Oh please...

Yesterday, Josef Fritzl was sentenced to life in a psychiatric institution. For those who have been spending the last year underneath a rock, in a cave in Antarctica, or on a space station, feel free to google. This post is not about him.

This post is about something I read here this morning.
The Times of London has seen fit to borrow a page from her tabloid cousins and achieved a hattrick of righteous preaching.

First of all, note the large picture at the top of the first article. If they had photoshopped it to include fangs and fiery red reptile eyes, and stamped "Monster!!!" across the man's face, the message couldn't have been more clear. The picture is the first thing we see, taking in the headline only afterwards.

And what a headline it is: "No plans for investigation into police and social service failings"
That combines willful ignorance of the fact that people have been asking those questions for almost a year, with the wonderfully enlightening powers of hindsight. Clearly, something went terribly wrong, here. Nobody is denying that. But saying that "it should have been obvious" or that "questions should have been asked", is a pretty cheap shot by itself, especially if it comes from such a completely safe distance.
Next, the author takes issue with the fact that there are no plans "for new laws such as a sex offenders list". This assumes that reactive legislature is always a good idea, which I'm not so sure about, and that sex offenders lists are effective, which, again, I'm not entirely sure about. But they are flashy and high profile, playing as they do on both the public's fears and the need to *see* the authorities take decisive action. Anyway, the rationale for bringing up a sex offenders register in the context of this particular case eludes me. A previous rape conviction does not automatically mean that the man was bound to turn on his own daughter or her children next. And what was the register supposed to accomplish? Ban the man from having any contact with his children and grandchildren? On what grounds?

Later on comes the following gem regarding Elisabeth's testimony:

"That was the decisive moment in one of Europe’s most extraordinary trials – Elisabeth the martyr had become an avenging angel."

Maybe, just maybe, she will eventually even become Elisabeth the human being. But I'm not holding my breath.

On to the second headline, another one for the ages: "Josef Fritzl: Austria locks up a monster and shuts its problems away"

And here we go:

"It seems like closure for a country that has worried more about its tarnished image than about the alarming deficiencies that the case has exposed in society, in its welfare and judicial systems, even in its attitude to manhood."

Here it comes - sweeping judgement about the entire society of phony under-the-rug-sweepers. Cue the Kampusch-reminders, and hey presto, we're back to the tried and tested narrative of Austrian denialism. This is not to say that this denialism doesn't exist, on the contrary, we're even better at that than we are at skiing. Rather, this is to say that people whose understanding is superficial at best, from societies with their own issues and horror stories (Jersey, anyone? Soham?) set my teeth on edge with that kind of sanctimonious tone. I was actually waiting for the Hitler allusion at that point, but it didn't come. Small mercies.

"That is how Austria wants to see this man: as a once-in-a-century freak, a devilish criminal who has no bearing on the rest of the country."

Because isolating a country as the only place where such things could happen is a far more reasonable thing to do.

And then, there's this: "Josef Fritzl: Austria must examine itself"
Yes, do you hear that, my fellow countrypeople? We must. Mummy told us so.

"The trial of Josef Fritzl has only answered the question of his guilt or innocence. More urgent questions for his country have been left cloaked in shame an silence."

First, I'd like to take a moment to appreciate the evocative, almost poetic language of this subtitle. "Cloaked in shame and silence" - beautiful. Entirely free of fact or even actual content, but definitely beautiful.

Here, the author complains about the fact that the trial lasted only three and a half days. Why? We've all seen the evidence, Fritzl had confessed and entered a guilty plea, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. What else was there to be done? Should the family been put on the stand, in front of cameras, for a couple of days worth of cross-examination each? Should there have been reenactments?

Then, this author contradicts her colleague in a sudden attack of reason -

"And it serves no useful purpose to generalise about a nation or culture on the basis of an aberration. More particularly, legislation designed to ensure that no such crimes could be committed again, even behind the locked doors of private homes, would be intolerably intrusive for any free society."

- just to follow up with a swipe about how Austria isn't really trying all that hard to come to terms with what happened. Look! It's our old friend denialism!

"What it needs is answers; answers to questions that go to the heart of Austria's national character even if the original case does not; answers to questions that, for the most part, have not yet been asked."

This thrilling insight is followed by what I assume are meant to be those hard questions, except that they really aren't all that hard, if you know the meaning of the word hindsight. The author also kindly provides the answers to those hard questions herself.
For example, social services visited the house several times...

"but never reported any anxieties about the “upstairs” children or a father who later told his court-appointed psychiatrist that he was “born to rape”. Why not?"

Leaving aside the obvious solution already contained in the sentence (I give you a hint, though, - "later"), I'll say it was because the "Born2rape"-shirt was always in the wash when socialworkers came to visit.

The article poses several more of those hard questions and follows up with a chaser of victim blaming about Fritzl's wife, Rosemarie.
But in the end, we're back at the beginning:

"As Fritzl begins his sentence in a secure psychiatric hospital, Austria must ask itself the tough questions that were not asked at his trial. Among the most fundamental is whether a culture of cronyism and secrecy has shielded incompetent police and social services from urgently needed reform. On the evidence of the Kampusch and Fritzl cases, the answer is yes. And that means, sooner or later, that it will happen again."

And this is where my real problem lies. The tone is wrong, wrong, wrong. And so are the questions.
Of course there are questions that have to be asked, and measures that have to be taken. But this needs to be done by people who understand the context.
What the Times fails to take into account is that this crime took place in a country that regards itself, crime-wise, as an island of blessed innocence. Women walk home in the dark, children walk to school on their own, and ten years ago people outside the major cities didn't lock their doors, because people knew each other and nothing ever happened. Suspecting horror in such a context would have been as absurd as suspecting horror on "The Waltons". It wouldn't have occurred to people.
As I said, questions have to be asked, and measures have to be taken. But righteous wanks from a safe distance are not helpful.

Anschluss (2)

It's good to know that amid the finger-pointing and compulsive denials of the past few days, people still remember the one thing that matters:

[Note: The title says "Night of Silence - in memory of the many victims". Heldenplatz is where Hitler was welcomed by the crowds in 1938.]

Tonight, exactly 70 days after the Austrian capitulation, students and survivors will light 80.000 white candles on Heldenplatz - one for every Austrian victim of the Nazis.
The names of all victims will be displayed on four large video screens. You can find pictures here and here.


Btw...
"A Letter to the Stars" is another wonderful project, set to culminate in a memorial on May 5th.

Austrian Politics - Daytime Soap Edition

Politicians in Austria have recently been living dangerously.
First, the mayor of a small Alpine village was poisoned. With a cyanide-filled praline. (It came with a greeting card...isn't that charming?) The man survived, but he still needs to remain in an artificial coma.
Then, last week, politicians in a different province received envelopes that were somehow spiked with acid.
And yesterday, the office of a DA (in yet another province) was firebombed. Luckily, nobody was hurt.

I notice a disturbing trend of life imitating mediocre to bad crime fiction...
Honestly...one poisoned praline...that indicates that:

• the person who did this has been watching too much television
• they must be thinking in very convoluted terms...There must be half a million more convenient ways to commit murder in that village, and yet they go out and somehow procure cyanide for their evil plot
• that perp is cheap
  One praline?! How can you hate a person enough to want to kill them, but not enough to fork over a whole box of chocolates?

Common sense would suggest that all of these crimes were personal rather than politically motivated. There's not much to get this worked up about in regional & local politics.
However, and this is the part that becomes disconcerting for an average citizen like me, these stories marked the first time in months that I could bring myself to care about a news item involving a politician.

How did that happen? I'm a bona fide political junkie, getting excited about policy issues everywhere, from the US Presidential race to reforms of the Nepalese constitution. And yet, whenever I hear an item about politics of the country where I was born, where I grew up, and where I'll be living for the foreseeable future, I automatically tune out.
I can't help thinking that it might not be all my fault...

Anschluss

70 years ago, Austria ceased to exist, becoming one more "Gau" in the Third Reich.
That much people can agree on, which really shouldn't be too much to ask.
But from then on, things get tricky.

While the BBC goes with their habitual program of "the convenient myth of victimization" (evil Austrians, still unrepentant, anti-semitic Nazis, the lot of them...bla, bla, bla), Otto Habsburg (and who better to speak with authority on Austria than a person who is the result of centuries of breeding for exactly that purpose) applauds Chancellor Dollfuß (who was a ruthless fascist) and tells his adoring audience that no country in Europe has more claim to being a victim than Austria.

Discussions on this have been going on since the Seventies, and are still far from over.
While I am by no means an expert, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that the truth is probably somewhere in between those extremes. What I know is that Austria in 1938 was barely a country at all. The people were traumatized by the repercussions of WWI, impoverished, and pretty much adrift in new realities they had been ill prepared for. They did not think of themselves as Austrians - and why would they do so, when they had been told for centuries that they were Germans (which happens to be true), and therefore the ruling elite of the multi-ethnic empire (which happens to be b***sh**). The country was split three ways between fascists, Nazis and Socialists, held together only by sheer authoritarian force and heavily armed partisan militias.
They looked to Germany and saw her flourish. Who wouldn't have been envious? Simple solutions to all their problems were dangled before them. Who wouldn't have been tempted?
There are accounts of Hitler's arrival in Vienna, talking about how his troops distributed free meat to the people, many of whom hadn't been able to afford that in years.

My point is that Austria was a victim. A victim of historical circumstance, a victim of her precarious situation, a victim of the attractions of the Nazi regime.
But also a victim of her own ideological flaws and opportunism, which meant that many Austrians were practically falling over themselves in their enthusiastic support for the Fuehrer. Which, in turn, makes Austria a perpetrator, guilty of some of the most horrific crimes ever committed by and against mankind.
These two positions are by no means mutually exclusive. The fact that a serial killer was previously a victim of abuse might help us understand the person's actions a little better, but it does by no means absolve them of guilt.
I'm allergic to dichotomies at the best of times, but even more so when it comes to hugely complex issues with such ramifications. Austria was victim and perpetrator. Some were only victims, others only perpetrators...but the vast majority of people were probably on the broad spectrum in between.

Speaking as someone from my generation, I think we deserve more than a whitewash, and more than an unreflected, self-flagellating guilt-trip. We deserve an honest discussion, and personally, I'm still waiting for that to happen.