I don't often post matters to xmca that are not directly part of our core
discussion agenda.
Since I've been travelling a fair bit lately and had to delete too many
accumulated xmca messages once or twice (which I'll recover by looking to
the web archive), I don't know if the case of Professor Anton Pelinka in
Austria has come up here already or not.
I have good friends in Austria who are politically progressive and whose
research concerns itself with sociocultural, historical, and linguistic
analysis of issues of anti-semitism, racism, attitudes to immigrants, etc.
in Austria and more broadly in the E.U. They are very concerned about the
recent rightward turn in Austrian politics, both the rise of a charismatic
leader, Joerg Haider, and the informal 'gentlemen's agreement' across a
substantial sector of the Austrian establishment not to publicly criticize
or denounce him or the larger system of retrogressive attitudes for which
he is becoming both lightening rod and amplifier. (One of my friends,
recently interviewed for Austrian television, was not allowed to use
Haider's name, even when quoting him, in a negative assessment.)
Not many people, either here or in Austria, want to believe that the
attitudes that lifted Adolf Hitler to power are still potent, or that
discontent with social change (globalization, immigrant labor in Europe) in
large sectors of the population could be dangerous to democratic freedom in
the 21st century just as it was in the 20th. We want to believe that Haider
is a minor figure, that his support is a transient phenomenon, that if we
ignore it, it will just fade away. That attitude proved very costly the
last time.
The appended text is just a rather reader-friendly account, addressed to
Americans, of one particular case. To me its message is that what we should
really be worried about is the fact that not much public fuss is being made
over this case, especially in Austria. That in turn may indicate that a
dangerous system of attitudes is re-emerging, or re-surfacing, for deep
structural reasons; this case may represent just one small early warning
symptom.
Personally, I think it is very likely that the economic dislocations and
cultural instabilities that are and will accompany the current worldwide
reorganization of production, distribution, consumption, and especially of
people -- known vaguely as "globalization" -- is going to give rise to a
powerful reactionary response that is more likely to threaten democratic
freedoms than it is to challenge global capitalism, at least in the most
profitable corporatist states. It seems a possibility worth thinking about,
a prospective phenomenon all of whose early symptoms deserve careful
analysis and appropriate political response.
To wit ...
Democracy on the run
by Mirjana N. Dedaic and Daniel N. Nelson
If the U. S. were Austria, Rudolf Guilliani, John McCain, Donald Trump and
George W. Bush would be fined for denouncing Pat Buchanan's view that Nazi
Germany did not represent a threat to the United States during the 1940s.
Many others vilified Buchanan as a ‘nazi-lover’ and a ‘dangerous right-wing
anti-Semite”. Keywords ‘buchanan’ and ‘nazi’ on Yahoo.com hit on no fewer
than 2452 web pages.
But, this is the United States. Politicians can criticize fellow
politicians. Political scientists are allowed academic freedom. Newspapers
publish citizens' opinions. Of course, such opinions need reasonable
foundations. Making major politicians happy, however, is not one of them.
In Austria, things are moving in a different direction. On May 23, the
Vienna Criminal Court sentenced Professor Anton Pelinka, a leading Austrian
political scientist, for “defaming” the character of political personage of
the former Freedom Party leader Jörg Haider.
On 1 May 1999, Professor Pelinka had stated to the Italian television
network RAI that, “In his career, Haider has repeatedly made statements
which amount to trivializing National Socialism. Once he described death
camps as penal camps. On the whole, Haider is responsible for making
certain National Socialist positions and certain National Socialist remarks
more politically acceptable.” Haider, seeing a chance to counter a growing
chorus of intellectual criticism, sued Pelinka for damages.
In his defense, Pelinka tried a scholarly approach. He proved that, in
scholarly literature about the Holocaust, reference has been made to
extermination camps, death camps, concentration campsbut never penal camps.
“Calling those nazi-camps penal-camps, or camps for punishment”, Pelinka
told us, “implies that the people detained and executed there were found
guilty for something, and that this was done in a due process”.
This defense did not work in the Austrian court. Pelinka was fined 60,000
Austrian schillings ($4,500). Haider’s lawyer, Dieter Böhmdorferwho has
since become Austrian Minister of Justice in the coalition
governmentsuccessfully implied damages to Haider’s reputation following
Pelinka’s interpretation of Haider’s own words.
Were Pelinka to pay (he is appealing), the money would go directly to
Haider, a man loved by Austrian blue-collar workers for proposing a limit
on politicians’ salaries and flat taxes on the rich, but who lives off the
income from a vast Carinthian estate called Valley of the Bears, inherited
from a great-uncle whose family picked it up dirt cheap from Jews fleeing
the Nazis.
Nasty people make better news. Journalists love the Haider story, as much
as they may hate him as a politician. Haider says all kinds of things, and
later sometimes apologizes for them. But, words once said are never
forgotten, however strongly one apologizes. And, of course, Haider has
never been indicted by any lawyer, or court, for his words. International
Helsinki Federation for Human Rights’ director Aaron Rhodes said he thinks
Haider enjoys some kind of immunity. “It is Sovietistic”, said Rhodes,
“like a star-chamber!”
Haider also appeals to journalists because of his sound-bite skills, honed
during many months in the United States taking seminars in California and
at Harvard. He claims he learned in the U. S. what real democracy is, and
festoons his office wall with the California flag. But, according to public
opinion polls, his appeal incorporates old and neo-nazis, blue-collar
workers favoring anti-immigration policies, money-hungry xenophobic
businessmen, and “the sound-bite MTV voters with an attention span of three
minutes” as Pelinka puts it. The latter seem to admire Haider’s fast cars,
bungee-jumping, and brand name suits.
He is certainly NOT a liebling of intellectuals, scholars, and Jews. The
truth is hurtful but vital. Haiderism is a sly, backdoor repetition of many
beliefs that the world confronted three generations ago. Anton Pelinka
tried to speak this truth.
Bow-tied Austrian Chancellor and People’s Party leader Wolfgang Schüsselwho
looks like he just put down the baton after directing a Beethoven
symphonyoffers his public and friendly embrace of Haider. Pelinka, even as
Austria’s unpaid representative at the EU monitoring center for racism and
xenophobia, could not coexist in such a political milieuhence his
resignation. Dr. Pelinka’s deputy, who has now assumed his position, comes
from Schüssel’s party and will no doubt be far more comfortable hugging
Haider.
Perhaps Schüssel doesn’t see the obviousthat he is not safe either. Haider
wants to be chancellor, and hides such ambition not at all. Were that to
happen, scholars should be concerned that expression of their expert
opinions may lead to tickets to “scholarly re-education” camps.
As long as Haider said what he was saying, and intellectuals were free to
denounce and explain his words, the political arena was almost fair.
Silencing the opposition, however, brings democracy to a grinding halt.
Serbian courts buckle under Miloševiæ's pressure and reinforce his
political survival by silencing those who’d like to make Serbia a better
country. Fighting against such political strangulation has to be supported
by the people. Why are Austrians quiet? Why are Austrian newspapers not
filled with letters to the editors supporting Pelinka? Why did Austrian
journalists write nothing about this case of blatant human rights
violation, and a denial of academic freedom? Elsewhere in Europe, the
Pelinka case was widely reported. And, how is it that Austrian politicians
did not vigorously object, while the Swedish prime minister noted the
Pelinka case in a recent parliamentary speech? Why, indeed, is Austria silent?
Austria fancies itself as a democracy. But, democracy is not about the
freedom to elect bad politicians. Democracy is, when robust and healthy, a
milieu in which anyone can say that “President is a liar”. Democracy does
not arrive or stay where the people close their eyes while the emperor
walks naked.
------------------------------------------
Mirjana N. Dedaic is a Ph.D. candidate at the Georgetown University's
Linguistic Department. Dr. Daniel N. Nelson is a political scientist, and
editor-in-chief of "International Politics".
---------------------------
JAY L. LEMKE
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm>
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