[pf] Austria: Joerg Haider's Nazi-sympathising Freedom Party

[contains:
  "In Vienna, Joerg looks like a naughty boy amongst boring old men. ...
 Haider's rise is different from Hitler's. It's an expression of democracy
- albeit of that variety known as "populism" that is distasteful to the
bourgeoisie. It is not a rejection of people power. The present threat to
democracy in Europe comes from those who wish to suppress the right. This
threat to democracy is the kind of reverse McCarthyism that says persons
who can be labelled "fascist" should lose their rights of political
participation.

 The antidemocratic (indeed snobbish) attitude of the European political
establishment today is driving increasing numbers of people into Haider's
neo-nazi camp. Some recent opinion polls suggest that the Freedom Party
could now win an election outright.

 Austria's problems are not great. Austrians, like most of the rest of us
however, are uneasy about globalisation. The globalisation of labour
markets - made visible by immigration - does create insecurities. Fears of
the globalisation of labour are as legitimate as fears about the
globalisation of capital. It is inevitable that some persons running for
political office will play upon such fears. Any national or regional
recession can easily be attributed to immigration. Just read New Zealand's
newspapers in 1927 and 1928. We gave the Aussie immigrants a hard time then.

 The real problem is a lack of alternative analysis about the causes of
economic insecurity. The left are at least as bad as the right at
attributing economic dislocation to scapegoats. Demonisation serves as a
simple-minded substitute for analysis and vision."    D.]

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http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0002/S00052.htm
  is:
Thursday, 10 February 2000, 9:14 am

 Keith Rankin's Thursday Column

 Boy Joerg

 Democrats everywhere should be concerned about the recent events in
Austria. It is not so much that the popular governor of Carinthia has led
Joerg Haider's Nazi-sympathising Freedom Party into government. Like Steve
Maharey's comments on the future of Christine Rankin, his past rhetoric may
be just that; rhetoric, the rhetoric of opposition.

 Like Winston Peters, who campaigned against immigration in New Zealand in
1996, Haider has become a problem in large part because the media have
given him more attention than he deserves. Unlike Winston Peters, Haider
has been quite undemanding, accepting a very junior role in Government. In
Vienna, Joerg looks like a naughty boy amongst boring old men.

 Rather than over-reacting to Haider's innocent praising of Hitler's
full-employment policies, we should be concerned about: (i) why increasing
numbers of European voters are voting for racist parties, (ii) why parties
to the left of the mildly-right-wing OVP (Peoples Party) have not formed a
new coalition of the centre, and (iii) about the anti-democratic approach
of those seeking to suppress the accession of this neo-nazi nonentity.

 Some like to compare neo-nazism in modern Europe with the rise to power of
Hitler's National Socialist Party in Germany in 1933. So it's useful to
reflect on what happened in the 1930s. The Nazis gained power and democracy
disappeared; two events, not one. Certainly the Nazis had no respect for
democracy. But they were not the only ones. The Great Depression of 1930-32
(and not, as many suppose, the hyperinflation of 1922-23) created a
political climate in which people increasingly looked to extremist
counter-democratic solutions on both the left and on the right. Economic
failure had allowed democracy to fall into disrepute.

 Hitler's rise was a symptom (much more than a cause) of a widespread loss
of commitment to democracy. Thanks in large part to Hitler, we know now
that, no matter how difficult democracy might be, no matter how much we
claim to despise our elected politicians, the cost of giving up on
democracy is many times greater.

 Haider's rise is different from Hitler's. It's an expression of democracy
- albeit of that variety known as "populism" that is distasteful to the
bourgeoisie. It is not a rejection of people power. The present threat to
democracy in Europe comes from those who wish to suppress the right. This
threat to democracy is the kind of reverse McCarthyism that says persons
who can be labelled "fascist" should lose their rights of political
participation.

 The antidemocratic (indeed snobbish) attitude of the European political
establishment today is driving increasing numbers of people into Haider's
neo-nazi camp. Some recent opinion polls suggest that the Freedom Party
could now win an election outright.

 Austria's problems are not great. Austrians, like most of the rest of us
however, are uneasy about globalisation. The globalisation of labour
markets - made visible by immigration - does create insecurities. Fears of
the globalisation of labour are as legitimate as fears about the
globalisation of capital. It is inevitable that some persons running for
political office will play upon such fears. Any national or regional
recession can easily be attributed to immigration. Just read New Zealand's
newspapers in 1927 and 1928. We gave the Aussie immigrants a hard time then.

 The real problem is a lack of alternative analysis about the causes of
economic insecurity. The left are at least as bad as the right at
attributing economic dislocation to scapegoats. Demonisation serves as a
simple-minded substitute for analysis and vision.

 It should not be difficult for the left to paint a positive vision of the
phenomenon of "jobless growth" which has characterised recent western
European development. All that's required is a recognition that the labour
market is not the only channel through which national income can be shared.
(Under the 1991 Employment Contracts Act, New Zealand has experienced the
opposite of jobless growth; plenty of McJobs and virtually no productivity
growth.)

 I attended the conference of the Basic Income European Network (BIEN) in
Vienna in 1996. It was a great experience in a great city. Vienna, only 50%
larger than Auckland, is an affluent city with an excellent and
well-utilised public transport system.

 (I also travelled through Carinthia in 1984. While the province looked
prosperous on the surface, it's probably fair to say that Haider's
powerbase faces the same kinds of problems as Southland. Further,
provincial decline could be linked, in the minds of the local population,
to Austria's loss to Italy in 1918 of the nearby port city of Trieste.)

 The problem with the European left that became apparent at the BIEN
conference is that northern and central European societies are so
culturally committed to the work ethic (meaning, in practice, the paid
employment ethic) that they cannot envisage a system of income distribution
that includes unconditional entitlements. Solutions like basic income have
great difficulty in penetrating the labourist Social Democratic and
Christian Democratic cultures of north and central Europe. Austria's
greatest post-war political economist (Linz emeritus professor Kurt
Rothschild) noted at BIEN that the prevailing culture refuses to accept
that modern economic growth has disproved the tired adage "there's no such
thing as a free lunch". An important part of the reason for this lack of
imagination, Rothschild argued, is our increasing ignorance of history.

 The rise of Joerg Haider is in part a consequence of the neglect of the
study of history. After all, Haider's offensive statements have in the main
reflected his and his supporters' limited knowledge of European history.

 The problem in Austria is, superficially, a problem of immigrants taking
locals' jobs and otherwise competing for Austrian resources. The real
problem is the failure of non-right political groupings to ignite
Austrians' imaginations. The left needs to counter the right with ideas and
visions that address their insecurity about jobless growth, the
concentration of wealth and globalisation. It makes no sense to get into a
mindset (as New Zealand did with the Springbok rugby tour in 1981) whereby
half the nation's population demonises the other half, and vice versa. The
left in Europe has a "back to the future" mindset; a mindset which is not
entirely absent from the left in New Zealand. The left opposes rather than
proposes. It opposes the political symptoms of economic changes that it has
no analysis for. The rise of neo-nazism in Austria is a consequence of
western intellectual bankruptcy.

 © 2000 Keith Rankin 

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