Weekly Worker on the Austrian elections

[David Welch <david.welch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Weekly Worker 322 Thursday February 10 2000
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Our anti-fascism and theirs

"Far right takes power in Austria." "Europe in turmoil over far right pact
in Austria." "Austria in crisis".

These headlines are all references of course to Jrg Haider's Freedom
Party, which has entered into a coalition with the conservative People's
Party. Slightly unexpectedly, the FP secured the majority of cabinet posts
(six out of 10). In another coup for the FP, Haider managed to get his
private secretary and close political confidante, Susanne Riess-Passer, in
as vice-chancellor. Haider himself will remain governor of the southern
province of Carinthia, biding his time.

The response of Austria's fellow European Union governments has been loud
and disapproving, with Haider's FP becoming the target of politically
correct (though historically incorrect) anti-fascist self-righteousness.
The European parliament has threatened that Austria's EU membership could
be suspended if the Vienna government "veers from European standards of
democracy and human rights", as the official communiqu put it.

The US government recalled its ambassador from Austria for "consultations"
- Israel did likewise, only more militantly. There have been innumerable
calls for sanctions and boycotts from a wide range of quarters. Belgium
has asked its skiers to refrain from visiting Austria. On Tuesday (the
unelected) Prince Charles announced that he would be postponing an
official visit planned for May to the 'Britain now' trade fair in Vienna
as a protest at the inclusion of the FP in the government.

For communists this avalanche of humbug and hypocrisy is quite nauseous.
However, it is also very informative. The reaction of the liberal and
liberal-left press to Haider's rise is integral to official anti-fascism
which seeks to restrict democracy in the name of democracy. We are led to
believe that the politics of inconsistent democracy will avert the
'fascist threat' - just as a state ban on the British National Party will
also promote democracy, at least according to those who subscribe to
'hardline' politically correct anti-racism.

Thus an editorial in The Guardian paternalistically ticked off "the
Austrian electorate ... for tolerating and encouraging Mr Haider's rise"
and offered the following piece of constitutional advice: "President
Klestil can yet head off this calamity, even if the politicians cannot.
Under article 29 of the 1920 constitution, he can annul last October's
results and call a fresh election. Over 70% of Austrians did not support
the FP last time round. And those who did, now more fully aware perhaps of
the awful consequences for their country if Mr Haider advances, should
also be given the chance to think again, and think very hard" (my
emphasis, February 1). The Green Party in Austria has also called for new
elections.

The Observer added a new twist to the liberal-authoritarian argument of
the Green Party and The Guardian: "The post-war liberal consensus, led by
philosophers like Karl Popper and Isaiah Berlin, was that Hitler's
election can and should have been contested. [Haider] and his
party fall beyond the pale. It may be that Haider is strengthened by the
EU's reaction and Austria eventually leaves the EU. So be it. Austrians
may choose to be led by neo-Nazi racists, but the rest of us do not have
to connive in their choice" (February 6).

One of the most significant aspects of the 'Haider crisis' is the
considerable light it throws on official ideology - that is, the state
promotion of anti-racism, anti-fascism and anti-Nazism. As we have pointed
out before in the Weekly Worker, especially over the Macpherson inquiry
into the Stephen Lawrence murder, the ruling class and the bourgeois media
are rearticulating their ideology and belief-systems. The British
establishment has successfully appropriated anti-racism - draining it in
the process of much of its democratic content. So much so indeed, that
official anti-racism is now a powerful ideological weapon which the
bourgeoisie uses to divide the working class, as did the racism of old. It
turns us all into ethnic supplicants before the state - which decides
who gets the politically correct blessings (and hence a sop hand-out) and
who does not. The same essential point can be made about official
anti-fascism/Nazism, as the chorus of outrage over Austria demonstrates.

What a contrast to the 1920 and 30s. Then the danger to bourgeois rule
came from the working class organised in mass socialist and communist
parties. Wide sections of the ruling class looked towards and promoted
fascist movements in Europe as saviours from Bolshevism - which meant they
did not think twice about appealing to racist and anti-semitic bigotry.
Big capital in Italy and Germany were hand-in-glove with fascism as
counterrevolution. In Poland the nationalist socialist Joseph Pilsudski
carried through an anti-communist fascist coup in 1926. Protected from
outside intervention, Franco smashed the Spanish revolution. Action
Franaise - along with a young Franois Mitterand - was ready to do the same
in France. Everywhere the bourgeoisie was up to its neck in fascism.

Hence, the Vatican's current abhorrence of Haider sits very uneasily with
its past. The deeply anti-semitic Pius XII made a whole series of
pro-Mussolini/Hitler pronouncements - the 'killers of Christ' were at last
going to get their just deserts.

A certain Winston Churchill - and many others in the British ruling class
- also expressed approval during the 1920s and 30s of Mussolini's and
Hitler's crusade to save Europe from communism. Edward VIII and his
partner Mrs Wallace Simpson were 'Nazi monarchs' in waiting.
Lord Halifax admired Hitler and his SS methods. So did Lord Rothermere and
his Daily Mail - it actively promoted Sir Oswald Mosley's New Party and
after that the British Union of Fascists. The US of course was afflicted
by a virulent institutional racism/eugenicism and anti-communism, which,
with a greater working class challenge, would surely have spawned a mass
fascist movement. Randolph Hurst - of 'Citizen Kane' fame - was set to
bankroll bloody counterrevolution.

In the aftermath of World War II and the holocaust the bourgeoisie had to
reinvent itself as noble fighters against fascism and Nazism. The myth was
born of Britain fighting World War II, not to save the British empire, but
to defeat the Nazi threat to democracy. Across the whole of Europe we are
still living with that lie in its various national versions.

One thing remains exactly the same though - the politics of national
chauvinism. The vile anti-immigrant rhetoric of the FP differs in no
substantial way from the mainstream message - and practice - of the
People's Party, or the Social Democrats for that matter, as Haider likes
to point out. In turn, the current tough talk emanating from Jack Straw
about 'bogus' or 'illegal' asylum-seekers/refugees is not a million miles
away in tone, to put it mildly, from Haider's more open chauvinist rants.

It is apparent that many of those who voted FP are a mixture of former
Social Democratic Party (SP) supporters and/or young workers, disgusted by
the cosy corruption and patronage which has characterised the 'red'
(social democrats) and 'black' (conservatives) Austrian state since 1955.
No doubt the FP will soon become equally discredited, once Haider and his
colleagues have got their noses in the trough. Instead of demonising those
who voted for Haider, implying that the SP and PP are perfectly
acceptable, socialists and communists in Austria - as in Britain - must
break with bourgeois ideology, left and right, and fight for independent
working class politics.