We’re here to crash the Party.
\nOn January 24th, when the Vienna Student Corps Ball or – as they call it now – Academics
\nBall (WienerKorporationsRing-Ball, WKR ball) takes place, it certainly won’t be some kind of harmless
\nAustrian-German mountaineering carnival but a platform for the far right elites of Austria and
\nEurope. Chauvinists and nationalists of every shade will come together: fraternity students and
\npoliticians, academics and managers, lawyers and entrepreneurs. Organised by the Liberal Party of
\nAustria (Freiheitliche Partei \u00d6sterreichs – FP\u00d6) and taking place against the imperial backdrop of the
\nHofburg Castle, the party with its reactionary pomp will show their elitist pursuit for leadership over
\n\u201ctheir\u201d subjects to come \u2013 by putting on the Ritz and dancing waltz and polonaise. Faces, disfigured
\nby fencing scars, foreshadow what will be in store for us when these fancy ladies and gentlemen
\nbecome more influential. Nazis and Champagne, prom night for the ultra-right? More than enough
\nreasons to come to Vienna and crash their Party!
\nThey have no answer to the social circumstances
\nThose who are flocking together at the WKR-ball have no answer to the inhumane circumstances we
\nlive in. And by “those circumstances” we mean Capitalism. In the current crisis this means: bad living
\nconditions and everyday distress for most people not only in Greece. The wrong answer is: national
\nauthority and higher fences, exacerbated competition and unbearable working conditions, blunt
\nracism and ever ongoing violence at every level of society. But the self-appointed right-wing elite,
\nwho foster those ideas are not uninfluential. Many people are applauding them, people
\nwho choose politics of the iron fist over solidarity in the face of the crisis. In times of fear they seek
\nauthority and illusory simplicity that nation states promise to provide, their tiny share of warmth and
\nsecurity included. Under the pressure of global competition employers and employees are eager to
\nform an objective \u201ccommunity of fate\u201d, which has to stand and fight against other nations or
\notherwise will face demise.
\nThe stereotypes and populist arguments, the frenzy at the football game, the patriotism of
\ncorps students or the march with torches performed by angry German mobs against their local
\nrefugee accomodations are not merely acts of nationalism but rather the most obvious and
\ndisgusting ingredients of an extensive \u201cnational project\u201d. It depends on the political atmosphere
\nwhat kind of government takes on the task of forming national and racist unity. Be it the democrats
\nor the conservatives, all of them are at the mercy of a to them chaotic and unintelligible economy,
\nwhich they can try to manage, but will never control altogether. They come back to racist and
\nchauvinistic answers to substantiate their national meritocracy and together brave the storm of the
\nglobal free market. Along the arbitrary ethnic and national boarders created by history they decide
\nwho can join in the fun and who can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Cads\u2019 fighting when ended is soon mended
\nEverybody is meeting at the WKR ball in January: Past attendants were Marine Le Pen (Front
\nNational, France), Filip Dewinter (Vlaams Belang, Belgium) or Markus Beisicht
\n(ProDeutschland, Germany), among others. The frontrunner of the FP\u00d6, Heinz-Christian Strache will
\ncertainly be there this year, because the Vienna faction of the FP\u00d6 is hosting the event (yet again). An
\napparent paradox becomes reality: nationalists meet on an international stage. Admittedly, party
\numpire Strache’s patriotism is hardly compatible with the racial-nationalist ideology of most of the
\nstudent-corps members, and in other respects the political consistency of the different nationalists is
\nhighly debatable, but this does not prevent them from showing unity between neoliberal patriots,
\nnationalist freaks, and conservatives from all over Europe.
\nEven if this is purportedly not an overtly political event, the solemn affirmation of \u201cwestern
\ncivilisation\u201d speaks for itself: “occidental” values, identity and culture are nothing political to them,
\nbut quasi-scientific facts. To them, nation and culture are not products of history and thus manmade,
\nthey are rather given to us by ‘nature’ or God. This “innocent” celebration of Western identity
\nnaturally does not prevent them from aiming for solid political agreements such as the formation of
\nan extreme right-wing faction in the 2014 European Parliament. The ball impressively demonstrates
\nhow right-wing parties recruit their personel from the neo-nazi milieu and thus make it socially
\nacceptable. The information that Strache – the successor to the infamous J\u00f6rg Haider – used to move
\nin these circles himself is a piece of information that should at best be met with a friendly
\nindifference by the ball’s attendees.
\nWhilst most people, especially German voters essentially draw a kind of ideological satisfaction from
\na “Germanized” Europe, the first to profit from this atmosphere of insecurity will be parties like the
\nFP\u00d6, the German AfD or the French Front National. Their business with fear is booming and so it’s
\neasy for them to advance their common project of a society of hierarchy and without solidarity, be it
\ninside or outside of parliament. By declaring the average middle class square the essence of a nation,
\nwhile at the same time making doom-and-gloom prophecies about the demise of Western
\ncivilisation, they manage to position themselves as the sole defenders of a White European culture,
\nas the sole saviours of nation, family and a fictitious Western culture of consent. Because they are
\nnot able to solve the crisis of Capitalism, they instead proclaim a battle of nations and cultures. It is
\nnot by accident that they see the “enemies” of White European lifestyles everywhere: be it Feminism
\nor Islam. Everything that is not straight, Christian and white qualifies to show how Western societies
\nare systematically undermined by “corrosive” forces not “native” to it. Their programme is a society
\nthat is stratified according to authoritarian lines and homogenised by force. Strength, honour and
\nendurance- values of a long lost and because of that all the more appealing era are everything to
\nthem. The shared good life, however, means nothing.
\nManliness as usual
\nThe division of the world into public and private is put into practice everyday in the acting out of
\ntraditional gender roles. Making it seem like a fact of nature becomes – ironically enough – itself apolitical project of the political far-right. It is no surprise, then, that the FP\u00d6 is openly trying to
\ncollaborate with fathers’ rights activists and so-called “masculinists”. Consequently, and despite all
\nthe gallantry and tact displayed at public events like this, the ball’s attendees don’t see women as
\nautonomous subjects, but instead primarily as appendages and decorations to their own societal
\npersona. If the dictate of the moment doesn’t just happen to be defending their honour against
\neither “Islam” or “Feminism”, then it will likely be showing them their “proper place” – hearth and
\nhome, that is – or alternatively to push them about a ballroom to Waltz for the sake of
\nrepresentation. The very fact that the WKR ball displays this anachronistic relationship between
\nwomen and men as an example to be followed makes it, among other things, an ideological event.
\nEven though the violent implementation of the right-wing ideology of family happens systematically
\nand in reality at the expense of the majority of women, their share in promoting this ideology is not
\nto be underestimated. Celebrating traditional roles as well as agitating against everything that
\ndeviates from this norm is not, as one might think, a specifically “male” thing to do. This becomes all
\nthe more obvious when one considers the Vienna sorority “Freya”, somewhat like a female version of
\nthe WKR. Although they don’t engage in fencing in order to prevent their petite faces from being
\nspoilt by scars, behind the genteel facade one can find the same dull cruelty.
\nReactionary things don’t fall by themselves, they need some pushing
\nOn Friday, January 24, the Hofburg Palace will house celebrations and fraternisations of those who
\ncall themselves “the pillars of society”, but whose social prestige and economic prosperity is really
\nfounded on exclusion and repression, chauvinism, racism and sexism. They see themselves as the
\nelite and avantgarde of right-wing politics in Austria and Europe. Above all, their solution to the crisis
\nis one thing: The hard hand, a rule that will close ranks, tighten the belt and divide society further
\ninto those “up there” and the rest left to themselves. Because of this the WKR ball marks the perfect
\nopportunity to trip up reactionary solutions to the crisis and to spoil the fun for all those strapping
\nboys and dainty girls.
\nWe say: WKR? WTF! Let’s teach right-wing ideologies and their political and cultural ambassadors a
\nlesson – together and across all borders. The WKR ball isn’t merely a harmless expression of a
\ndistasteful culture and attitude. It is rather part of a reactionary, right-wing offensive in face of the
\ncrisis. The right-wing elites’ blabber of nation, Christian values, lack of alternatives and tradition only
\nserve to mask that there are in fact better forms of organising a society. And those are worth fighting
\nfor in the current crisis. They can only be won and defended against nation and patriarchy, state and
\ncapital. It is because of this that the battle against reaction is always a battle for the good life of all:
\nfor solidarity and free association, free from ostracisms through class and racism, sexism and social
\nchauvinism, and without the false necessities imposed on us by capital.
\nBe it competition, “Western Civilisation”, the nation, family or any other nonsense \u2013 spill their
\nchampagne on January 24th, 2014! The last (and best!) party will be ours! The only solution to the
\ncurrent crisis is Communism!
\nDemonstration<\/p>\n
Friday, January 24th, 2014
\n17 o’clock, Landstra\u00dfe, Vienna<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Day of anti-national workshops<\/p>\n
Saturday, January 25th, 2014
\n12 o’clock, Vienna (Location TBA)<\/p>\n
\nBusses leaving a.o. from Milan, Prague, Berlin, Bremen, Frankfurt, Cologne and Leipzig.<\/p>\n
For all, who come with us from Leipzig: please keep your sleeping bags and sleeping mat in mind!<\/strong><\/p>\n F\u00fcr alle, die mit uns aus Leipzig fahren: Bitte denkt an Schlafs\u00e4cke und Isomatten!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We’re here to crash the Party. On January 24th, when the Vienna Student Corps Ball or – as they call it now – Academics Ball (WienerKorporationsRing-Ball, WKR ball) takes place, it certainly won’t be some kind of harmless Austrian-German mountaineering carnival but a platform for the far right elites of Austria and Europe. Chauvinists and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unwritten-future.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unwritten-future.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unwritten-future.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unwritten-future.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unwritten-future.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1784"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.unwritten-future.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1787,"href":"https:\/\/www.unwritten-future.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784\/revisions\/1787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unwritten-future.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unwritten-future.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unwritten-future.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}