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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.

Mobi-Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7meqTuPrcd4

Feature auf at.indymedia: http://at.indymedia.org/node/16830