Youth and the ecology movement
These struggles made it possible to relaunch
For more than two years, the Austrian government's at Hainburg on the Danube has met with massive scheme for building a dam and a nuclear power station the activity of the ecological and antınuclear move- ment, producing national and international reverberresistance, especially among the youth. This affair The question facing the Austrian Greens - and even the supporters of this project have had to has become à burning issue in day-to-day politics, tionary left is whether the conditions have been Alternatives movement and the currents of the revoluretreat. At the start of 1985, the government in fact assembled for undertaking the construction of a decided to yield to the mobilizations political party to the left of the Social Democracy, activists who occupied the Hainburg site and who which could concentrate and magnify the capacity mobilization shown in these suspended until a referendum could be held on the The discussion has thus been opened on what should be the political foundations of such a party.
AUSTRIA had faced violent police repression.
ations.
for latest struggles.
question.
rise strongly after 1978. It was impelled today in two different organizations, Herman DWORCZAK
In Austria in the past environmental questions played quite a secondary role. The workers' movement regarded them as irrelevant. Of course, the Social Democratic Party (SPOe) has a large organization called the "Friends of Nature." But its activities have been more or less confined to hiking, mountain climbing, and sailing.
For the radical left also, the question of defending the environment remained essentially a "dead horse" up until late in the 1970s. Concern for the environment was left almost exclusively the "unpolitical" environmental defense organizations, individual scientists, bourgeois personalities. Such people tended to be regarded as rather odd and occurred over the project of building a nuclear power station at Zwentendorf. Under the impetus of international experiences, a broad antinuclear movement
In it the left, in particular the Maoists, who were still strong, initiative of Austrian section of the Fourth International, the movement took for a referendum on nuclear conservatives their Oesterreichische Volkspartei, distance from the Zentendorf project for tactical reasons, the SPOe was threatened with being stuck with a pronuclear label in the upcoming parliamentary elections. Kreisky, decided to hold a referendum on the subject on November 5, 1978. Nuclear power was defeated by a narrow majority, 50.5% against 49.5%.
The broad movement, whose influence reached deep into bourgeois circles themselves, broke up. A few small propaganda ivating when the nuclear lobby made new moves toward opening Zwentendorf. environmental problems continued by international developments such as the rise of the German Greens, the erosion of the Social Democracy, and the failure of the panaceas of the radical left. A Green-Alternative current developed.
From the outset, despite an ideological overlapping, two distinct projects were conception of the "pure Greens," would work for environmentalist reforms in the framework of the market economy.
was the conception of the "Alternatives, who did not want to limit their activity to defense of the and who looked to "society beyond the profit principle."
+ Д
(VGOe, the United Greens of Austria), and the second by Liste Oesterreichs (ALOe, Alternative Slate of Austria).
The post-1945 period period of the Second Republic, has been marked by a general process of depoliticalization. this are clear. The conservatives and coalition" that was to last until 1966. Conflicts were eliminated by partnerships" before autonomous class was stifled before the world's record for the least strikes, seconds per worker lost in strikes. Not only were criticism and study fascist past not wanted, intellectual debate in general, political culture went into decline. The Alpine republic became "Europe's Disneyland." (1)
While the older generations retained some rudiments of political thinking, the youth were nearly totally depoliticalized. A small young left swam against the stream in the 1960s (the Verband Socialistischer Mittelschueler [Socialist High-School Students
Sozialistischer [Socialist Student League of Austria]. On this basis, the student movement began to develop in 1967.
Unlike other countries, totally to make any impact beyond the campus. Despite operations to "unfreeze the climate" and some individual political successes, May 1968 and its effects in Austria were no more than a "hot quarter
In the second half of the 1970s and the first years of the 1980s, there were 1. Cf. Siegried Mattl, "Europas Disneyland. Politik, Kultur und Unkultur in der Zweiten Republik," in Die Linke, No. 6, 1985
Fritz Keller, Wien, May 1968 - Eine heisse Viertelstunde, Venna 1983.
International Viewpoint 17 June 1985
limited youth mobilizations, mainly struggles for self-managed cultural and communications centers. They never managed to involve more than small
However, the conflict over the nuclear
December, in which young people played role, showed that under the deceptive surface of passivity a considerable discontent has accumulated. And the generally repressive social climate for young people has shaped this process to a considerable extent.
At the beginning, Hainburg was "only" a dubious project from the environmental and economic standpoints. government's stubborness and the cementworshipping philosophy of the Austrian unions, which have learned nothing from the Zwentendorf struggle and have taken up the cause of the profits of the building and electrical industry, made the Hainburg the focus of all sorts of social contradictions. Among other things, this issue highlighted the undemocratic character of Austrian parliamentarianism.
When the police launched a massive attack on the occupiers of the Hainburg site on December 19, 40,000 persons came out to a protest demonstration in
Confronted with these strong protests, the government opted for a "Christmas and then for a year's "pause for reflection." So, the building plans were put on ice until next fall.
"bunker" faction in the Austrian Confederation of Unions is still pressing for the construction of Hainburg, in various unions the traditional ideas about "growth at any price" have started to slip. For example, Alfred Dolinger, president of the country's the Private Industry "traditional conceptions" in a Factory Council members conference in March, and raised a call for involvement of the unions in environmental questions. It is International Viewpoint 17 June 1985 of the
350,000 mental questions."
While
"Vereinten in the favored by the media, results elections the Vienna city council, the respectable vote. (3)
the
Hainburg conflict.
have the already
"Programmatic
Manifesto
While this self-management, and women, parties together without parties."
Austria."
of specific statement says:
it possible for all to lead a full life.
There also unfortunate are very evocations of the theme of "small is beautiful,"
such as "The alternative is not to live from the world market but from your own forces."
Even the more left Vienna Alternative
State denounces the Social Democracy mainly for being
" the nuclear party.
Instead of orienting to the workers'
A polluted river in Austria (DR)
movement, is particularly this city."
of getting into the
Alternativen.
Their representative
"We do not the economic
We want free a
"neoliberal"
of the
VGOe Wolfgang fired a blast appropriate enterprises."
Hainburg
The and in the politics?"
After and the discussions which a party for progressive to the right to chose, the
"no way around"
especially those who have been expelled from the process of production.
Thirdly, internal democracy has to be guaranteed in the party, and not in the last instance for various ideological currents.
Finally, any members of the party elected to parliament must assume the speaking for the decisive role of extraparliamentary movements.
3.
In the parliamentary elections, the
VGOe
93,000
65,000.
got votes:
the
ALOe,
Venna, in the municipal elections, the
Alternativen elected people in ten wards.
11
Attacks launched during which young people do not have the right to unemployment benefit.
unemployment benefit to a person whose period of
BELGIUM.