Collaborators

In his opening speech at the Salzburg Festival, Federal President Alexander van der Bellen found clear words against Russia’s war of annihilation against Ukraine and all those who sympathise with Putin. This did not sit well with some demagogues. A commentary by Rainhard Kloucek

Admittedly, Alexander van der Bellen will no longer pass muster as an impartial president of all Austrians. He has remained too silent on the ideologically motivated failures of his radical left party colleagues Zadic, Kogler, and Gewessler. For too long, he has supported the policy of appeasement towards the Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin.

But at least Alexander van der Bellen has finally found clear words on how to deal with Russia. For this, he is now being declared an enemy of the people by a whole host of demagogues who, with their complexes, style themselves as representatives of the people and reap enthusiastic applause from the rabble. The bone of contention is his speech at the opening of the Salzburg Festival, in which he not only clearly stated that we are at a political turning point due to Russia’s war of annihilation against Ukraine (“our future will look different from what most of us had hoped”), but also defended the sanctions, as we cannot accept the right of the stronger (i.e., the aggressor Putin). And he also said the following sentence: “All those who now secretly or quite unashamedly sympathise with Putin’s interests or actually or supposedly collaborate with him endanger our cohesion. We must not allow ourselves to be divided! For this is an ancient despotic practice: Divide et impera! Divide and rule!” (The speech can be read on www.bundespraesident.at.)

From this statement, demagogues are now fabricating the narrative that the Federal President characterised all those who criticise the sanctions as collaborators. Anyone who, beyond the cultural technique of reading, also masters reading comprehension will quickly realise that this narrative of the demagogues is false, meaning they are either intentionally lying or are simply incapable of reading comprehension.

However, anyone who takes a closer look at the type of demagogues spreading this narrative will probably conclude that a considerable portion of these demagogues wish to conceal their own submission – or at least intellectual collaboration – to the Russian narrative of the war of annihilation against Ukraine.

c Featured image: Carina Karlovits/HBF