Re: IRISH-LEFT: Form Letter of Protest to Austrian Embassy

["Kurt Lhotzky" <k.lhotzky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Jackie Dana <jdana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <irish-left@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, February 04, 2000 7:23 PM
Subject: IRISH-LEFT: Form Letter of Protest to Austrian Embassy


>
> From: MAGS GLENNON <Mags.Glennon@xxxxxx>
> Subject: Form Letter of Protest to Austrian Embassy
>
>      Hi All
>
>      Here is a basic letter to post, fax or e mail to the Austrian Embassy
>      in Dublin. dd your own bits if you like. The Embassy is a very small
>      operation so if we couldget a few hundred protests in in this way it
>      would wreck their heads.
>
>      The contact details are:
>
>      *************************************
>
>      Austrian Embassy
>      15 Ailesbury Court
>      93 Ailesbury Road
>      Dublin 4
>      Tel: 01 269 4577 / 269 1451
>      Fax: 01 283 0860
>      Email: austroam@xxxxxx
>
>      *************************************
>
>      Dear Ambassador,
>
>      I am contacting you to express my dismay at the entry of Jorg
Haider's
>      'Freedom Party' to government in Austria.
>
>      I urge you in the interests of decency, democracy and human rights to
>      use your i luence to ensure that this fascist party is opposed.
>
>      Jorg Haider is a fascist both because of the authoritarian
>      structure of his party and because of the political goals he has
>      openly expressed.Among his many neo-fascist views are his expression
>      in October 1990 of 'appreciation' for Waffen SS officers 'in a
>      struggle for freedom and democracy in Europe' andmore recently in
>      1995, speaking to a meeting of ex-SS officers his expression of his
>      appreciation of them as '...decent people... , people of character
who
>      have thecourage of their convictions'. There can be no doubt but that
>      his entry into government will only embolden and strengthen
>      neo-fascist organisations throughout Eur e and beyond.
>
>      Haider has already proclaimed his ambition to become Chancellor of
>      Austria by 2003. I appeal to you to do all you can to ensure that he
>      does not re at the feat achieved by his hero exactly seventy years
>      earlier.
>
>      'Yours faithfully,
>
Dear Comrades,

writing from Austria where large demonstrations are on the way against the
newly sworn-in coalition government of Popular Party and Freedom Party
(Haider), I appreciate it highly that there are anti-Haider-actions in
Ireland.

Nevertheless I want to warn against the very careless application of the
term "fascist" for Haider and the FPÖ. True - it´s an extreme-right party,
but it is ***not a fascist party***. It´s aim is not to destroy the workers
organisations by using physical force nor to destroy the framework of
bourgeois democracy. It aims at establishing autoritarian elements in the
politicial sphere, but it is using the "traditional" ways of bourgeois
parties to do that. Of course, there are individual people in the FPÖ who
really are fascists. But it is a little bit like crying "The wolf comes",
whenever such a reactionary party eppears to call it "fascist". You are
risking to loose the poltiical guideline by doing so in the case of the
appearance of a genuine fascist movement!

We are fighting here against this government, because it´s programme is
fully reactionary, a brutal attack on all the gains of the Austrian weorking
class - it´s a programme of "neoliberal class struggle" against the workers,
the women, the youth. I think, that´s already enough to fight against - we
do not need to label it fascist!

Nevetheless - keep on your efforts!


Kurt Lhotzky, Vienna