En Garde! Challenge the WKR-Ball!
Against the Extreme Right Dancing Event in the Former Imperial Palace, the Hofburg
An annual event…
On January 29, 2010 the 57th annual Ball of the „Wiener
Korporationsring“ (WKR) will take place in the Hofburg, the former
imperial palace. Over twenty local „fraternities“* are organized within
the WKR, which fall into a political spectrum ranging from
„national-libertarian“, folk-German nationalist to openly extreme
right. The most well-known member of the WKR is at this point in time
most certainly the fraternity Olympia, whose „Good Old Boy“ Martin Graf
scandalously holds the office of third „Speaker of Parliament“. Olympia
demonstrates very clearly the function of German nationalist
fraternities as a place forging a bond between the FPÖ (Freedom Party
of Austria)** on the one hand and neo-nazism on the other. Thus you can
find members of Olympia representing the FPÖ in the local and national
parliaments as well as in the party leadership at the district and
state level. At the same time, Olympia has invited various neonazi
singers as well as the Holocaust-denier David Irving to their clubhouse
over the past several years. Besides this, Olympia continually makes
racist, anti-semitic, and NS-relativising statements.
Furthermore these fraternities stand for patriarchal socialising and
sexism. This can be seen in the fact that women are denied entry into
all of the student groups that are part of the WKR and at best them may
be „brought along“ to attend certrain evenings. Women are expected to
behave according to their stereotypical gender role as made clear by a
statement from Olympia, „If you have a girlfriend along who is neither
beautiful nor quiet, or more concisely, if you are somehow abnormal or
miserable, you had better stay at home.“ A look at the songs sung in
the fraternities mkes the sexist idea of gender roles clearer still;
they sing that women should rather be washing, behind the stove, or at
the sewing machine than at the university.
Every year about 2000 visitors come to the rightist walzing in the
Hofburg. Besides the large number of frat boys, the political elite of
the FPÖ and the BZÖ (another far right party in Austria) also make an
appearance in the former residence of the Emperor. Nevertheless, the
WKR-Ball has a relevance outside of Austria. The Ball Committee
advertises the event as having developed to be „the largest social
event of fraternities in German-speaking countries“. And the visitors
of the previous years have underscored the international tenor. Thus
many members of rightist and extreme right parties from all over Europe
use the evening as a platform: in 2009 there were delegations from Pro
Köln (Pro Cologne), Pro NRW and the DVU (German People’s Union)
(Germany), the Danish People’s Party and the Swiss Folk Party present.
Also, the Russian Nationalist and anti-Semite Alexander Dugin and the
spanish right revisionist and fascist Enrique Ravello were invited to
the ball. In the year before Jean-Marie Le Pen (Front National/France)
and Frank Vanhecke (Vlaams Belang/Belgium) promenaded in the Hofburg
near „comrades“ from Bulgaria.
This clarifies the role that the WKR-Ball plays for the (Extreme) Right
nationally and internationally. Yet this nationalist exhibition is by
no means the only scandal in this republic.
On Stage: Austria
A look back at the year 2009 from an emancipatory perspective results
in an alternating mix of headaches and stomachaches. At the
parliamentary level the far right parties FPÖ and BZÖ could enjoy one
electoral victory after the other. While the BZÖ managed to defend its
incumbancy in the Carinthian governor’s race, even without Jörg Haider,
the FPÖ partially doubled their procentage points in the last several
elections. For example in the elections for the European Parliament,
they received 12.7% as opposed with 6.3% previously, in Upper Austria
they are now at 15.3% and in Vorarlberg the FPÖ managed to jump 12
percentage point to get 25% of the vote.
Beyond party politics the disgusting spirit of the national
community articulated itself. In June more than 1,500 Burschenschafter
met for an „all-German“ celebratory meeting, known as a Kommers, in
Innsbruck. A basic element of the Kommers was the right revisionist
demand of a Tyrol reaching „from Kufstein bis Salurn“ (aka Salorno in
northern Italy). It is unnecessary to mention that a unified Tyrol is
in this thought processs also part of the idea of a „Great Germany“
including all German-speaking lands. And it does not take long for the
next right revisionist spectacle to follow. The state parade in Tyrol
in September staged the cult status of Andreas Hofer and 200 years of
the Tyrolian Struggle for Freedom. Among the 30,000 participants and
countless „One Tyrol“ banners was a block of self-proclaimed „Freedom
Fighters“, that is South Tyrol terrorists. Without much
differentiation, 70,000 onlookers cheered shooting and cultural clubs
as well as „pan-German“ Burschenschafter and the terrorist Erhard
Hartung, who was convicted of four murders in Italy.
And looking forward to 2010 does not look rosy either. As though the
„free state“ of Carinthia was not enough to deal with, the southernmost
state will be celebrating its identity-defining historic moment. For
the 90th time „Carinthia’s Yes to Austria“, that is the decision of the
at the time majority Slowenian-speaking part of South Carinthia to
remain a part of Austria, will be celebrated with a parade and other
hoopla. Of course the reactionary groups like the Carinthia Defense
League and the Carinthia Homeland Service will place their populist and
anti-slavic stamp on these events.
Vienna is different?!?
It may be that provincial preoccupation with folklore such as the
Tyrolean hat or the Carinthian suit does not receive matching
enthusiasm in the self-proclaimed „City of the World“ Vienna. But that
should not lead to the mistaken opinion that populist-nationalist
thought and the corresponding racism and anti-Semitism are not just as
present here as in the countryside. The upcoming elections in Vienna
look ominous. The FPÖ has already begun sending out mailings against
the „immigration avalanche“, „refugee-crime“ and the „explosion of
criminality“, which – how could it be otherwise – is attributed to
mafia groups from Eastern Europe. It is a joke that the FPÖ wants to
fight cronyism when you look at how many Members of Parliament from the
Freedom Party employ their fraternity brothers. It unfortunately can be
expected that the rhetoric will become tougher as the election day
closes in and the contestuous phase of the elections start. And this
does not only apply to the FPÖ and the BZÖ. The ÖVP spoke in noticeably
harsher tones about Immigration and Integration before the last
parliamentary elections and the new head of the Vienese ÖVP can imagine
a coalition with the Freedom Party.
The exact percentage numbers that will come out of the election are
pretty irrelevant. It can determined independently from them that in
the meanwhile it is no longer or barely attention-raising in the
societal discourse when the third parliamentary speaker questions
whether „South Tyrol“ belongs to Italy, when he claims that Africans
are „biologically different“ or defames Ariel Muzicant, the President
of the Jewish Community, using anti-Semitic rhetoric.
The task of antifascism cannot be to convince those who vote for the
FPÖ, BZÖ or ÖVP to vote instead for the only seemingly a little less
horrible alternatives SPÖ or the Green Party. It is certainly not
enough once a year to symbolically make a statement against the Right
while maintaining the status quo the other 364 days a year. It must be
clear that Right Extremism as a phenomenon merely represents a militant
expansion of bourgeois-capitalist values and ideologies. An antifascism
worthy of its name must set its sights on the roots of this bourgeois
socialisation that forcibly produces domination and exclusion. In this
respect, interventions against events like the WKR-Ball are a bitter
necessity, but are also worthless as long as every form of reactionary
ideology and the basis of capitalism’s negative socialisation is not
fought against as well. The goal of antifascism is to become
unnecessary through a transformation of the societal relations that
deprives anti-emancipatory forms of thought of any basis.
With this is mind:
Burschenschafter out of the Hofburg!
Dissolve „German Nationalist“ Fraternities!
Fight against Antisemitism, Sexism, Racism und Homophobia all the time, everywhere!
For a society without capitalist power structures and exploitation!
Protest against the extreme right WKR-Ball:
29.1.2010 – 18:00 Uhr / Europaplatz Wien
*Throughout this text the word fraternity is used for Burschenschaft
and fraternity brother or frat boy is used for Burschenschafter.
However, a Burschenschaft resembles a fraternity only in the level of
alcohol consumption. Therefore the words Burschenschaft or
Burschenschafter are occasionally used to express the singularity of
these (extreme) right student groups.
**The FPÖ stands for Freiheitliche Partei Österreich or Freedom
Party of Austria. A part of the party split off under the leadership of
Jörg Haider and is called the BZÖ for Bündnis Zukunft Österreich or
Alliance for the Future of Austria. The BZÖ have only been strong in
Carinthia, but recently the Carinthian BZÖ decided to merge with the
FPÖ, calling the future of the BZÖ in question. This article was
written before the merge. Both parties are extreme right.
The ÖVP, Österreichische Volkspartei or Austrian People’s Party, is a
„mainstream“ conservative party, whose rhetoric increasingly mimics
that of the far right parties.
