The view that citizenship is the source of human rights is attributed to Hannah Arendt because of the memorable phrase ‘right to have rights.’ We argue against this now iconic view. Far from creating human rights, citizenship both as a concept and in practice is squarely anti-rights. Rather, rights come into their own when they counter the violence of citizenship. We proceed in three steps. First. Attributing citizenship as the source of rights to Arendt is contextually, structurally, and substantively misplaced. Contextually, Arendt sought to diagnose the temporal problem of the plight of refugees and the rise of police powers. No general inference on citizenship and rights can be drawn. Structurally, the inference that the alternative is citizenship is mistakenly attributed to Arendt by commentators operating within a ‘citizenism’ trap where a benign and all-pervasive idea of citizenship structures all relationships. Substantively, Arendt did not consider global inequality and the colonial structuring of empires, ignoring citizenship’s core function as a tool and othering and subjugation. Second. Citizenship cannot provide the substance for a relational theory of human rights. Contrary to the idea that human entitlements and freedoms can be drawn from citizenship, we first show that citizenship provides the state the entitlement to deny freedoms – people have duties, and the state has rights. Second, we show that far from fostering belonging, citizenship destroys social and intimate association. Third. Discursively, citizenship legitimises majoritarian oppression and serves as incitement of violence against minorities. It is through citizenship discourses that anti-personhood becomes legal, and rights are not attributed to people due to their status as people, but as subjects of objectification and exclusion.
Keywords: Arendt, Citizenship, Rights, Belonging, Exclusion, Violence
