2023-07-21 11:09:00
After Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen had reprimanded the parties for excluding language, Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) countered in a video on Friday: “We will not simply let a few forbid the words.” The fact that he called climate glue, identitarians and Islamist hate preachers in the same breath “not normal” in turn outraged the Greens.
“It’s not all normal anymore. Are you still normal?” Nehammer welcomes his viewers in the video. And immediately asks what “normal” actually is. “I’ll tell you who isn’t normal: It’s the extremes and the radicals. Be it left-wing extremists, be it right-wing extremists.” It is extreme when you put your opinion above that of others, when you disregard the rules and the law. “They are climate stickers or left-wing radicals, just like right-wing radicals or identitarians. They’re Islamist hate preachers as well as vandals and other extremists,” said the Chancellor.
Green: “Unacceptable trivialization”
Nehammer received criticism from his coalition partner: “It is an unacceptable trivialization of right-wing radicalism when right-wing radicals and climate activists are equated,” wrote climate protection spokesman Lukas Hammer on Twitter. “Especially in a country that, due to its history, has to be particularly sensitive to this issue and has a well-armed right-wing scene,” he noted.
Nehammer insists on freedom of expression
“The extreme is the enemy of the normal and, above all, a danger to society,” emphasized Nehammer. “And what I also don’t find normal is being criticized for standing up for the normal, for the many, for the majority,” the chancellor apparently told the federal president. “Freedom of expression in Austria is a great asset,” emphasized Nehammer, “and we will not simply let a few people forbid us to speak.” As Chancellor, he wanted to “bring people together and not drive them apart.”
You stand up for those “who stick to the rules”, who go to work, get involved. “I want to make politics for the many without forgetting the few. The protection of minorities is very important,” said Nehammer. “It’s okay if we make exceptions, but it’s not okay if exceptions become the rule.”
Controversial Schnitzel-Sager
As in his first statement following Van der Bellen’s scolding, Nehammer once once more says in the video that it’s “okay if someone decides to cycle to work”, but “we should stop making drivers feel bad, especially because many people rely on the car”. However, the Chancellor did not repeat his controversial and sometimes ridiculed Schnitzel-Sager (“And it’s just as okay if someone decides to live vegan. But it must also be okay if others like to eat Schnitzel.”) In the video.
Stelzer to VdB scolding: “That you can be so angry”
Upper Austria’s governor Thomas Stelzer (ÖVP) also resisted “words being declared non-words”. He explicitly rejected the scolding of the Federal President. “It amazes me that you can get so worked up regarding standing up for what is important to the majority. It’s the president’s role to raise issues. But everyone has to ask themselves whether they have the right to morally set themselves above others.”
In any case, FPÖ boss Herbert Kickl finds Nehammer’s video “embarrassing”. It is the next attempt to “sell the population for fools”.
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