Dear Federal Chancellor, dear Sebastian Kurz!
“If you want to understand Wolfgang Schüssel, you have to understand how he plays football,” it was said about your predecessor. Like you, Wolfgang Schüssel was not only Federal Chancellor but also chairman of the conservative People’s Party. And like you, he initially formed a coalition as head of government with the “right-wing populist” Freedom Party FPÖ, and then tried a coalition with the “left-wing liberal” Greens. You succeeded in what Wolfgang Schüssel failed to do. Thank you for that, because the coalition with the Greens was the only way to break the diabolical alternative of “standstill (with the SPÖ) or baseness (with the FPÖ)”.
As far as I know, you do not play football, at least I am not aware of any public pictures related to this. So how could anyone try to understand you? “If you want to understand Sebastian Kurz, you have to understand how he answers questions.” (The satirists of “maschek” have tried to analyze this again and again in great ways, for example here.)
How do you answer questions? You are considered to be an excellent listener. You absorb information, so to speak. This is an excellent and necessary condition for cleverness. Being able to listen makes you smart. Without listening one remains dull, and stays downright stupid. You have the gift of not having to be stupid because you can listen.
What do you do with all that information? How do you react to this and, more importantly for all of us, how do you govern with it? Commonly, your government’s communication style is summed up in the term “message control”. Your government is manically trying to control the political news. In terms of power politics, this is formally extremely reasonable. It’s smart, because political power is based on sovereignty over social discourse.
The price for this is paid by the lack of content. If the content is subordinated to the form, then in the end nothing remains but emptiness. Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” serves as a true and revealing example. “The emperor is wearing nothing at all!”
Dear Sebastian Kurz, your style of government is very dangerous. The smart, polite and eloquent Chancellor begins to expose himself to the general public. Especially in the intense crisis of the corona pandemic, this style of government risks a deadlock.
Austria’s policy is characterized by the fact that the “left” is haughty and complacent, and the “right” stupid and perfidious. The “left” overtaxes the heart and mind of the common Austrian, the “right” does not challenge them at all. The “left” makes intellectual and moral demands on others that it is not even able to meet itself, the “right” is of an unassuming modesty in this regard that makes you vomit. The “center” of the country turns away from both of them in disgust.
You, dear Sebastian Kurz, stand for an outspoken “center-right policy”. You want to please everyone, but do not overtax the people when in doubt. It is better to collect votes from the “right wing” than to approach the “center-left”. One can understand that in view of the partly catastrophic history of our country. Maybe it’s even reasonable. At least not a new Holocaust…
The price for this “lesser evil” is arbitrary content and moral reprehensibility. Times will come when you too will have to decide: center or right? Perhaps this time has already come in the face of the advancing pandemic in Austria and the misery of refugees on Lesbos.
“Politics” has the problem of having to deal with the “whole”. While each of us only sees the trees, you have to take care of the forest. For the well-being of the forest, some tree has to be sacrificed here and there. You can’t please everyone all the time. Especially in the face of Corona and Lesbos, this challenge becomes painfully clear. Having to do this with the brain can make a heart cold.
And that brings me back to the beginning. If you want to understand Sebastian Kurz, you have to understand how he answers questions. Sebastian Kurz answers questions as he plays football: Not at all.
In truth, our Federal Chancellor does not answer a single question that he is asked. Instead, he always sings the same song. Which song is it?
There is an old saying about the difference between the composers Anton Bruckner and Johannes Brahms: “Bruckner has a lot to say, but no technique for it. Brahms has nothing to say – but what a technique!”
Dear Federal Chancellor, dear Johannes Brahms!
The trees are sacrificed enough. Our forest is in danger!
Your Anton Bruckner
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Vienna Calling 