INTRODUCTION
Is there an ethic of hospitality in refugee discourse and refugee legislation? This ethic has to do with the meaning and understanding of the word ‘home’, the political understanding and maintenance of statehood. It has to do with the manner in which we relate to ourselves and our state, as well how we relate to the foreigners who displace and bring discord to these definitions.  We cannot be at home with ourselves if the other is very nearly at the door, if the marginal is invited in.

THE SOVEREIGN STATE
Everywhere the concept of the nation state and the coterminous word sovereignty wreaks lives, economies and people. The list is endless; Iraqi terrorists kill hundreds of Americans and Iraqis to protest infringement of sovereignty. Africans massacre other Africans because European-imposed borders clash with tribal allegiances.
Serbs and Albanians, Irish and British, Indians and Pakistanis, Armenians and Azerbaijanis, Russians and Chechens, Georgians and Abkhazians, French and Corsicans, Spanish and Basques, Mexicans and Zapatistas, Kurds and Turks, Chinese and Taiwanese, Chinese and Tibetans …. all want to split heads over sovereignty.

It doesn’t end there. In the United States for instance, less bloody battles continue between the federal states and national government over sovereignty. These clashes take the form of battles in the court room and different analyses of federal jurisdiction. In Europe, the evolution of the European Union provokes regular battles about where European Union law violates national sovereignty, and to what extent the Union has jurisdiction over the law of each state. (Romana C, 2004)

The sovereign states of Africa were established by the colonial rulers of the European continent. In 19th century Europe a crisis of modern development existed. The economic and political crisis was marked by a pervasive industrialisation and the establishment of a wealthy middle class where power was derived from money and ownership, rather than an inherited title. Economic power resulted in strategic political power articulated in terms of democracy and freedom, (Hardt M& Negri A, 2000) but bore no resemblance to these concepts as they are ordinarily defined. In order for this economic, and therefore political, power to be sustained raw materials for the creation of goods was required, and then once the goods had been manufactured there was a need for a market in which they could be sold. Europe needed to find raw materials and markets, and so they entered the ‘dark continent’ of Africa.

The economic and political hegemony of the middle classes could not be contained by economic reconfiguration alone. The bourgeoisie owned property, they also need to own and contain states. Nationalism reached its height, and the sovereignty of states predominated political commentary. Each European state needed to compete for hegemony by ever expanding outside its own borders, simultaneously each state needed to contain and consolidate power inside itself. Nations needed colonies, the stronger the nation the more colonies it required.  The stronger the nation the more it needed to preserve and control its inner strength and consolidate its sovereignty.

The crisis of economic and political modernity also engendered a crisis of culture and identity. The need to create a culture of otherness was necessary to sustain an identity, it was necessary to engender the concept of a home for the European. The colonised were outside the realm of civilisation. The hierarchy was consolidated in its opposites: the centre was white and European and contained in a sovereign space, the marginal were the colonised, excluded from European space, not only in terms of access to the state, but also in terms of rights, privileges and colour.  Racial difference, the black of the other, equalled evil, barbarity, unrestrained sexuality and irrationality. (Fanon F, 1990)  Barriers were created to ensure that the other had no access; however they were also required so that the identity of the European remained sacrosanct and privileged.

Racial superiority re-enacted the metaphysics of Europe. The centre being the European, the marginal the colonised. The centre owned people who were less sophisticated than themselves, people who were not the same as they were. Dark people in Africa were primitive and uneducated in a western context, they knew little about Christian values and morality. In a perversion of the hierarchy, and at the same time confirming it, those who did not know the gospels needed to be redefined and created. They could then become similar, not wholly marginal, to the European. They could be cared for in that they would learn, and if they refused to learn this new morality, then indeed this was the rationale for exploitation, they were not people. Once converted they became almost human, and it was the task of the European to make them so.  Colonialism happened by stealth as European missionaries converted people and promised them more than just what the earth had to offer them. It also happened due to need, African chiefs were willing to enter into treaties with the European, land and access to raw materials was exchanged for other goods and services as well as a semblance of security. And colonisation happened by force, where there was resistance to the European this was put down by the gun.

The colonised then in turn nurtured their own expressions of the colonised identity. They froze the system by performing the role of the outsider. There was a coloniser behind the imperialist deeds, at the same time the coloniser was reinforced and constructed by the deeds themselves and by the people upon whom it imposed these deeds. The colonised became subservient, servile and appeared to loose their cultural and social roots. The empirical history of the colonised was erased in the writings of the European. They occupied a position which was no where, outside the binary oppositions of the civilised. The history of the colonised, the ethnicity, the culture and the language existed outside the boundaries of the normal, outside the boundaries of any articulated discourse.

And where were the colonies? Africa was the obvious territory. And so there was a scramble for Africa. In 1884 von Bismarck, the German chancellor, initiated a conference. Africa was divided up between European nations. The division of Africa between the European countries was based upon several factors, the most important one being access to trade routes. This was particularly important where rivers flowed from a vast distance in the hinterland to the sea, for instance the Congo and the Niger. Natural resources in the form of what could be grown in the region were the second important factor, and thereafter the mineral wealth of the different pieces of land was divided up. At the end of the conference the Treaty of Berlin was entered into. African borders had been created regardless of people, based solely upon European needs. Little or no interest was paid to ethnic groups, linguistics or political forms that existed. While not being arbitrary to the European, the borders were arbitrary to indigenous people. Where before groups in different spaces were established in relation to religious and spiritual belief, language structure and tribal custom, now these groups which may have been antagonistic towards each other or which may have been oblivious to their neighbours were forced into a colony where it was mandatory to co-exist regardless of previous historical locations. They were compelled to either manage their co-existence, or to battle it out for control.

And so there is a mess. There are many examples of how this African mess has been played out. Somalia, where the Northern territory also known as Somaliland has for years been subjugated by the more war like peoples in the southern area, Mali where Bambara and Fulani co-exist, however the Bambara, being the largest and more powerful people dominate all economic structures and government, in addition to this the Tuarag people who resided in the Sahara near Timbuktu have for years tried unsuccessfully to move away from the country Mali and establish their own independent space, Rwanda where the Tutsi Hutu war has been ongoing …. And the list goes on. (International Refugee Committee, 2003)

The arbitrary borders and the crushing together of groups of people who traditionally were antagonistic to each other, as well as the economic importance of mineral wealth and crops have created war and devastation. And it has created refugees.

In Africa the refugee “problem” is everywhere. (International refugee Committee, 2003) Governments of African states bemoan the ever present stream of people entering their country from different countries, legislation is enacted which prevents refugees from streaming over borders, humanitarian organisations constantly try to alleviate the plight of these displaced people: food aid, refugee camps and medical assistance. But no one ever questions the fact that there are refugees or who these people really are in relation to the African space.  No one ever wonders as to what the concept of a refugee really means and what it does for the state that does exist, whether the state has been arbitrarily created or not.

Stateless refugees, the emergence of thousands of displaced persons, symbolises the triumph of the nation state. The use of political and national criteria to determine who belongs to a particular community, and therefore who does not belong, has defined and sanctified the state. (Arendt, H, 1986)

REPRESENTATION AND REFUGEES
There is power in representation. The manner of representation of the colonised by the European was based upon an ostensible realistic conception of those that were the other. There was a colonial reality that was directly apprehensible by the European who, through the manner of their description, projected an image of the truth. The words used created those in the colonies, as did those used to represent people who had been expelled from their particular bounded land. The representation of good versus evil, black versus white, being versus nothing, truth versus error and so on. (Derrida J, 1996) Word images of people, those who live in their arbitrary created states, those who crept over arbitrary borders to escape persecution or to go back to the land where they were arbitrarily placed, were developed and perpetuated.

The discourse on forced migration refers to refugees, asylum seekers and those who are internally displaced people from their own country by economic hardship or war. There are also migrants and immigrants, those who move voluntarily for various reasons. Is there a real difference between refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people, or is it merely a difference in a word. People are forced to move from their country, their sovereign state, for various reasons, but they have to move, they have to cross an arbitrary created border. Different words, which are then imposed upon them, then define how they have become homeless, they are represented differently, but they are homeless nonetheless. In this article I have used the word refugee to describe all people who have been deprived of their homes; the technical arbitrary manner in which they have been divided by name is not expanded upon.

The word which creates the concept of a refugee indicates homelessness; there is the unfolding of a unified story, refugees no matter who they are, are a unified conglomeration of people without a home, without a country, they have a unified destiny which is equal to emptiness. They are the opposite of the western which is the safety of a home and the sovereignty of a state. Their local history and culture is expunged, as has there been the expunging of a home. There is a domination of the universal narrative which is that a home means belonging and therefore acceptance. Refugees are denied any form of self representation; they are represented by someone else. They are silent and wordless for they have no home or country. They are the other.

The origin of the word refugee is French. The English term is derived from the French, where it originally referred to the Huguenots who were displaced by Louis XIV during the crisis of 1685 where the clashes between the French Catholics and the Protestants lead to the majority of the Huguenots being expelled from France. Refugee did not mean the movement of persons to another country because they were fleeing war or poverty or persecution, it meant that they literally had to move out of the country by law, they were the enemy. The state of France wanted to preserve its French Catholics intact consequently the Protestants had to move. The term meant someone who had been removed by law; it was illegal for him to remain in his country of origin.  A refugee was the enemy. Nowadays the meaning of the term has changed; refugees are not always removed by law, although they are often removed by law from the state into which they flee. But there is always the connotation of statelessness, of not having a home.  They are still the enemy.

Refugees are constituted by the language that describes them. They are represented by a term in which the power of representation lies with the person who is describing them, the law maker who wishes to rid the country of refugees, the humanitarian aid worker who wishes to provide food and shelter. These people, this empire, has control of meaning, the refugee himself is powerless in relation to how he is defined. A refugee is different, he is not the same. A refugee has no home, he is stateless, and therefore no truth emanates from him. He does not exude anything that may be positive. He has no story to tell, other than the stories that recreate his neediness and outside ness.

In the following interview a refugee articulates his understanding of outside ness. He conveys this by reference to his different vaccination marks by which he maybe identified as not belonging. He knows that he is understood to be outside the morality of the state in which he has arrived by stating that ‘they’ say he is a thief, he is not needed. At the same time he tries to make himself belong by saying that he has possessions, he has belongings and that they are where he is. He attempts to persuade us that he may have a home if he has his belongings with him. But even these are taken away so as to ensure his continued status as someone who has so space or possessions.

“One day the police arrived and searched us, and found that I had the vaccination mark and arrested me. They took us to jail where we spent three days. They sent us home on the train. When I arrived in Ressano Garcia, I fled and went back to South Africa. ……………. I was arrested in 1996. When I was arrested they asked me if I was from Mozambique and I told them. I didn’t need to hide that from them because they knew. They told me they were looking for us. They said it is because we steal and other things, and because we are not needed. …………… They arrest many people. You can’t work for three days without being arrested. If you have bad luck you won’t finish two days. Sometimes they come and arrest you before pay day and you lose your money. The greatest problem is the way they are arresting people now, the way we lose our belongings. We are here and our belongings are there. They benefit from them. We worry about how we can recover our things. What other alternative is there? Going back there is not possible. If we could recover our things it would be reasonable. We wouldn’t need to go back ever again.”(Interview with Manuel Sibuyi, Simbe, 1996)

The refugee has been assigned an identity by someone else, an identity over which he is powerless in relation to the word that describes him, while at the same time powerless in relation to the place that has, or has not, accepted him. He has no rights, whether these rights may be defined in traditionally democratic forms or whether they be rights recognised by the community into which he has been displaced. He is not a citizen but an outsider. He has no territorial space and is consequently voiceless within that particular space. The state renders him powerless in terms of definition as well as in terms of actual protections and rights, he is a stranger. (Soguk N, 1999)

In the next interview the refugee expresses his identity by stating that he is a prisoner. He is a prisoner both literally, in that he is arrested for being illegally in the state, and at the same time he is metaphorically a prisoner of identity, he has none. He is only sustained so that he will not die. He must survive so that he can remain a refugee in the state. People laugh at him; he is an object of fun, not pity. He is needed to reinforce the rights and privileges of those that do have a home and a nation state.

“I went to South Africa, but the way I went I suffered. There was war in this country. I was drafted into the army and I deserted. I went to live in Maputo. My brother called me there. Then I went to South Africa. It was difficult. ………….. Finally I arrived there and started working. The work didn’t go well. I kept getting arrested by police. When I was arrested, I came back to Mozambique. I was attacked at Ressano Garcia. It was torture because I was a prisoner there and also a prisoner here. When you complain nobody pays attention.  ……….. In spite of all this it was not that important for us. What disturbs me the most is when we are arrested in South Africa and we ask why and they say it is because you are here without authorisation. When you are arrested and you tell the police that you want to go and get your things, they pay no attention. They say you came here with nothing, not even money. I left my things. I have a house. I want to get my zinc sheets. They don’t care. They want us to leave and never come back. They take you to prison, where you stay a week or two or even a month before you go. They only give you enough food so you can sleep, so you don’t die. …………….. We are asking that the government of Mozambique concerns itself with its citizens, they are suffering. They should legalise entrance into South Africa, because we are suffering. Even if it does not affect them they should be concerned with Mozambicans who are mistreated in South Africa. When you are arrested people laugh at you, because they are well off ……….. They should create conditions for us to live freely.   We want there to be a solution between the two governments.” (Interview with Armando Ubisse, Matongomane, 1996)

Within the historical framework of the ever quest for power by the state the notion of the outsider is imperative. The state can retain some power by law, the legal system controls citizens. They have rights and some powers by virtue of the fact that they are citizens. But this state, which is in itself devoid of power in capitalist conditions as the economic class in which ownership is vested defines state power, must be confirmed by itself, it must create a valid reason for its continued existence. It must create sovereignty. The state has power in relation to the stranger, the man without a home, the refugee.

In refugee discourse the question of naming is very seldom addressed.  It is accepted that the refugee is the other, it is accepted that the powerlessness that stems from the name must be perpetuated in order for the state to maintain its sovereign hegemony.  The political power that is contained by the state is regarded as an historical constant.  The refugee cannot change his name, whether or not he is integrated into a community or neighbourhood.

Statehood, as it is defined in the African context is a concept that is arbitrary; it has been imposed and has by western cultural complicity become sacrosanct. Territory that was previously bounded by culture; language and ethnicity is no longer. In its place is the modern nation state. And in the African modern nation, which is in itself powerless in the global empire, there are those who have power and rights, and there are those who are excluded, they are the other, the outsider, the refugee. The maintenance of power by the state is necessarily defined by polarities, good versus evil, and citizens versus refugees. Reality is defined by the word chosen to describe it.  The normal, which in itself is a construction, is the citizen, the excluded, the abnormal, the construction that ensures the maintenance of power, is the refugee. The foreigner has become the refugee, the alien. The humanness of the refugee has been erased in favour of the privileged word for the citizen; he has both a place and a role to play in the maintenance of the sovereign state.

Refugees are:
•    disruptive, they interfere with the modality of the citizen and his rights;
•    victims, they have no food,  they have no home, they therefore have nothing;
•    transitional, they move from place to place depending upon which is the better for them; and
•    are dependant upon others to solve their problems and their plight. (Soguk N, 1999)

“…..When I showed them my ID, they removed the picture from the first page and ordered me into the police van. When I asked them why they were destroying it they said it was a ‘fake ID’. They also said I was ‘too black’ to qualify for a South African.” (Interview with Julio Sibui, 1995)

“……as I was coming back from the shop with my stock they whistled to me saying’ tsotsie kom hier’. Since I could not leave my stock and go to them I decided to stay where I was and wait for taxis. …. Two of them approached me and asked why I was refusing to heed their call. As I was trying to explain, the black police officer asked where I as coming from and the white policeman asked me for a passport and ID. When I produced them both, they looked at them for a minute and commanded me to carry my goods and follow them. I was thrown into the van with my stock…………” (Interview with Boaventura Ndlovu, 1995)

HOSPITALITY AND THE CREATION OF A HOME
An aporia is associated with hospitality. Genuine hospitality is not, strictly speaking, in the modern state a possible scenario. Hospitality, asylum to refugees, is only possible if we contemplate giving up everything that we seek to possess and call our own. Once this is recognised then the difficulty in enacting any absolute hospitality may be understood. Despite this, however, the whole idea of hospitality depends upon such an altruistic concept, giving up our home, and is inconceivable without it.  This internal tension keeps the concept of hospitality and the need for refugee legislation alive.

There is a more existential example of this tension, in that the notion of hospitality requires one to be the ‘master’ of the house, country or nation (and hence controlling). To be hospitable, it is first necessary that one must have the power to host. Hospitality hence makes claims to property ownership and it also partakes in the desire to establish a form of self-identity. Secondly, there is the further point that in order to be hospitable, the host must also have some kind of control over the people who are being hosted. This is because if the guests take over a house through force, then the host is no longer being hospitable towards them precisely because he is no longer in control of the situation. This means that any attempt to behave hospitably is also always partly betrothed to the keeping of guests under control, to the closing of boundaries, to nationalism, and even to the exclusion of particular groups or ethnicities.

In the following interview the refugee knows that he will never be offered or given hospitality by the state into which he has come.  He states that young people are arrested, they have no money, and they are not offered any form of succour. He cannot make a home as the state into which he has come is inhospitable; he knows this as a root of family is denied to him, he cannot pay lobola, he is denied a wife.

“……………. Now there is this problem of arresting young people. They don’t let them take their things, nothing. When they are found they are arrested, without money, without food. When they are left in Ressano Garcia those with money go right back in. the others have to come all the way home and stay, because they have no money to go back. What can we do with these boys? ………………. He needs to work to pay lobola. We don’t have cattle anymore for our sons. I am old now, I can’t do anything for him. If he wants to bring a wife home he needs to work but when he goes to work in South Africa he is arrested. What can he do? See, he is growing a beard already, sitting there, and he has no work and no wife. Here if you want to work you have to study, it’s the only way to get a job. …………….” (Interview with Alberto Chauke, 1996)

Thus the possible conception of hospitality necessarily renders the “other others” as strangers and refugees. (Derrida J, 1997)  Whether one invokes the current international preoccupation with border control, or simply the ubiquitous suburban fences and alarm systems, it seems that hospitality always posits some kind of limit upon where the other can trespass, and hence has a tendency to be rather inhospitable. The law reflects this hospitability, it creates systems and boundaries within which the stranger may reside in the state, may develop and create a home.

On the other hand, as well as demanding some kind of mastery of house, country or nation, there is a sense in which the notion of hospitality demands a welcoming of whomever, or whatever, may be in need of that hospitality. It follows from this that unconditional hospitality, or we might say ‘impossible’ hospitality, hence involves a relinquishing of judgement and control in regard to who will receive that hospitality. In other words, hospitality also requires non-mastery, and the abandoning of all claims to property, or ownership. If that is the case, however, the ongoing possibility of hospitality thereby becomes circumvented, as there is no longer the possibility of hosting anyone, as again, there is no ownership or control.  (Derrida J, 1997)

In legal discourse ‘immigration control’ (Derrida J, 1997) means, after an analysis of legislation and policy, that asylum can only be granted to those who cannot expect the slightest economic benefit upon immigration. This is in itself absurd, how a refugee can understand that he is welcome and that the new state is extending a form of hospitality if that welcome does not entail some form of economic gain. The refugee will have to find a means of earning an income; he is not in the same legislation being placed in the care of the state. And yet how can the refugee expect to obtain some form of economic benefit from the host state without taking away the ownership of that state. It is therefore almost impossible to grant asylum or refuge to the refugee.  A refugee is not just requesting visitor’s rights, he has no home and by virtue of this condition has no name and no means of acquiring one.

There have been a number of recent international cases where the plight of refugees has been recognised. This has resulted in international interventions. There appears to be a greater consideration towards refugees than there has been at other times. However an analysis of this recent intervention, for instance in Iraq to save the Kurds, in Somalia, in Bosnia and Haiti, is at first gaze humanitarian, at second it appears to be based upon considerations of the intervening states security. Refugees pose a threat to others; their suffering is not a consideration for intervention. (Mills K, 1998)  They may overtake and abuse the hospitality extended to them, they may wish to create a home, so this hospitality is controlled. State based power and objective remain paramount even when humanitarian objectives are being espoused. (Soguk N, 1999)

The effect of a refugee discourse is to efface the humanity of the refugee in order to privilege the sovereignty of the state and maintain its territoriality.  A refugee cuts across the known space of the state; he creates a new space that cannot, by virtue of legality, be subject to the traditional notions of boundary.

REFUGEES AND INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS
The United Nations Protocol (United Nations Protocol, 1951), read with the Statute of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (U.N.G.A Res. 428(v), 1950) defines a refugee in board terms as “any person who, as a result of events occurring before 1 January 1951 and owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, member ship of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his or her nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.” This definition was later extended to include non European persons. (United Nations Protocol, 1967)

Refugees are defined in relation to their outside ness, they are outside their country of origin, they cannot go back to the country in which they traditionally reside, they cannot avail themselves of the protections that that country may offer to persons who are being persecuted. They had a home, they no longer have one. The representation is one in which there is a lack, they cannot do certain things. The notion of their own particular sovereign state is affirmed. It is the country that they have come from that is the perpetrator of the persecution. The concept of a state is therefore affirmed in both negative and positive terms. The state from which they came from is the abuser; the host state is the generous asylum giver. An internationally recognised protocol determines their lack, and the negative or positive fullness of the respective state.

The African Protocol defines a refugee by utilising the United Nations definition, but it also extends it to include “persons, who owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order in either part or the whole of his country of origin or nationality is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge in another place outside his country of origin or nationality.” (Organisation of African Unity Convention, 1969)

The African definition, while affirming the concept of the state, nevertheless recognises that a refugee may exist as a result of foreign intervention in the particular state. It recognises that governments of a country may have lost control due to something external, some aggression that has disrupted the state and has come from outside. The state itself does not have to be the perpetrator of the abuse, it may be receiving the abuse from outside, nevertheless it is a bordered state that has a definition and a meaning. At the same time, which may be as a result of the manner in which borders were arbitrarily imposed, the OAU Convention recognises that the state itself may be divided, it is not whole, in that it recognises that a state may only be partially a site of disturbance and abuse. The refugee does not have to seek assistance within their country of origin, they may flee their home even if their home is in a country that is only partially disrupted.

The international definition of the term refugee cannot recognise that states are divided. The modern notion of a state is that it is unifies and one, it is not partial otherwise it could not be a state. This definition affirms the notion that states are for those inside it, territorially bound, whether this bounded ness is negative or positive. The African definition can move towards identifying a lack in the state. Africans have been defined in terms of a lack or a negation by Europeans; they can identify this lack for themselves and acknowledge it. And yet the refugee is even outside of this unwholesome entity.

SOUTH AFRICAN DEFINITIONS OF A REFUGEE
Prior to the enactment of the Refugee Act (No 130 of 1998) the legislation that previously determined the status of persons who wished to immigrant or move to the country was governed by the Aliens Control Act (No 96 of 1991). In this legislation persons who were fleeing their country of origin were treated in the same way as all persons who wished to reside in the country, their movement into and their departure from was considered only in terms of employment and stability. Soon after the 1994 democratic elections South Africa, now as a state which enjoyed the privileged position of all international states by virtue of having obtained a legitimate democracy, recognised the need for legislation that dealt specifically with persons who were not necessarily moving into the country voluntarily. In drafting policy the government specified that legislation was needed to protect persons temporarily where their country of origin did not accord them this protection. For refugees the object of movement was not because they wished to leave their own countries, but because these countries did not provide them with security and basic human rights. (Green Paper on International Migration)

In the legislation the definition of a refugee, which is set out in section 3, is any person (a) “owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted by reason of his or her race, tribe, religion, nationality, political opinion or member ship of a particular social group, is outside the country of his or her nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it; or (b) owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing or disrupting public order in either part or the whole of his country of origin or nationality is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge elsewhere; or (c) is a dependant of a person contemplated in paragraphs (a) or (b).”

The definitions in the Refugee Act are substantially the same as the definitions in the UN Protocol and the OAU Protocol. The definitions themselves create the category of otherness, outside ness. Refugees who comply with this provision cannot be excluded from the country should they make application to come to South Africa, they cannot be refused entry. However who defines whether or not a person complies with the definition is determined by a committee of experts, a Standing Committee (Section 10 and 11 of the Refugee Act). The standing committee has extensive powers to determine the procedures for the granting of refugee status and asylum and thereafter regulate the Refugee Reception office and the actions of the Refugee Status Determination Officer. The Refugee Status Officer determines who complies with the definition of a refugee, and the office processes the applications. Section 11 states that “the Standing Committee –
(a) may formulate and implement procedure for the granting of asylum;
(b) regulate and supervise the work of the Refugee reception Offices;
(c) ……..
(d) advise the Minister or Director General on any matter referred to it …….
(e)Must review decisions by the refugee Status Determination Officers in respect of any manifestly unfounded applications ….
(f) ……

The Act also prescribes an extensive application procedure that refugees have to go through before they actually have the name refugee assigned to them, prior to this they have even less than a signifier that is defined by absence, they have no name, they are not people, they have no home, either physically or in language.

CONCLUSION
All discourse and legislation seeks to own, control and master the other when inviting him in. There is a history of hospitality, but this hospitality is, and can never be, unconditional. It is therefore a perversion of the ethic of hospitality. It is limited and inscribed with what we define as our own: our own country, our own security, our own possessions, our own home. There is no open invitation to someone who is outside, marginal and who has no definition.  Refugees will, and must, continue to remain outside both the state and language so that our state and language may continue to be sustained.

REFERENCES
1.    United Nations Protocol, 1951

2.    U.N.G.A Res. 428(V), 1950

3.    United Nations Protocol, 1967

4.    Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention, 1969

5.    The Refugee Act, No 130 of 1998

6.    The Aliens Control Act, No96 of 1991

7.    Green Paper on International Migration, Department of Home Affairs, Government of South Africa

8.    Arendt, H The Origins of Totalitarianism  Andre Deutch, London, 1986

9.    Derrida, J Of Grammatology John Hopkins University Press, 1996

10.    Derrida, J On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness  Routledge Press, 1997

11.    Fanon, F The Wretched of the Earth Penguin Books, UK. 1990

12.    Hardt, M & Negri, A  Empire Harvard university Press, 2000

13.    Mills, K United Nations Intervention in Refugee Crises After the Cold War International Politics, Vol. 35, No 4 December 1998

14.    Romano, C Violating Sovereignty: Questioning a Concepts Long Reign The Chronicle Review, September 2004

15.    Soguk, N States and Strangers – Refugees and the Displacement of Statecraft Minneapolis University, University of Minnesota Press, 1999

16.    Beyond Control: Immigration and Human Rights in a Democratic South Africa. (Edited by J Crush) IDASA & Queens University, Canada, 1998

17.    International Refugee Committee. New York, 2003