World News @lemmy.ml geneva_convenience @lemmy.ml 3d ago

Austria's 'fight against Islam': How a Freudian 'slip' exposes its racist legacy

www.middleeasteye.net Austria's 'fight against Islam': How a Freudian 'slip' exposes its racist legacy

The country's Nazi-era racism persists, with Islamophobia normalised through laws and rhetoric that criminalise Muslims, and perpetuated by institutional complicity

Johanna Mikl-Leitner, the governor of Lower Austria and a politician from the Austrian People's Party (OVP), recently declared in an interview on ORF, Austria's national broadcaster, that the country must "fight against Islam".

Her statement was made in the context of defending her party's sudden shift in stance towards Austria's far-right Freedom Party, with which the OVP had previously ruled out forming a coalition due to the severe corruption scandals that had tainted their earlier partnership. The Freedom Party, founded by former Nazis and SS members after World War Two, was long seen as a party created by Nazis for Nazis.

The governor's statement was left unchallenged during and after the broadcast, exemplifying the normalisation of Islamophobic discourse within Austrian society. Hundreds of media professionals - producers, editors and journalists - had opportunities to question or condemn Mikl-Leitner's rhetoric, yet the silence was deafening.

Such passivity from the network is not merely a failure of journalistic integrity but a tacit endorsement of the dangerous ideologies her words represent. This complacency mirrors Austria's pre-Holocaust era when hateful rhetoric against Jews was allowed to fester unchecked. Then, as now, the media's complicity - whether through active support or passive indifference - played a pivotal role in legitimising hate.

9 comments

I am curious why there is no article about yesterday's stabbing in Austria? Someone killed a 14 year old boy and injured 4 people.
- Sorry but it’s all over the news in Austria Lol. I wonder why the Jewish dude in Florida shooting at two Jews because he thought they were Palestinians isn’t in the news here?
  
  By the way the guy who stopped the stabbing a Muslim Syrian immigrant.
  
  I was asking about world news. I know it has been posted in Austria. I also know that the driver who stopped the attack was a Syrian. I am dissapointed in all biased media including our national one.
- What's the point in asking something like this here unless to make a connection between a terror attack and islam?
  
  Tell me one terror attack in EU in last 5 years that wasn't done by extremly religious person.
- Because I can guarantee there were other stabbings yesterday which got no coverage.
  
  There is a massive difference between a loner going haywire and state sanctioned discrimination. Especially since the vast majority of Muslims already denounce ISIS.

9 comments