Austria – When democracy is abolished in the name of democracy
On February 1st a very cultured and civilized country in the heart of Europe elected its parliamentary representatives in perfect freedom and the European Union to which it belongs and which defines itself as quintessentially democratic threatened that country and its population with sanctions if the will of the people expressed by that vote were respected. For the sake of a presumed love for democracy, democracy was being threatened. What’s more, the threat came from a Europe that was born by much less democratic means than that of the Austrian government. The citizens of many of the country members of the union have never been allowed to express through a referendum their will to participate in the union or not. The decision was imposed in many cases for better or worse through governmental decisions.
What we witnessed, through the sanctions ostracizing Austrian ambassadors from being received in European capitals on a political level and from the withholding of European support for Austrian candidates to international positions, was the first night performance of union interference in national politics. We also saw which media were in favor of such interference and which spoke up against it. Moreover, we were testimony to the fact that there were no public demonstrations against a European decision whose implications were much more grave and dangerous than Haider’s participation in the government in Vienna.
Admittedly, Haider’s antics were hardly reassuring. And his verbal intemperances lead one to suspect arrières pensées that are even less conforting. However, he was freely elected by a massive consensus by the citizens of his country. It’s true, democracy is not only a question of procedural form, as Nobel peace prize winner Elie Wiesel noted, remembering the precedent of Hitler and Mussolini and their rise to power on the wave of national suffrages. However, the popular vote procedure is still the first guarantee for any democracy and it mustn’t be disavowed on the basis of pure suspicions.
As disquieting as Haider’s expoits may have been, his political style in no way can be said to evoke comparisons with past dictators. Young, sporty and dynamic, easy-going and telegenic, the feared leader of the Austrian extreme right oscillates with nonchalance between extremism and opportunism. He practices the art of making verbal proclamations that correspond to the expectations of whoever his listeners happen to be: An unscrupulous and ambitious politician able and willing to affirm or deny anything according to convenience rather than a momentarily healthy carrier of a potentially dangerous fascist virus.
It was obvious from the onset that the European outrage against Haider was mostly instrumental. Several of the European governments found it convenient to make a monster out of Haider for internal purposes: For French President Jacques Chirac, it was convenient to attack Jorg Haider in order to get rid of Le Pen. For Italy’s then Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema, attacking Haider was a way to neutralize Berlusconi by shooting off at Bossi, calling him the Italian Haider. Bossi was guilty of having aligned his party with Forza Italia for the approaching regional elections. Bossi was obviously a moving target used in order to get at the real fixed target and true fixation of the Left: eliminating Berlusconi as a political opponent.
Most of the national European governments are ruled by leftist coalitions that have been suffering from increasingly unpopular trends in local elections. Feeling threatened by such trends, Haider became the excuse to use a tactic adopted by many “strong,” if not to say dictatorial governments, i.e., distracting public opinion from unpopular issues at home with more or less abstract international policies and politics abroad. It’s hardly a coincidence that such an unexpected anti-Austrian uproar occurred during the very days when the Euro began its descent below the dollar with the scope of distracting Europeans from their own economic woes. In a European Union born of economic issues for the sake of economic issues, that is, for a strong Euro against the dollar, a 17% decrease in a year represented not only a major failure in EU economic policy, but that Europeans in general were 17% percent poorer than they were a year earlier. The crusade against Haider was a handy ideological diversion from that reality.
Dealing with the cause and not the effect.
After the fall of communism, Austria found itself on the frontier of a world full of fermentation, infested by mutation and war. Due to the smallness of its size, but even more so due to limitations imposed by its adhesion to the European Union, the country was unable to conduct an autonomous line of political policy toward the countries that were once a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Europe itself has been unable to conduct a strong
and coherent policy regarding the migration of peoples from non-community
countries to those that are members of the European Union. And it
has been Austria that has had to pay the price of this stalemate.
It is the number one front line victim of strong migratory pressure that
has caused radical changes in its social, political, and economic equilibrium.
Haider is not the cause, but rather the effect
of all of this. Haider has no Mein Kampf behind him, but rather an
electorate attached to its own localisms, xenophobic out of a sense of
insecurity brought on by an immigrant presence that exceeds 10% of the
population.
Last Saturday (May 13) the first center-right government in the history of the second Austrian republic celebrated its hundredth day in office. During that time it was conceded no truce, neither at home nor abroad. From the moment the government took office it not only had to contend with the European sanctions but with severe criticism and public protests from the opposition, the Social Democrats and the Greens.
Despite all the obstacles, the new government already has a few feathers in its cap: Foreign minister, Benita Ferrero-Walder has raged a tireless battle against the sanctions, using the leverage of her prestigious position as the present term president of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The young finance minister, Heinz Grasser, won the respect of parliament through his detailed savings program. And the former governor of Austria’s central bank, Maria Schaumayer, was made responsible for the compensation of forced laborers during the Nazi regime.
Notwithstanding the new government’s happy track record, at a recent meeting in the Azores, the Portuguese semester president announced that the union is relentless in its decision to punish Austria. And there doesn’t seem to be much hope for the future either: France’s minister of European affairs announce that there would be no policy change in the second half of the year when the presidency passes on to the French, stating that what was at risk was the coherence of their political message as well as their vision of Europe. What vision of Europe is this with an ostracized link to the East?
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