Some of us have worried about Europe being the ghost of the future, sort of like the ghost that appeared to Scrooge in Dickens’ novel. Remember the scenes about the future and how Scrooge eventually changed?
Austria’s government was licking its wounds Monday after a historic debacle that saw the opposition anti-immigrant far-right triumph in a presidential ballot two years before the next scheduled general election.
According to preliminary results, Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party (FPOe) came a clear first with 36 percent of the vote, while candidates from the two governing parties failed to even make it into a runoff on May 22.
I am not suggesting that an Austrian Barry Goldwater is about to become the next leader of Austria. However, there is anger in the streets of Vienna and just about everywhere else. The anger is clearly setting up nationalist parties to do well in elections.
We have some good friends in Austria and exchanged information for a few months about the refugee problem. Therefore, I am not really surprised by these election results. I’ve been reading the anger between the lines in the messages.
Over and over, my friend used the word “chaos” in his messages. He told me that the refugee crisis is threatening their culture and the relative peace that Austria has enjoyed since World War II. They are not anti-immigrant or inhumane. They want order, specially the orderly integration of people who come from cultures with radically different values, i.e. women’s rights!
They also say something that we also hear over here. They say that they can’t recognize their country anymore, i.e. too many people who are not Austrians.
Austria may be starting something over in Europe. I guess people will only take so much “chaos” before they vote for those who promise order.
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