Not that Austria's record is spotless. Neglect and petty chicanery in immigration and asylum matters are certainly not unknown. In January 2021, Kurz' government on the orders of then-Interior Minister (now Chancellor) Karl Nehammer deported a 12-year-old girl who was born in and had lived most of her life in Austria to the country of Georgia. Nehammer staged an ugly nighttime raid, a Nacht und Nabel staging that showed the kind of performative cruelty that was a trademark of Trump's anti-immigrant policies in the US.
Known as the Tina case from the girl's first name, Austria's high court, the Administrative Court (VfGH), recently ruled that the deportation had been flat-out illegal. Griss on the decision in the Tina case: “Child welfare always comes first” 24 World Hours 08/17/2022. But on August 23, current Interior Minister Gerhart Karner, an admirer of the "Austrofascist" dictator Engelbert Dollfuss, rather bizarrely defended the appropriateness of that illegal action! (Minister Karner zur Anti-Migrations-Kampagne ORF.at 23.08.2022)
It's helpful to think of political reactions to immigration and especially refugee issues as falling into two distinct silos, which I call here Real-World Experience and Political Narrative silos.
On the one hand, it's unrealistic to see the two as radically separated. Even the most demagogic political narratives usually have some discernable contact with reality. There are exceptions of course. Alex Jones' talk about lizard people from outer space comes to mind.
On the other hand, racists and narrow nationalists are better able to ignore crass contradictions in their claims than most people are.
Even in the segregated Jim Crow South, even the most racist whites had examples of a "Good Negro." This tradition still persists in the US Republican Party. Their current African-America candidate for the Senate in Georgia, strikes a public pose that matches crude Republican stereotypes of a Good Negro. As Elie Mystal put it in the spring, "The Walker campaign exists as a political minstrel show: a splashy rendition of what white Republicans think Black people look and sound like." (The Herschel Walker Senate Campaign Is an Insult to Black People The Nation 04/14/2022)
Adolf Hitler, the most infamous Austrian of all time, used to complain that too many Germans had acquaintances they considered "good Jews." Amazingly, he even had at least one himself, his parents' doctor in LInz, Eduard Bloch (1872-1945). Austrian historian Brigitte Hamann did a biography of him, Hitlers Edeljude: Das Leben des Armenarztes Eduard Bloch (2008). Hilter put him under special protection after the annexation (Anschlusss) of Austria in 1938, and he was allowed to emigrate to America, where he lived in the Bronx until his death.
But such an exception obviously didn't carry over into Hitler's more general treatment of Jews, to put it mildly.
But this is part of the larger phenomenon that individuals who have realistic evaluations of their personal experiences with members of the target group can simultaneously adopt political narratives hostile to that group. And, more to the practical point, support and accept anti-immigrant and anti-refugee policies of parties who hold such positions.
White racists in the US try to deal with this phenomenon by trying to redefine racism as a question of personal manners. So politicians who active support voter-suppression measures against Black and Latino voters insist that they don't judge anyone by the color of their at all in the slightest way. They will assure you that some of their best friends are Blacks, Latinos, or whatever group is the topic at the moment.
The two silos in the chart above could also be labeled Personal Attitudes and Political Narratives. It's important to distinguish between the two. Because claimed personal attitudes can be drastically in contrast with the political attitudes of the same individual.
Meanwhile, there's an Italian election coming up in which rightwing parties like Matteo Salvini and his Lega party, which is a Putinist party in both it political orientation and its attitude toward Russia, will use xenophobic rhetoric to promote themselves.
In Austria, the far-right FPÖ (Freedom Party) has relied heavily on anti-foreigner rhetoric since the 1990s and continues to do so. The Christian Democratic People's Party (ÖVP) partnered with the FPÖ as their junior partner in Chancellor Sebastian Kurz' first government of 2017-2019. And not only did Kurz stress anti-foreigner and anti-refugee themes, his party unfortunately continues to do so.
Austrian journalist Barbara Tóth recently tweeted:
Man kann echt jedes Jahr die Uhr danach stellen. Immer nach ferragosto startet die #ÖVP eine sicherheits/migrationskampagne. Intern ist das vermutlich der Auftakt für den politischen Herbst. Durchschaubar und nicht schlau. Spielt doch nur der FPÖ in die Hände.
— Barbara Tóth (@barbaratoth) August 17, 2022
The ÖVP party general secretary Laura Sachslehner has been tweeting anti-immigrant themes. Interior Minister Karner (ÖVP) has begun chiming in. So, we can expect a steady stream of those "political narratives" from them along the lines of: refugees are a burden for Austria; refugees are criminals threatening Austrians; refugees aren't real refugees, they are "migrants" looking to lie in Austria's social hammock, and on and on.
How effective they will be for the ÖVP's and FPÖ's political prospects, and how much damage they will do, depends very heavily on how well and how forcefully the social-democratic (SPÖ), Green, and liberal (Neos) parties directly counter the toxic political narrative. Civil society organizations also play a role, of course. But to counter the xenophobic narrative coming from politicians, other politicians need to provide an opposing one.
I'm focusing on the Austrian situation here. But the same thing is true for other EU countries and the parties in the European Parliament.
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