This is a guest post by Karl Pfeifer, a veteran anti-fascist and journalist based in Vienna.
Last October, Z Word published my detailed report on the scandal of a member of the extreme right wing Olympia student fraternity, Dr. Martin Graf of the FPÖ, being elected as deputy president of the Austrian parliament.
Although Graf is a member of an extreme right-wing student fraternity that has contacts with neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers, 109 out of 183 legislators supported him to become one of the two deputy presidents of parliament.
One detail of the election became known only after my report was published. Although was elected in a secret vote, 34 ballots had Graf’s name in the lower left-hand corner - and the FPÖ has 34 seats in parliament after its landslide gains in the recent general election.
Second Parliamentary President Michael Spindelegger of the ÖVP , who became foreign minister a few weeks later, dismissed the Green Party’s accusation that this was a transgression against parliamentary rules, explaining that it was irrelevant where a candidate’s name appeared on a ballot. What mattered was that the ballots did not have any additional remarks on them, Spindelegger said.
Martin Graf has employed two young fraternity brothers, one of whom has been organizing a a neonazi youth camp “Jugendbund Sturmadler”. They were were also good customers of the German nazi mail order company “Aufruhr,” where they spent hundreds of Euros.
Yesterday, when Martin Graf was presiding for the first time over a session of the Austrian parliament, Alexander van der Bellen, the former leader of the Green party showed a shirt purchased by Graf’s collaborator.
The t-shirt is very popular with German and Austrian Neonazis: 88 is the equivalent of Heil Hitler, H being the 8th letter of the Latin alphabet.
Austrian Jewish Community (IKG) President Ariel Muzicant said in a recent interview: “I accompanied the federal president on his recent state visit to Israel and tried to communicate how many positive accomplishments we have achieved in Austria. But Israelis replied by asking me if I was crazy, since 28 per cent of Austrians had voted for Nazi parties. Then I came back and was confronted by the unpleasant (FPÖ Third President of Parliament Martin) Graf affair, which concerned the purchase of extreme-right literature by two of his staffers.”
Foreign minister Spindelegger said he didn’t believe the affair would have a lasting impact on Austria’s reputation abroad.
In a recent poll, 40 per cent opposed Martin Graf as third president of Austrian Parliament and 32 per cent favored him remaining.
It looks as if Austrian parties - with the exception of the Greens - do not really care if people sit in the Parliament who, despite all their declarations otherwise, do come near to National Socialist ideology.
The Austrian political establishment thus gives a signal to the young extreme right and neo-nazis: you can go ahead in Austria and listen to nazi rock and continue to poison young people, for us the only thing that is important is our “reputation abroad.”
A big thank you to Karl Pfeifer, who is a very important anti-fascist in Austria. Keep up the good work!
Marco Schreuder
Green Party, Austria
In France and in Belgium, the Greens demonstrated with the anti-Israeli protestors who shouted: “Kill the Jews”, “We are Hamas”, and held placards reading: Gaza is worse than Auschwitz, Gaza = Dachau, Tzipi Livni, Hitler’s wife, Israel is a cancer etc.
But I agree, they fight the far right and neo-Nazis.
Strange, strange.
Germany too is being haunted by old demons:
“Neo-Nazis plan Gaza ‘Holocaust’ vigil in Berlin”
“The National Democratic Party (NPD), a German neo-Nazi party, announced on its Web site Monday that it will hold a solemn vigil on January 27 in downtown Berlin to “stop the Israeli holocaust in the Gaza Strip.”
Hatred of Jews and Israel has over the years, particularly since the Second Lebanon War in 2006, unified diverse political groups in Germany, ranging from members of the German Left Party to pro-Hizbullah and pro-Hamas Islamists, to the NPD. Members of the Left Party, which is the fourth largest party in the Bundestag, with 54 deputies, marched in anti-Israeli demonstrations over the last three weeks in which protesters called for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews and Israelis.”
Read the rest:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1232292928927&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Paula
What ever the Greens did in Netherland does not say anything about the Greens in Austria. Here on January 12 at a solidarity demonstration with Israel Marco Schreuder has given a speech.
The Greens were the only ones not to vote for Martin Graf and they protested vigorously against him and his ilk in Austrian parliament.
jdyer
I intend to write about the antiIsrael agitation of the far right.
Unfortunately all the political parties in Austria are pro Palestinian and against Israel.How otherwise to explain that they all support the OMV deal with Iran?
Christa Alexander
my subject matter was not the OMV deal or who is pro Palestinian. My subject matter was the extreme right in Austrian parliament. In the 3 democratic parties (conservative peoples party, social-democratic party, the GREENs) in Austrian parliament you have MPs who are pro Palestinian and others who are pro Israel and you have also those who wish to see peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
During the recent armed conflict in Gaza, the 3 democratic parties did not take sides.
At the demonstrations you could not see official representatives of the political parties.
As a matter of fact most demonstrators were Muslim migrants or of Muslim backgrounds and some extreme leftists.
The extreme right FPÖ took a decided stand against Israel. This will be subject of one of my articles.
The OMV is again a different matter and you probably can find more information on the website of the action against this deal.
I’m so sorry for posting off topic but I have a question; I’m now reading a book by Stephan Grigat and Simone Dinah Hartmann: “Der Iran - analyse einer islamischen Diktatur und ihrer europäischen Förderer” (I don’t know the english title of the book). What is your opinion about it? I consider it very good, but it would be very important to me to know the meaning of another people about it - as I haven’t so much experience with this theme.