In class just as we were preparing to enter a Turkish infused Habsburg discussion we found ourselves ripped out of the 16th/17th Century and chasing a “wascally wabbit” down a trail towards a tangled briar patch: racism. This began when our fearless leader recalled an anti-immigration, anti-foreign slogan on a billboard that said “Mehr Mut für ‘Wiener Blut,’ zu viel Fremdes tut niemanden Gut” übersätzen auf englisch it means “more courage for ‘Viennese Blood’ too much foreign-ness does no one good.” –FPÖ.
This Wiener Blut talks about the spirit of the Viennese and echoes Johann Strauss’s waltz and subsequent Operetta. In this Youtube video Wiener Blut is presented with innocence and perfectionism. The day could not be more perfect for a horse ride and the house is perfect, white and clean. What could be better than Wiener Blut?
This next video, not Johan Strauss’s version of Wiener Blut, has the same title, but is something quite different, possibly a parody of Viennese Spirit. Or is this version closer to FPÖ’s anti-immigrant, neo-Nazi slogan. Maybe I could answer it better if I knew German better. I’ll leave this as an open-ended question for now.
The FPÖ, or Freedom Party of Austria, has plenty more slogans where this one comes from all being very pro-Austrian (and according to its supporters, not racist). Their platform tries to hide its racist values with a pro-Austrian platform. FPÖ declares that all Austrians have a right to identity and can choose their ethnicity.[1] It is not clear how one can choose ethnicity. In addition to identity, the FPÖ declares that Austria is not a immigrant country, as defined by its “topography, population density and its limited resources.”[2] These two points are almost contradictory, letting one choose one’s ethnicity, but if one lives in Austria, they must not be immigrants and have Wiener Blut.
History has seen similar ideologies and the history of the FPÖ is tied to Austria’s dark history of National Socialism. Authors of Incorrigibly Right trace the FPÖ and its first leaders back to ex-Nazis.[3] Just like National Socialist’s tactic of eliciting fear and personifying that fear with aliens, foreigners, and enemies (or Jews), the FPÖ has followed suit. “Fears for the future…” serve as a permanent reservoir for extreme right-wing rat-catchers of all hues.”[4] I don’t want to end this ‘discussion’ by pointing fingers but I will show a few similarities I have come across.
In conclusion, I'd like to post this somewhat anti-FPÖ sticker that we happened upon one day, just to spice things up a bit.
[1] FPÖ, http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.fpoe.at/&ei=WgCMTL6xG8L_lgf0271g&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCsQ7gEwAQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dfp%25C3%25B6%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3Di7Y%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26prmd%3Div
[2] ibid.
[3] Brigitte Bailer-Galanda and Wolfgang Neugebauer, Incorrigibly Right: Right-wing Extremists, “Revisionists” and Anti-Semites in Austrian Politics Today (New York: Stiftung Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes Anti-Defamation League, 1996), 7.
[4] Galanda, Incorrigibly Right, 10.
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