Into The Light
by Hannes Grassegger on November 20, 2008 in Opinion
Jörg Haider †, 1950 - 11 October 2008
Falco (of “Rock Me Amadeus” fame) got it absolutely right: “In Austria, they rarely celebrate your life before you’re dead. But once you die, you live long.” Not only did this hold true for Falco himself, but it also does for the only other contemporary Austrian rock star: controversial far-right politician Jörg Haider. After lifetimes of scandals and nationwide frowns, both Jörg and Falco left the stage with a bang, in a car accident. And instantly, they received the public’s benediction.
But wait a second - wasn’t Haider the demagogue who called Third Reich employment policies “orderly”? The man who successfully re-introduced the Nazi-term Überfremdung (”over-foreignization”) into the public discourse? So why was there mourning? Why the thousands of candles and flowers in the streets of Carinthia? Why the public compassion unseen since the death of Lady Di? What chord did he strike, this populist, this disco-boy with a tan?
There was one defining principle in Haider’s life: provocation. Thinking the unthinkable; speaking the unspeakable. He was the spokesperson of the “little man.” Truly free. Literally liberal. Simply Jörg.
You were either for or against him, but you paid attention. You could not afford not to listen. From the brownish insults delivered at the annual Ash Wednesday address. To the commendation of Waffen SS members. To the attacks on minorities. But also to his not-so-populist standpoints: pro-Turkish EU-accession, pro-Austrian NATO-accession, pro-comprehensive schooling.
Haider was many things and all things simultaneously. He was notoriously difficult to pin down. Provincial and cosmopolitan. Reformer and conservative. Homoerotic and heteroerotic. He provoked refusal and fascination; admiration and embarrassment; love; hate.
Haider polarized, and in so doing, he mirrored the bi-polar disorder of Austria at-large. Since 1945, the country has pondered whether it was perpetrator or victim of WWII. And even further back, the melting pot called Habsburg Austria was inherently torn between imperialism and multi-nationalism. Rather than resolving the conflict, we introduced a second crown - Austria-Hungary.
This is what distinguishes the typical Austrian from the typical Prussian (German). The Prussian is straightforward, honest, clear-cut. We Austrians are in between things. Not Slavic, not German. Not Western European, but neither Eastern. We crave blurry surroundings: foggy mountain valleys, Viennese coffee houses, indecision, escape from reality.
On a societal level, this means we tend to look the other way. After all, this was the country where “monster dad” Josef Fritzl locked his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children by her…without any of the neighbors noticing.
The Haider phenomenon, however, forced us to do the opposite. To face reality. This is the chord he struck with us. Haider not only stuck the finger in the wound; Haider was the wound.
Haider almost literally tore apart the corporatist power duopoly ruling the country for 40 years (another one of those blurry contexts). Introducing a third force, his FPÖ, into the Austrian party spectrum remains his most important political achievement by far. As the New York Times put it in his October obituary, Haider effectively “transformed Austrian politics.”
Of all people, Chancellor Gusenbauer, a Social Democrat and political adversary, lauded Haider for this in his condolence speech: “Often people made the mistake of criticizing Haider for his criticisms alone. Yet critically evaluating the state of affairs has a central justification in society. Having a debate about what and how to change society is the essence of democracy.”
Like Falco, Haider essentially crafted art for the people by the people (Kunst fürs Volk durchs Volk). He dressed eccentrically and systematically violated the nation’s taboos. He carefully built a myth. Falco once explained, “I never want people to say: Who’s that? I want them to say: What is he? Who is he? We like him, we don’t like him. That’s where I want to be! What is he, what does he do? Ah! Interesting! Scandal! Headline! Scandal! - That’s great, that’s showbiz.”
In the end, it took a Carinthian Governor to bring showbiz to Austrian politics, not a Californian one. Even Haider’s death was a show. When he was smashed in his car on October 11 - boozed, speeding, on his way home from a gay club - he polarized one last time. There was sadness and there was relief; shock and cheer. But the important thing is that there was both.
The eternal agent provocateur left with a wake-up call: Open your eyes, Austria! Understand your dark side. Appreciate your extremes and internal tensions. Closing your eyes to them will not get you out of the dark.
Comments
2 Responses to “Into The Light”
Got something to say?
Great article. A well written piece about a man few Americans know.