Extreme Right Emerges As Strong Force in Austria
| More news stories on Europe |
|---|
Ian Traynor, The Guardian (Manchester), September 29, 2008
Austria was shaken by a political earthquake yesterday when the neo-fascist right emerged from a general election as a contender to be the strongest political force in the country for the first time.
The combined forces of the extreme right took 29% of the vote, with Jörg Haider almost tripling the share of his breakaway Movement for Austria’s Future to 11%, while his successor as Freedom party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, saw his party soar to 18%.
The far right’s vote doubled compared with the last election in 2006, putting it within less than a point of overtaking the poll victor, the social democrats.
The two big parties, which have run Austria since the second world war, slumped to their worst ever election toll. The Christian democrats (ÖVP), fared particularly poorly at around 26%, down 8%. The social democrats (SPÖ), under a new leader, Werner Faymann, took around 30% and laid claim to the chancellorship.
The early election was triggered by the collapse in June of the coalition of social and Christian democrats after only 18 months. The extreme-right profited from popular disillusion with the two big parties, which took months to form a “grand coalition” in 2006 and then spent the next 18 months paralysed by internal bickering. The same situation may repeat itself now, with both parties under different leaders and struggling to justify legitimacy.
Faymann, the likely new chancellor, is a 48-year-old from Vienna, who was supported by the main rightwing and fiercely anti-EU tabloid, Kronenzeitung, after he promised to put new EU treaties to a referendum in a country that matches Britain in Euro-scepticism.
The far-right triumph was greater than its breakthrough in 1999 when Haider’s Freedom party came second in a general election with 27% of the vote and entered government, sparking a crisis that saw Austria isolated internationally.
Strache, who has been associated with neo-Nazi militants who deny the Holocaust, according to a court ruling, and who wants a new government ministry created to manage the deportation of immigrants, wound up his campaign at the weekend by calling Muslim women who wear the burqa “female ninjas”.
He talked of east European immigrants to Vienna as “European brothers who don’t want to be Islamised”, while another of his party leaders reminisced about the days when the kiosks on Vienna’s squares sold sausage and wiener schnitzel, rather than “the kebab joints selling falafel and couscous, or whatever you call that stuff”.
Last night Strache said he should be the new chancellor. “Today, we are the winners of election night,” he said.
The only realistic options for forming a viable grouping are for another grand coalition or for Faymann to contemplate a coalition with Strache, a Viennese former dental technician who has supplanted Haider as the national extreme-right leader. Senior social democrats said last night that they would not collaborate with the Freedom party. Any such move would trigger a deeper crisis within the SPÖ.
Despite mustering around 30% of the vote between them, Strache and Haider are sworn enemies and are unlikely to be able to work together. Both men are fierce critics of the EU.
(Posted on September 29, 2008)
Comments
I honestly don’t understand why it matters whether somebody denies something that happened over sixty years ago. What relevance does it play in saving Austria from the clutches of multiculturalism? What does it matter if they are fierce critics of the EU? Obviously the EU thinks it needs to pick the leaders of the countries of Europe. Only a few years ago that was termed as communism. There will not be a holocaust in Austria regardless of whom runs the country. It would seem to me that alot of people use the holocaust as a crutch to get their own way. It would sem that there is no use for free speech in the EU. At least Austria is fighting to retain its identity, which is more than can be said for the rest of the EU membership.
Posted by at 6:29 PM on September 29
Earlier this week here on AmRen there was an item about the anti-Islamization rally in Koln (“Street Clashes Erupt in Germany,” Sept. 22). I pointed out how the “objective” reporting of the BBC not-so-subtly stacked the deck against our side, by repeatedly demonizing the European patriots at that rally as “far right,” “extreme right,” and so on; while giving the (much more violent) opposition on the Left a free pass.
Now, we have a story about a Rightist electoral success in neighboring Austria — and another demonization campaign by another British propaganda organ. Please note that the notoriously left-leaning Guardian newspaper starts smearing the Austrian Right as “neo-fascists” FROM THE OPENING SENTENCE.
And what is it that makes these Austrian politicians “neo-fascists,” you ask? Have they carried out a new Kristallnacht? Have they demanded the annexation of neighboring nations in the name of “Lebensraum”? Have they called for rounding up minorities and shipping them off to concentration camps?
The answers to those questions are: “No”; “Of course not”; and “Don’t be ridiculous.”
The sins of the nationalists, according to The al-Guardian, is that these Austrians preferred the old days “when the kiosks on Vienna’s squares sold sausage and wiener schnitzel, rather than… falafel and couscous.”
It doesn’t take much to get a person called a Fascist these days, does it? All you need to do is to state your preference for the traditional foods of your own people, rather than Third World “street meats.”
If I go to Vienna, I too want to eat sausage and schnitzel and pastries. If I want falafel and couscous and halal goat, I can go to some Muslim country instead.
I suggest that Europe’s Muslims should also go to some Muslim country instead.
Guess that makes ME a fascist, too…
Posted by The Incredible Shrinking White Man at 6:56 PM on September 29
It’s too bad the nationalist movement in Austria is split into 2 rival parties. Hopefully they’ll be able to work together in the future to grow and become a powerful coalition, or even merge into one party.
Posted by at 7:00 PM on September 29
This will be the common theme throughout Europe in the coming years, not that the voters have turned ultra-right wing, but the ultra-right is addressing their concerns. Those concerns are Muslim immigration, Muslim immigration, Muslim immigration and immigration in general.
Posted by ciccio at 7:09 PM on September 29
Curiously, this is the first national election in a developed country since the financial crisis, which is also affecting Europe. Both nationalist parties in Austria gained 7 percent over the previous election.
Posted by Question Diversity at 7:41 PM on September 29
Hooray for common sense! This is a great day for Austria and for Europe, because the mere presence on the political scene of a nationalist party signals that there are cracks in the edifice of the EU. When those cracks widen, you’re going to see a flood of resentment against socialist politicians who have opened the gates to the barbarians. Italy could very well be next. This is most encouraging.
Posted by Xenophon at 7:41 PM on September 29
Austrians have never forgotten or forgiven their “neighbors” in the EU for the malicious way they were treated in 1999 when the Freedom Party (then led by Jorg Haider) won enough votes to be included in the government. This is a strong message for the EU, and it sure isn’t “Happy Birthday!”
It is much to be regretted that Mr. Haider and Mr. Strache cannot put aside personal differences and work together for the greater good of the nation (especially now with this momentous opportunity!), but such has always been the poison of egoism.
My hopes go out to the Austrians. Hopefully this resurgence of nationalism will spread across Europe before it’s too late.
Posted by at 7:42 PM on September 29
Let’s hope they reproduce and teach the traditions that gave us Mozart.
Posted by Big D at 7:43 PM on September 29
So let the smears begin,”nazi-this, fascist-that” from the leftwing/communist news media. At least some Europeans are starting to see the through the leftwing, multicult garbage that is destroying their countries.
Posted by RHG at 8:15 PM on September 29
Heartening to see the far right finally making some legitimate legal progress somewhere, but probably a bit too late seeing as the global economy is about to collapse. Hopefully when it does we “extremists” will have our day in the absence of law at any rate.
Posted by Stygius at 8:45 PM on September 29
This is what happens when you force one culture on another. We’ll see more and more of this over the next decade as Europe starts to realize it’s do or die.
Posted by GetBackJack at 10:33 PM on September 29
While most of the news on amren.com is immensely depressing to me, it’s always great to read news items like this. Finally, an article on european politics that doesn’t make me doubt white european sanity.
Posted by Mike at 11:57 PM on September 29
What is the purpose in using the enemy’s terminology by referring to the normal human beings in Austria as *the extreme right*?
I suggest that the AR editor re-title this article, “Finally, the sapient segment of the Austrian electorate begins to speak with a unified voice in favor of self preservation”.
Posted by Harry at 9:06 AM on September 30
Denmark, Italy and, if Strache and Haider can reach a deal with a few other Austrian politicians, perhaps now Austria will have a nationalist government. Though both men may dislike each other their anti-EU policies are pretty much the same. Freedom in Europe is most definitely on the march and this news bodes well for other European nationalist parties. Having three nationalist governments and lots of strong nationalist parties in the other EU countries would make it much more difficult for the Red totalitarians of the EU to curb nationalist parties like they did when they invoked sanctions against Haider’s Freedom Party in the Austrian governing coalition of 2000, claiming ‘democracy was threatened’ by the Freedom Party’s participation.
Of course here in the UK the usual suspects are at it again with their scaremongering headlines such as: ”Nazi fears as Austria votes for far Right.” and incredibly, labelling Strache a xenophobe for saying, ”Vienna must not become Istanbul”. Genuine European Nationalism, for the people and by the people, is an idea whose time has come and no amount of manipulation, brainwashing or threats by the EU/One World elite will keep the stale old-guard parties in power. I look forward to the day when all European people under nationalism have a genuine say in the running of their own nation-states in a Europe run by its peoples and not by the elites.
Posted by dr dees brainwashing elixir at 11:58 AM on September 30
I think that nationalists should accept the blame for their own dysfunction from 1939 onward, and work to resolve it. This means Haider and Strache making friendly, and an end to the kind of negative politics that gave nationalists a bad name.
Our ideas are straightforward and our cause is right. It’s only the neurotic interpretations of individuals that have produced the idiosyncrasies that have given nationalism a bad name.
Posted by Vijay Prozak at 12:22 PM on September 30
When 29% of the Austrian electorate share their views, just how “extreme” can these “fascist Nazi-Parties” (that they are of course not) really be? Must be some whacky fringe-groups.
Tastelessly instrumentalising history by decrying those who don’t opt for ethno-cultural suicide “Nazis”, “fascists” and “extremists” is becoming less and less effective given the hyperinflationary, usually unjustified and often outright libellous use of these terms.
I admire the courage and strength these people prove by saying out aloud what so many think but are too intimidated to admit by the hijacked media and leftist establishment.
Posted by everycountryshouldhaveanFPÖ at 3:29 PM on September 30
I just have to wonder when I read about the “extreme right”, all the time. I have to wonder, because newssources like the Associated Press, or Reuters, or La Monde, or Die Welt, or the British Broadcasting Corporation, etc. ever write stories about the “extreme left”. Agenda,what agenda?
Posted by Bobby at 4:30 PM on September 30
In brief.. there’s nothing wrong with A people wanting Their country to reflect(Their)historical essence and not want it to become a confused souless whore. An organic continuum of Identity in a nation or in a race is (birds of a feather)It is people at odds with this organic formula that have some questions to answer as I see it.
Posted by Petrarch at 5:00 PM on September 30
I am not in favor of an anti-semitic party. But I know from talking to these people that they are not genocidal racists or anti-semites. They are just ordinary men and women dedicated to preservation.
Posted by at 5:01 PM on September 30
So let the smears begin, ”nazi-this, fascist-that”, from the leftwing/communist news media. At least some Europeans are starting to see the through the leftwing, multicult garbage that is destroying their countries.
Posted by RHG
— — — — —
His “sin” is that he’s a nationalist. Indeed, that is becoming almost a crime. In another generation it probably will be. He wants to preserve his country for his own people. He wants to preserve his own race and culture. How DARE he!
He’s interferring with the One World plan. Austria, though once a major power, is now just a small country; but the danger is that if successful, his notions might catch on and spread to others. That means he must be stopped. At all costs.
Not knowing much about Haider (aside from the flurry of news attention several years ago when he horrified the EU with his win in Austria), I have done some checking about him. It seems that the Left is now, in obvious desperation, spreading sly rumors about his newly discovered “homosexuality” (as if that should have anything to do with Austrian politics, whether true or not). This is especially peculiar, considering that if the parties and politics were reversed, the Left would be sending up howls of indignation about the lowness of intruding into such private areas of anyone’s personal life. (Of course, their opposition is entitled to no such privacy, of any kind.)
For them, the end justifies the means. It seems that there is NOTHING too low. They have NO principles, and they will do ANYTHING to destroy you if you oppose them. If this latest tactic doesn’t work, next thing, we’ll be reading about how he beats his grandmother or murdered his parents. … All just rumors, of course, according to “unnamed third parties”.
The vilest accusations and slurs will not be over the limit. The more successful he becomes, prepare to hear the worst.
Posted by browser at 5:49 PM on September 30
The extreme Left are becoming increasingly jittery year on year because they know that in the not very distant future, they are going to be forced to answer for their crimes of genocide, treason and sedition against the indigenous peoples of Europe and her enclaves.
Perhaps a true indigenous white Nationalist administration, upon attaining power over the European Union, will consider hiring the most skilled among Muslim executioners to despatch into oblivion, all known Marxist renegades, come the hour.
Posted by A Swain at 7:14 PM on September 30
“It’s only the neurotic interpretations of individuals that have produced the idiosyncrasies that have given nationalism a bad name.”
Posted by Vijay Prozak
———-
No, it is not ONLY that. Not only that, by any means! Yes, our cause is right and straightforward; but it is far from that simple.
Posted by at 8:17 PM on September 30
“Having … lots of strong nationalist parties …would make it much more difficult for the Red totalitarians of the EU to curb nationalist parties like they did when they invoked sanctions against Haider’s Freedom Party in the Austrian governing coalition of 2000, claiming ‘democracy was threatened’ by the Freedom Party’s participation.”
dr.dees
—————
The EU’s brazen twisting of the truth simply astounds me. The Austrian election (then) was an expression of democracy at work. It was the people’s choice (despite the bureaucrats’ wishes). The EU’s determination to undermine that election was the exact opposite of democracy, by claiming that “democracy was threatened”.
In other words, allowing the people the freedom to vote and have their choice was threatening democracy!!! Absolutely amazing. Even Orwell would have been flabbergasted.
Posted by at 8:30 PM on September 30
I don’t care WHAT the liberals call it. I call it ‘change’ and ‘hope for the future.’
Perhaps Vienna will once again be the bulwark that turns back the tide of the pagan hordes, and restores Christendom.
“Wien, Wien nur du allein, soll steht’s die Stadt meiner Traumen sein…”
Posted by AlmostMusicPhD at 3:48 PM on October 1
browser at 5:49 PM on September 30 wrote:
“Not knowing much about Haider (aside from the flurry of news attention several years ago when he horrified the EU with his win in Austria), I have done some checking about him. It seems that the Left is now, in obvious desperation, spreading sly rumors about his newly discovered “homosexuality” (as if that should have anything to do with Austrian politics, whether true or not).”
I am neither a Leftist or “pro-homosexual,” but at this stage of the game I’d take a Pim Fortuyn over Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton (my two so-called “senators”) any day.
Posted by at 3:53 PM on October 1
This is interesting. Is there a pattern emerging here? Is it maily homosexuals who are the only ones willing to speak out, daring to tell truths and give voice to thoughts that the rest of the population only internalizes? Why is this?
Posted by at 7:35 PM on October 3
“Is there a pattern emerging here? Is it mainly homosexuals who are the only ones willing to speak out? Why is this?”
- - - -
Well, it may be — at least among thinking persons — that they realize they have the most to lose.
Posted by at 10:35 PM on October 4