A linguist internationally recognized for her analysis of far-right political discourse, Ruth Wodak is on September 18 on Reumannplatz, in the heart of Favoriten, the most popular and mixed district of Vienna, to campaign for the Austrian Social Democratic Party (SPÖ). “I told myself that we had to do everything to avoid Fortress Austria”explains the septuagenarian dynamic with reference to the anti-immigrant slogan of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ, far right), which promises to “stop the right to asylum”, and that the polls give the lead for the legislative elections organized on Sunday September 29 in the country.
Faced with the hesitant German of many foreigners, who do not have the right to vote anyway, and a few men slumped on their benches and visibly under the influence of narcotics, the leaflets that this intellectual figure of the Austrian left a printouts from one's own computer arouse moderate interest. “The most incredible thing is the people from Polish immigration or from the former Yugoslavia who told me that they were brave workers and that they don’t want Syrians because they are Muslims”she laments, while trying despite everything to put forward the SPÖ program, “which promises more money for education and to facilitate integration” strangers.
The scene is characteristic of the difficulties of Austrian social democracy, like those of so many of its counterparts in Europe, to escape the trap of the migration question. Located a twenty-minute walk from Vienna's main train station and five metro stops from the emblematic Saint Stephen's Cathedral, Reumannplatz, with residents from more than a hundred countries around the world, is not a “no -go zone”, with the many families who walk there, its large green spaces and its glacier, the most famous in the Austrian capital.
From the former communist bloc
However, the places have become for many Austrian voters, especially in rural areas, the symbol of the fact that their country has still not digested the migrant crisis of 2015. In the spring, gangs of young people The Syrian and Chechen origins clashed several times with knives, belying the legendary tranquility of the former Habsburg capital. The leader of the FPÖ, Herbert Kickl, relied on these facts to denounce the“Islamization that we have observed since 2015” and excite the fear of “big replacement”this conspiracy and racist theory invented by identity circles, which consists of saying that Muslims will soon replace the “white” and Christian populations.
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Source: Lemonde
