged and received worldwide credit.[See Martin Mauthner: German Writers in French Exile, 1933–1940, Vallentine Mitchell, London 2007, .] Klaus Mann finished his novel Der Vulkan ( The Volcano: A Novel Among Emigrants) in 1939[which he started in September 1936, when he came to New York. Cf. Jan Patocka in: Escape to Life. German Intellectuals in New York. A Compendium on Exile after 1933, ed. by Eckart Goebel/Sigrid Weigel. De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston 2012, p. 354. ] describing the German exile scene, "to bring the rich, scattered and murky experience of exile into epic form",[Cf. Klaus Mann: Der Wendepunkt. Ein Lebensbericht. (1949), Frankfurt am Main 2006, p. 514.] as he wrote in his literary balance sheet. At the same place and in the same year, Anna Seghers published her famous novel Das siebte Kreuz ( The Seventh Cross, published in the United States in 1942).
Important exile literature in recent years include that of the Caribbean, many of whose artists emigrated to Europe or the United States for political or economic reasons. These writers include Nobel Prize winners V. S. Naipaul and Derek Walcott as well as the novelists Edwidge Danticat and Sam Selvon.
See also
Further reading
External links
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Without a Country Varied experiences of American and British exiles in the 20th century.
