A few months ago, it became clear that Austria’s new President would not be a far-right politician. After an extensive and tiresome one-year-long election campaign and a failed run-off in May, the Austrian Freedom Party’s Norbert Hofer was defeated by Alexander Van der Bellen, a former politician from the left-of-centre Green Party. Political observers feared that a Hofer victory would have emboldened the far-right across Europe. Though Mr. Hofer was defeated, his campaign revealed a terrifying reality: almost 50% of the Austrian electors voted for him, expressing support for a party that includes neo-Nazi elements.
Muslim immigrants to Austria feared Mr. Hofer’s victory the most and it’s easy to understand why. One of the first campaign posters of his Freedom Party read, “Daham statt Islam.” This literally means “At home instead of Islam”. Another famous slogan of the party was “Isst du Schwein, darfst du rein,” or “You may enter [the country] if you eat pork.” This slogan not only offended Muslims, but Jews as well. Mr. Hofer’s defeat, however, did not alleviate the concerns of the Muslims. The conservative and social democratic coalition government united behind a new “integration law”, which includes a “burqa ban” that forbade Muslim women from covering their faces in public places. The government also banned women from wearing the hijab, or headscarf, in public service, which meant that policewomen, female lawyers and judges were all forbidden from wearing such garb.
Indeed, the Austrian Conservative Party had been clamouring for banning the headscarf for months. The debate was led by the country’s Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, who has embarked on a strategy to lure voters from the far-right Freedom Party back into the conservative fray. Prohibiting “anti-social symbols” such as the burqa will help Austria “better integrate those migrants who are allowed to stay,” Mr. Kurz said, defending the ban. Regarding the ban on head-scarves, the government said it is in the interest of public servants appearing “ideologically and religiously neutral”. However, it is not difficult to see who is being targeted by these steps. Mr. Kurz added after the new measures were approved that Christian symbols like the crucifix would be allowed in the public square. “That’s a good thing,” he insisted.
Dual approach
This dual approach is not new for Austria’s Muslims. “Back when I was in grade school, we had a crucifix in every classroom,” said Amina (23), a law student from Vienna. Amina has Turkish roots but was born and raised in Austria. She wears a headscarf herself. “Some of our teachers preferred to start the first hour of the day with a prayer. ‘You, why are you not praying? Aren’t you Christian?’, I was often asked,” she said.
“Scarf-wearing Muslim women were a normal thing at my school. But all of them were cleaners,” said Ali (25), who also grew up in Austria. Asked about the new law, he said he believes it is simply targeting Muslims. “None of locals had a problem with these cleaning women. They did a job most Austrian would not ever want to do. But the children of these cleaners define themselves as Austrians and also as Muslims. Many of them are well-educated, studying law, medicine, etc.,” he pointed out.
According to many migrant children from Ali’s generation, it is their advance in Austrian society that infuriates so many native citizens who feel they have been left behind, and that’s what the far-right seeks to exploit. “They simply don’t want to see us and our progress. But it’s too late. We are already here. This is our country as well,” Amina says.
