The Territories of Deconstruction 1984–1986 375
admiration’, Derrida goes far beyond a mere homage. He puts
forward a veritable analysis of what is most specifi c about the
person, the attitude, and the writings of the former leader of the
ANC. ‘Why does he also force one to admire him?’ he wonders. It
is mainly because ‘Mandela’s political experience or passion can
never be separated from a theoretical refl ection: on history, culture,
and above all, law.’^55 What Derrida fi nds in Nelson Mandela is a
fi gure he had dreamed of ever since the Algerian War: a man able
to turn the English democratic model against the proponents of
apartheid; a sort of deconstructor in action. ‘In all the senses of this
term, Mandela remains, then, a man of law. He has always appealed
to right even if, in appearance, he had to oppose himself to this or
that determinate legality, and even if certain judges made of him, at
certain moments, an outlaw.’^56 The distinction Mandela establishes
between obedience to the law and obedience to an even more imperi-
ous conscience is in many respects close to the opposition between
law and justice which Derrida was to develop a few years later in
Force of Law.
At this time, Derrida was also starting to tackle theological and reli-
gious questions that would assume an increasing place in his work.
In June 1986, he opened the conference ‘Absence and Negativity’
organized by the Hebrew University and the Institute for Advanced
Studies in Jerusalem, with a paper called ‘How to avoid speak-
ing: denials’. In a discussion of negative theology and the work of
Dionysius the Areopagite (known as pseudo- Dionysius), Derrida
conducts a dialogue with his former student Jean-Luc Marion,
the author of The Idol and Distance and God without Being.
Comparisons – of a somewhat critical nature – were drawn between
Derrida’s work and negative theology, a movement which he
admitted had always fascinated him:
I objected in vain to the assimilation of the thinking of the
trace or of diff erance [sic] to some negative theology, and my
response amounted to a promise: one day I will stop deferring,
one day I will try to explain myself directly on this subject, and
at last speak of ‘negative theology’ itself, assuming that some
such thing exists. [.. .]
Having already promised, as if in spite of myself, I did not
know how I could keep this promise. [.. .] Above all, I did not
know when and where I would do it. Next year in Jerusalem, I
told myself, in order perhaps to defer indefi nitely the fulfi lment
of this promise. But also to let myself know – and I did indeed
receive the message – that on the day when I would in fact go to
Jerusalem, it would no longer be possible to delay. It will then
be necessary to do it.^57