Exile

Exile: see Babylonian captivity.

exile, removal of a national from his or her country, or the civilized parts of it, for a long period of time or for life. Exile may be a forceful expulsion by the government or a voluntary removal by the citizen, sometimes in order to escape punishment. In ancient Greece, exile was often the penalty for homicide, while ostracism was a common punishment for those accused of political crimes. In early Rome a citizen under sentence of death had a choice between exile and death. In this case, exile was a means of escaping a greater punishment. During the Roman Empire, deportation to certain islands became a general punishment for serious crimes. The ancient Hebrews allowed those who committed homicide to take refuge in designated cities of sanctuary. Until 1776, certain types of English criminals were transported to the American colonies, and later, until 1853, they were sent to penal settlements in Australia. Both the Russian czarist and Communist regimes have transported prisoners to Siberia. With the growth of nation-states and the acceptance of the doctrine that ties between state and citizen are indissoluble, exile for criminal reasons has become infrequent. However, modern civil wars and revolutions have produced many political exiles, including large numbers of refugees who have been victims of the upheavals in some manner. Such exiles are not subject to extradition and may demand protection from the country receiving them. The concept of "government in exile"—one person or a group of persons living outside their state and claiming to be the rightful government—has become accepted in international law during the 20th cent. This situation usually arises when a warring state is occupied by the enemy and its government is forced to seek asylum in another state. The government is recognized as lawful if it attempts to regain control and if it has armed forces integrated in a large alliance. During World War II, the monarchs and governments of Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium (without the king), and Yugoslavia were exiled in London, while the governments of Charles de Gaulle of France and Eduard Beneš of Czechoslovakia were formed in exile. See deportation; refugee.

Exile means to be away from one's home (i.e. city, state or country) while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened by prison or death upon return. It can be a form of punishment.

It is common to distinguish between internal exile, i.e., forced resettlement within the country of residence, and external exile, deportation outside the country of residence.

Exile can also be a self-imposed departure from one's homeland. Self-exile is often practiced as form of protest or to avoid persecution.

Personal exile

Exile was used particularly for political opponents of those in power. The use of exile for political purposes can sometimes be useful for the government because it prevents the exilee from organizing in their native land or from becoming a martyr. People feared exile and banishment so much because it effectively meant that they were going to die. In European history, at a time prior to Roman invasion, people lived completely co-dependently in farm towns where everyone had a function. Exile represented a severe punishment, particularly for those, like Ovid or Du Fu, exiled to strange or backward regions, cut off from all of the possibilities of life as well as their families and associates. Dante describes the pain of exile in The Divine Comedy:

«. . . Tu lascerai ogne cosa diletta

più caramente; e questo è quello strale

che l'arco de lo essilio pria saetta.

Tu proverai sì come sa di sale

lo pane altrui, e come è duro calle

lo scendere e 'l salir per l'altrui scale . . .»

". . . You will leave everything you love most:

this is the arrow that the bow of exile

shoots first. You will know how salty

another's bread tastes and how hard it

is to ascend and descend

another's stairs . . ."

Paradiso XVII: 55-60

Exile has been softened, to some extent, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as exiles have received welcome in other countries and have either created new communities within those countries or, less frequently, returned to their homelands following the demise of the regime that exiled them.

Government in exile

During a foreign occupation or after a coup d'etat, a government in exile of a such afflicted country may be established abroad. One of the most well-known instances of this is the Central Tibetan Administration, a government in exile led by the Dalai Lama in India, who claims to be the legitimate ruler of the historical Tibet‎.

Nation in exile

When large groups, 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 Jews, who were deported by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon in 597 BC and again in the years following the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem in the year AD 70. 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 Austro-Hungary), many Poles have chosen - or been forced - to go into exile, forming large diasporas (known as Polonia), especially in France and the United States.The entire population of Crimean Tatars (200,000) that remained in their homeland Crimea was exiled on 18 May 1944 to Central Asia as a form of ethnic cleansing and collective punishment on false accusations. At Diego Garcia, between 1967 and 1973 the British Government forcibly removed some 2,000 Chagossian resident islanders to make way for a military base today jointly operated by the US and UK.

Tax exile

A wealthy citizen who departs from a former abode for a lower tax jurisdiction (a "tax haven") in order to reduce his/her tax burden is termed a tax exile.

Notable people who have been in exile

• Holly Ann Collins‎ and her three children were the only Americans that were granted asylum in the Netherlands in 1997.
• Julia the Elder, daughter of Augustus and exiled by him from Rome until her death (2 to 14 or 15).
• Seneca the Younger, exiled from Rome 41-49 by Caligula
• Charlie Chaplin, in exile from the United States 1952-1972.
• The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso exiled to India from Tibet in 1959.
• Pablo Neruda, 1948-1952.
• Bahadur Shah Zafar, last Mughal King exiled to Rangoon after 1857.
• Wajid Ali Shah, last King of Awadh exiled to Calcutta.
• Abd el-Krim, the Riffian guerilla leader, exiled from Morocco to the island of Réunion (a French territory).
• Manuel Altolaguirre, exiled from Spain, to Cuba and Mexico.
• Michel Aoun, exiled from Lebanon, to France, returned in May 2005
• Reinaldo Arenas exiled from Cuba, to United States
• Nawaz Sharif exiled from Pakistan, to Saudi Arabia and then moved to England and some other countries.
• Muhammad exiled from Mecca in 622 to Medina. Returned to Mecca 8 years later.
• Mirza Tahir Ahmad 4th Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, exiled from Pakistan in 1984, died in London in 2003
• Shahbaz Sharif exiled from Pakistan, to Saudi Arabia.
• Aloysius Ambrozic
• Regent of Hungary, Miklós Horthy exiled Cascais, Portugal
• Umberto II, King of Italy exiled to Portugal
• Jean-Bertrand Aristide, exiled from Haiti, to Venezuela and United States (1990-1994), and then to Central African Republic and South Africa (2004-present)
• Miguel Ángel Asturias exiled from Guatemala to France
• Francisco Ayala, exiled from Spain to Argentina
• Michel Bakunin, fled from Russia
• Emperor Bao Dai of Vietnam
• Crown Prince Bao Long of Vietnam
• Saint Thomas à Becket, fled to France
• Gioconda Belli, exiled from Nicaragua, to Mexico
• Napoleon I exiled from France to Elba and, later, St Helena
• Napoleon III went into exile in England.
• King Kigeli V of Rwanda exiled from Rwanda to Uganda and, later, received political asylum to live in the United States
• Andrej Bajuk
• Willy Brandt exiled to Norway and Sweden, during the Nazi era
• Bertolt Brecht
• Breyten Breytenbach
• Joseph Brodsky, exiled from Soviet Union to United States
• Lord Byron, exiled from United Kingdom, to Italy and Ottoman Empire
• Pau Casals, self-exiled during the Spanish Civil War, vowing not to return before democracy was restored in Spain. He died in exile, in 1973. Francisco Franco died in 1975, restoring the monarchy, which became constitutional by degrees.
• Alejo Carpentier, exiled from Cuba to Haiti and Venezuela
• Frédéric Chopin, exiled from Poland to France
• Marcus Tullius Cicero, exiled in 58 BC in a political controversy that involved his execution of six members of a conspiracy to overthrow the Roman Republic. He was recalled a year later to cheering crowds.
• El Cid, banned from Castile, served other Iberian kings ending with the conquest of Valencia
• Dante Alighieri, Medieval Itialian poet and author of the Divine Comedy, Sentenced to two years of Exile and forced to pay a fine when the Black Guelfs took control of Florence. However Dante could not pay his fine because he was staying at Rome at the request of Pope Boniface VIII and was considered to be an absconder and sentenced to permanent exile.
• Nadia Comăneci, famous Romanian gymnast, self-exiled to United States
• Lluís Companys, exiled from Catalonia, Spain to France in 1939 after the Spanish Civil War
• Gustave Courbet, French painter, died in political exile from France
• Celia Cruz, exiled from Cuba to United States
• Humberto Delgado, exiled from Portugal to Brazil and Algeria
• Porfirio Díaz, exiled from Mexico to France
• Ariel Dorfman, exiled from Chile, to United States
• Du Fu
• Jean-Claude Duvalier, exiled form Haiti to France
• Albert Einstein self-exiled from Germany to the United States
• Farinelli self exiled from Italy to Spain
• Lion Feuchtwanger,
• Sigmund Freud self exiled from Austria to United Kingdom
• Alberto Fujimori, exiled from Peru to Japan
• Eduardo Galeano, exiled from Uruguay to Argentine and Spain
• Garibaldi exiled to South America
• Francisco de Goya exiled to Bordeaux as afrancesado
• Jorge Guillén
• Heinrich Heine
• Victor Hugo exiled from France to the Channel Islands
• Juan Ramón Jiménez, fled to United States, Cuba, and finally to Puerto Rico
• Arthur Koestler
• Kim Dae-jung
• Idi Amin, exiled to Libya, and Saudi Arabia until his death.
• Konstantinos Karamanlis
• Ruhollah Khomeini, exiled from Iran to Turkey, then exiled from Turkey to Iraq. Later exiled from Iraq to France.
• Pavel Kohout
• Milan Komar
• Jan Amos Komenský
• Tadeusz Kościuszko
• Lajos Kossuth
• Prince Norodom Sihanouk, exiled from Cambodia to China and North Korea twice.
• Peter Kropotkin
• Lenin self-exiled to Switzerland
• Lotte Lehmann
• Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio (Spain's equivalent to Shakespeare) exiled 8 years from Castille for slander.
• Fernão Lopez self-exile to Saint Helena
• La Lupe, to Puerto Rico and United States
• Heinrich Mann self-exile to Switzerland and to the United States
• Thomas Mann self-exile to Switzerland and to the United States, moved back to Switzerland
• Ferdinand Marcos exiled from the Philippines to Hawaii
• Karl Marx self-exiled from Germany to Great Britain
• José Martí
• Giuseppe Mazzini
• Rigoberta Menchú, exiled from Guatemala, to Mexico
• Josef Mengele, fled Nazi Germany after the war to South America
• Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov
• Ezekiel Mphahlele, exiled from South Africa to Kenya, Zambia and United States
• Adam Mickiewicz
• Mobutu Sese Seko
• Mireya Moscoso, fled to Spain
• Kwame Nkrumah exiled from Ghana to Guinea
• Juan Carlos Onetti exiled from Uruguay to Spain until his death
• Ovid
• Shahrnush Parsipur, exiled from Iran to the United States of America
• Víctor Paz Estenssoro, exiled from Bolivia to Argentina, Perú
• Carlos Andrés Pérez, exiled from Venezuela, to Colombia, Costa Rica, and United States
• Marcos Pérez Jiménez, exiled from Venezuela to United States and Spain
• Juan Perón exiled from Argentina to Paraguay and Spain
• Saint-John Perse exiled from Vichy France to United States
• Bob Powell
• Ferenc Puskás from Hungary to Spain
• Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, fled to Mexico
• Franc Rode
• Romain Rolland, fled to Switzerland
• Wilhelm Röpke fled Germany during Nazi rule
• Prince Sauryavong Savang, lives in exile in Paris, France
• Crown Prince Soulivong Savang, lives in exile in Paris, France
• Jorge Semprún, exiled from Spain, to France
• Costas Simitis, exiled from Greece, to Germany
• Prince Mangkra Souvannaphouma, lives in exile in Paris, France
• Prince Nguyen Phuc Buu Chanh of Vietnam, lives in exile in the United States
• Prince Hso Khan Pha lives in exile in Canada
• Fernando Savater
• Benjamin Seheneexiled from Rwanda to Uganda and, later,to Canada
• Emperor Amha Selassie I, lived in exile in Switzerland and Great Britain and United States.
• Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia
• Crown Prince Zera Yacob Amha Selassie lived in exile in Djibouti, Israel, Great Britain, and United States
• Juliusz Slowacki
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn exiled from the Soviet Union, returned after the fall of Communism
• Mário Soares
• Wole Soyinka
• Alfredo Stroessner exile from Paraguay to Brazil
• Sun Yat-sen
• Oliver Tambo
• Leon Trotsky, exiled to Siberia, and later to Turkey, France, Norway and Mexico
• Xiao Qiang, exiled from China, to United States
• Miguel de Unamuno confined to Fuerteventura, fled to France.
• Clement Vallandigham, exiled to the Confederate States of America, to Bermuda, then Canada
• Caetano Veloso, exiled from Brazil to United Kingdom
• Bruno Walter
• Wilhelm II of Prussia and Germany, exiled from Prussia and Germany to The Netherlands
• Mohammad Zaher Shah exile from Afghanistan to Italy
• Nicholas I of Montenegro
• Carlos Salinas de Gortari self-exiled to Ireland
• The Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, by virtue of his marriage to Wallis Simpson and his falling-out with the Royal Family and his brother King George VI, to France
• John Calvin, exiled from Switzerland to France, but later let back into Switzerland, due to change in government
• Hector Gramajo, fled the United States to avoid facing charges filed under the Torture Victim Protection Act
• Cesar Vallejo, fled from Peru to France in fear of further incarceration by the government. He would spend the rest of his life in France, mainly, Paris.
• Benazir Bhutto, exiled from Pakistan to Dubai

Fictional characters in exile

• Yoda went into self exile after the Great Jedi Purge in Episode III of Star Wars.
• In Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, after defeating Sir Leopold, the player's party are blamed by Captain Marcello for an attempted assassination of the Lord High Priest, causing High Priest Rolo and the player's party to be subsequently banished to Purgatory Island.
• In The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, Kovu is banished from the Pride Lands after being accused of plotting to kill King Simba.
• In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is exiled to Mantua after killing Tybalt.
• Lord Voldemort goes to self exile in Albania after losing his physical form in Godric's Hollow in 1981.
• Ender Wiggin is exiled from Earth after winning the Bugger War in the Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game.
• In the book The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, Aragorn is the heir in exile to the throne of Gondor.
• In the television series Avatar: The Last Airbender, Prince Zuko is exiled from the Fire Nation by his father, and tasked with finding the Avatar.
• Chancellor Sutler is in self-exile in the film V for Vendetta.
• In the British sci-fi TV series Doctor Who, The Doctor was exiled to Earth by his own people, the Time Lords for interfering in the affairs of other planets. He was also forced to regenerate in order to help conceal his identity. All this happened in the 1969 story The War Games. This was the last Doctor Who story to feature Patrick Troughton as the Doctor. He was eventually forgiven by his own people and allowed to roam the Universe again in the 1972-73 adventure The Three Doctors, by this time starring Jon Pertwee as the Doctor.
• In the TV series 24, Jack Bauer went into self-exile, after being threatened with being extradited for torture in a Chinese prison camp following the events of Season 4.
• Oedipus went into self exile after finding out that he had killed his father and slept with his mother (Sophocles)
• Agave went into self exile after killing her son Pentheus (Euripedes)
• Thyestes was sent into exile after raping his brother's wife (Aeschylus)
• Orestes was sent into exile by his mother Clytaemnestra but returned to kill her in the garb of a stranger (Aeschylus)
• Emperor Mark II of the Vulgarian Empire to the United States

See also

• Ban
• Ostracism
• Penal transportation
• Refugee
• Right of asylum (political asylum)
• Scouts-in-Exile

References