Rey, Jean-Michel
Constructing the ‘Foreign Body’
- 2014.
61
It is based on a distorted theology or through empty notions that a society constructs a ‘foreign body’. This capacity for violent rejection is found in our history at the beginning of Christianity with the ‘Verus Israël’, during the religious wars, in the Dreyfus Affair and during the last war (extending into the Finaly Affair). It is phrases or stereotypes that serve as a support for the exclusion and then assume legal force. The rejection occurs in the name of a Unity proclaimed as absolute and generally has the effect of instigating a civil war. Medical metaphor plays a crucial role in a prophylactic perspective. This way of operating transcends ideological differences. It is, in each case, civilisation that must be saved from a mortal ill. Every rhetorical device is used here.