Joerg Haider in historical perspective
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 00:30:33 EST
From: Steven Beller Spbeller@aol.com
Replying to Lee Eysturlid,
The reason no one refers to the "far left" in Europe anymore (they used to) is because there isn't one. It was largely blown away by 1989 and the consequences. The one remaining large "far left" party is the heir of the East German Communist Party. Interestingly enough there has never been much of a "far left" party in Austria, because the mainstream socialists were able to fill what space for radicalism there was on the left with rhetorical extremism, as Lonnie Johnson pointed out. No one in Europe today seriously believes that the danger to democracy and liberty comes from the Left. It does, most surely, come from the Far Right, which is a reality and which is very ugly, notwithstanding Haider's polished appearance and his many and varied suits.
This is, I think, why the EU states have reacted as strongly as they have, and why, in fact, they are right to do so. Lonnie Johnson may well be right that from an Austrian perspective the EU measures (calling them "intervention in Austrian internal affairs" is a bit like calling Haider a Nazi i.e. not useful exaggeration) might boost Haider's popularity, but more fool the Austrian electorate. The important thing about these measures is that they send a message, to other European electorates and to the Austrian political class, that the sort of canoodling with racist xenophobia practiced opportunistically by Haider and most likely with all due seriousness by many in his party (two Austrian MINISTERS are now accused of various extremist activities, including supporting Holocaust deniers), is not acceptable. I, for one, do not see a problem with that.
As for all this business of seeing Austria in a more differentiated manner than foreign opinion has, well fine, but understanding does not mean forgiving. No, Haider is not Hitler, but he is extremely close to an Alpine version of Karl Lueger, and do we really want to see that type of xenophobic, narrow-minded, opportunistic, cynical, pseudo-ethnonationalist and extremely illiberal sort of politics in the heart of Europe yet again? As a parting question, how do list members feel about the Austrian situation now that Haider has claimed that, because there is no such thing as collective guilt, the Waffen SS was not guilty of anything during the war, only individual members?
Yours collegially, Steven Beller