Category Archives: Austria

Pick a Colour

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One of the things which separates Western Europe/North America/Australia & NZ from the rest of the world, and makes these places infinitely better, is politics is not divided along racial lines. Even with the legacy of slavery and the civil rights movement, US politics has never been divided into white parties, black parties, Hispanic parties, etc. The idea British political parties could divide along racial lines is so absurd you’d have to explain it a few times before anyone would understand what you even meant.

This isn’t the case almost everywhere else. In Nigeria, it is generally expected that presidents – who are elected via a pretty free and fair process – will alternate between one from the north and one from the south. The northerners are generally Muslim and look quite different from the generally Christian southerners, and each side wants one of their own in charge. I also happen to be friends with a chap from Trinidad, and he told me the politics of Trinidad & Tobago are split along ethnic lines between Afro-Caribbeans and those of Indian descent. When it comes to voting, everyone votes for a candidate who shares their ethnicity. Whenever I stumble into some information about an election in Africa or Asia, the candidates’ ethnicity or tribe is always mentioned because it lets you know who their supporters are.

Back when I was in university, the only time term “white nationalists” got used was in documentaries on American prison gangs. When I saw the film American History X with a bunch of fellow students, the whole concept of white nationalism seemed absurd. Twenty years later however, and we are told that white nationalism is “on the rise” and “a growing threat”. Until recently, I was quick to dismiss this as nonsense, but I’m slowly coming around to the idea it might be true. The trouble is, white nationalism is being promoted by those very people who have brought the term into everyday use. Here’s an example:


The idea that Trump is a white nationalist is preposterous, but if we have a Somali congresswoman wearing a headscarf bellowing from the rooftops about white nationalism in chorus with hundreds of other prominent figures, people are first going to start getting used the idea and then wondering if there may not be something in it. The Obama years saw America’s racial fault lines widen substantially, a process not helped by the president himself (and that’s putting it charitably). Since Trump’s election, it has become routine for Democrat politicians to openly campaign along racial lines, all with one thing in common: whites are there to be denigrated. Accusations of white supremacy are simply a tool political charlatans deploy to hobble their political opponents, but it appears to be an effective one. But a consequence of ethnic minorities playing divide and silence along racial lines is that, sooner or later, whites will start to play the same game. It’s not the extremists like the Christchurch murderer that people need to worry about as much as ordinary people who hadn’t even heard the term five years ago being slandered as white supremacists by grifters who want to make everything about race. They will start to think, and indeed are starting to think, if minorities are voting along racial lines and using any obtained power to launch attacks on whites, they should recalibrate how they see the future of politics.

The response by the ruling classes to such fledgling opinions has, as usual, been precisely the wrong one. Take this for example:

Facebook has said it will block “praise, support and representation of white nationalism and separatism” on Facebook and Instagram from next week.

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The company said it had deemed white nationalism an acceptable form of expression on a par with “things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identity”.

But in a blog post on Wednesday it said that after three months of consultation with “members of civil society and academics”, it found that white nationalism could not be “meaningfully separated” from white supremacy and organised hate groups.

So while our benevolent rulers and their media stooges wax lyrical about the importance of letting ISIS barbarians return to civilised society, governments – via tech giants and “members of civil society and academics” – have decided white people discussing what might be best for them is to be banned. So I have a question: do you think this will make it more or less likely that white people will consider voting along racial lines in future?

Here’s another story:

Austria’s government has said it may disband a far-right group that received a donation from the main suspect in the New Zealand mosque attacks.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said the government was investigating whether the Identitarian Movement Austria (IBÖ) was a “terrorist organisation”.

Prosecutors confirmed that the group’s leader, Martin Sellner, received about €1,500 (£1,290) from Brenton Tarrant.

Mr Sellner confirmed the donation but denied any ties to the suspect.

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“I have nothing to do with this terror attack,” Mr Sellner said, arguing that his organisation was a peaceful anti-immigration group.

He said investigators raided his flat in Vienna on Monday and seized his phone, computer, and other devices.

Here’s another question: do you think designating this organisation a terrorist group because it received a donation from the Christchurch murderer will soften or harden attitudes to immigration in Austria? One would also have thought that Austrians of all people might have paused before wielding a law which can so obviously be abused in future should the wrong people come into power. Hell, Sebastian Kurz is already way to the right of every other political leader in Europe; if he’s having to resort to this to stop himself being outflanked further to the right, who knows who could find themselves propelled to power on an anti-immigration platform?

Had this blatant race-baiting not occurred in American and (increasingly) British and European politics, white nationalism would be confined to the Aryan Brotherhood behind three rows of barbed wire fence and a concrete wall. Now it’s being advertised as a political movement, and people are showing an interest. If someone out there wanted white people to vote along racial lines, this was a good way to get the ball rolling. If that does start happening in large numbers, things will get ugly indeed.

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Protected Class Confirmed

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This story is generating plenty of comment on social media:

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled a woman convicted by an Austrian court of calling the Prophet Mohammed a paedophile did not have her freedom of speech rights infringed.

The woman, named only as Mrs. S, 47, from Vienna, was said to have held two seminars in which she discussed the marriage between the Prophet Mohammad and a six-year old girl, Aisha.

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Mrs S. was later convicted in February 2011 by the Vienna Regional Criminal Court for disparaging religious doctrines and ordered her to pay a fine of 480 euros plus legal fees.

After having her case thrown out by both the Vienna Court of Appeal and Austria’s Supreme Court, the European Court of Human rights backed the courts’ decision to convict Mrs S. on Thursday.

The ECHR found there had been no violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

For those who doubt the Daily Mail story, the original ruling is here (pdf). A lot of people are saying this effectively outlaws blasphemy, but I’m not so sure. For my part, I think it merely re-affirms that Muslims are a protected class in Europe and the ruling classes will tolerate no criticism of them or their beliefs. Despite this decision you can be sure criticism and abuse of Christians and Jews will still be acceptable, and even encouraged in some instances. This is hardly a new development.

In a statement on Thursday the ECHR said: ‘The Court found in particular that the domestic courts comprehensively assessed the wider context of the applicant’s statements and carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria.’

You could write a whole dissertation on what’s wrong with the above statement, but what strikes me most is that there is even a danger of the “religious peace” in Austria being broken. The last time there was religious strife in Austria was when the Protestant Reformation swept the country in the mid 1500s, followed by the 30 Years War a century later. If there are now extremist religious elements in Austria threatening the peace, it is because the ruling classes, egged on by their counterparts in Germany and the EU, have invited them in from outside.

Now note the original conviction occurred in 2011. In 2017 Austria elected a new chancellor. Here’s how The Guardian reported his forming of a government:

At the weekend the new chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, of the Austrian People’s party, struck a deal with the Freedom party, a nationalist group founded after the second world war by former members of the Nazi party and now headed by Heinz-Christian Strache.

The coalition deal makes Austria the only western European country with a far-right presence in government. At 31, Kurz is the youngest head of government in the world.

Kurz’s People’s party won 32% of the vote in October’s elections, securing 62 seats in the 183-seat national council. The Freedom party came third with 26% of the vote and 51 seats.

Which suggests the Austrian people had become fed up to the back teeth of the sort of ruling elites who prosecuted a woman for saying mean things about Mohammed, and were happy to elect anyone who pushed back.

The new interior minister, Herbert Kickl, a former speechwriter to the Freedom party’s ex-leader Jörg Haider, is the author of widely criticised campaign slogans such as “More courage for Viennese blood” and “Daham statt Islam” (“Home instead of Islam”).

Well, if you go around prosecuting ordinary people for blasphemy against Islam, you stand a strong chance they will elect a staunchly anti-Islamic government in future elections. Similarly, as we saw in the US, if the political classes suppress all discussion of immigration people will vote for the guy who talks about immigration, regardless of who he is. And how’s this for a tin-ear:

Donald Tusk, the Polish president of the European council, said he looked forward to welcoming Kurz in Brussels. “I trust that the Austrian government will continue to play a constructive and pro-European role in the European Union,” he said.

One of the few critical reactions came from the United Nations, whose rights chief said that Austria’s rightward lurch marked a “dangerous development … in the political life of Europe”

That this “dangerous development” is a direct consequence of their own contempt for ordinary people didn’t seem to occur to Mr Tusk, and now another supranational European body has doubled-down on the mindset which brought it about. As I said yesterday, Brexit really is a sideshow.

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