Austria 2005: A protection kit against a year of homeland celebrations
60 years of liberation, 50 years State Treaty, 10 years EU membership. The so-called jubilee year of 2005 must be expected to bring Austria another surge of historical distortions and jingoism, of victim myths and assorted national constructions of identity.
As the 70th anniversary of the events of February 1934 has shown, there was no comprehensive debate of Austro fascism and its continuity in the present. Instead, the discourses of politics, media and society were shifted to the right.
This is a symptom of two periods of office of the OEVP /FPOE government, which since 2000 has been engineering a thorough integration of neoliberal with authoritarian and nationalistic orientations. For the jubilee year of 2005, a further hegemonic stabilization of these policies must be expected.
A range of political and cultural events will be organized against the engines of jubilation, and will facilitate debates on the various jubilee topics from different emancipatory perspectives.
This platform is open for all who are interested. It does not understand itself as a central coordination point of such events, but as a point of initiation and a call for association.
60 years of liberation, 50 years State Treaty, 10 years EU membership. The so-called jubilee year of 2005 must be expected to bring Austria another surge of historical distortions and jingoism, of victim myths and assorted national constructions of identity.
As the 70th anniversary of the events of February 1934 has shown, there was no comprehensive debate of Austro fascism and its continuity in the present. Instead, the discourses of politics, media and society were shifted to the right.
This is a symptom of two periods of office of the OEVP /FPOE government, which since 2000 has been engineering a thorough integration of neoliberal with authoritarian and nationalistic orientations. For the jubilee year of 2005, a further hegemonic stabilization of these policies must be expected.
A range of political and cultural events will be organized against the engines of jubilation, and will facilitate debates on the various jubilee topics from different emancipatory perspectives.
This platform is open for all who are interested. It does not understand itself as a central coordination point of such events, but as a point of initiation and a call for association.