About us
What does anti-fascism mean and why is it also needed at the University of Vienna?
Even though there is often talk of "neutrality" and "objectivity" in science: Neither university nor science is an ideology-free, apolitical space. This means, for example, that there are always openly right-wing extremist professors and students at a university and that a lot of right-wing ideas (still) find their way into lectures without being contextualized.
Especially in times when right-wing organizations and parties are gaining popularity again, e.g. through conspiracy theories, and right-wing ideas are becoming acceptable again and again, it is important for us as a left-wing ÖH to stand up against this.
We do this by supporting projects and events that establish or promote anti-fascist awareness among students. We also organize lectures, film screenings or panel discussions and support visible actionism in the form of meetings and demonstrations.
Explanation of terms: Fascism and Anti-fascism
Fascism
(Neo-)fascism can be defined as a nationalist, anti-democratic, hierarchical and radical right-wing movement or ideology, usually organized according to the leader principle. Central to this is the idea of the incompatibility of "different cultures," with "white, European culture" considered superior. Women are also often considered subordinate to men, and queer people are usually denied any right to exist.
Anti-Facism
Anti-fascism means to fight (neo-)fascism, right-wing extremism, nationalism, anti-Semitism, racism, but also capitalism and (hetero-)sexism etc.. It means fighting for right-wing extremist, fascist ideas not to be considered an opinion and certainly not to find a platform on which to spread them.
It also means standing up for a world without discrimination, in which all people can live well.
Active anti-fascism is always important. If right-wing discourses are ignored, it means that they can influence how issues are talked about. And that conditions how we think about it and how we act. It affects the realities of life for all people who face discrimination.
Form to report right-wing extremist activities
We need your help!
Since right-wing extremist groups sometimes use the university to spread their agitation and recruit students, there is a reporting form that you can use to report right-wing extremist and conspiracy-theory activities at and related to the University of Vienna.
In the past, for example, it has been observed that lecture halls have been flooded with right-wing extremist propaganda material and a large number of relevant stickers, mostly with racist content, have been pasted, flyers have been distributed and supposedly interested people have been directly approached in lectures or recruitment efforts have been started. On the other hand, we have received reports of several attempts to intimidate politically committed students, and threats have also been made repeatedly against our employees.
In addition, there are always lecturers who are conspicuous for their conspiracy-theoretical or right-wing extremist content or statements.
So if you observe something like that, please let us know! You can find the form in this link:
No to members of nationalist male fraternities on the ramp of Uni Vienna!
Every Wednesday at 12:00 members of German nationalist male fraternities (so called Burschenschaften) march on the ramp to the main entrance of the University of Vienna for the so-called "Couleurbummel". In November 2021, a former fraternity member was convicted of violating the Nazi Prohibition Act for, among other things, a speech in "memory of the German Wehrmacht and the soldiers of Nazi Germany." [1]. He was allowed to hold the speech on the university ramp in May 2019 [2]. The case is by no means an isolated incident.
This matter is by no means an isolated case; rather, it is an expression of a worldview that despises humanity: anti-Semitism is a key feature of the völkisch ideologies to which fraternities subscribe.
To this day, anti-semitic, racist, sexist and anti-queer ideologies are an integral part of many fraternities, as reflected not least in the songbook affairs. It is a scandal that their representatives are still allowed to march on the university. Therefore, we call on the rectorate to finally take action and to stop the marches of right-wing extremist fraternity members at the University of Vienna!
A group has started a petition and regularly organizes coffee stands to draw attention to this. If you want to help, sign it or come to the Unirampe on Wednesdays at noon.
You can sign the petition here.
You can read more about fraternities here (PDF, german).
Sources
[1] https://presse-service.net/2019/05/08/mittwochsbummel-und-heldengedenken-der-burschenschaften-an-der-universitaet-wien-08-05-2019/
[2] https://www.stopptdierechten.at/2021/11/24/eine-schneidige-rede-und-viel-brauner-humor/
Open letter to the rectorates of Universität Wien, BOKU and TU Wien
No stage for Corona-downplayers!
Vienna, 14.12.2021
The University of Vienna, together with BOKU and TU Wien, is currently offering a cross-disciplinary and cross-university lecture series on Covid 19. A pandemic poses many challenges to society, which could be discussed from different scientific perspectives - however, the existing lecture is partly held by people who have already attracted attention in the past with anti-Semitic statements, trivialization of the disease and/or conspiracy theories. To substantiate this, we have attached a document with research to this open letter.
Already the first lecture was full of social Darwinist views, of trivializations of the disease and hair-raising claims. For example, it was repeatedly emphasized that mainly old people and people with pre-existing conditions were affected by corona - almost as if their deaths were less serious. Apart from the fact that younger people are also severely affected, old people and people with pre-existing conditions have just as much a right to live as anyone else.
The freedom of teaching and science is indisputable for us.
However, the freedom of science must not be an argument for inhuman world views. Anyone who grants conspiracy-theory discourse an academic cloak is helping to make it acceptable. The existing channels of dissemination of conspiracy theories, Corona trivializations and right-wing ideas via Telegram and Facebook are being expanded to include a highly official channel.
Anti-Semitism, Ableism or other forms of discrimination must not be given a platform, just like right-wing and far-right discourses. Discrimination and conspiracy theories are not opinions! Especially for students who have not yet dealt intensively with corona and corona-harmless positions, it is also sometimes difficult to recognize who is behind them or what the background of the allegations is.
Just as little does the argument of discourse at eye level count. On the contrary, hierarchical relationships must be taken into account. For example, students are in a relationship of dependency to the teachers, since they depend on a positive grade and an ECTS certificate. Likewise, knowledge hierarchies must be referred to: students cannot be expected to have the same discourse ability as academic teaching staff who have been teaching for years. Therefore, not every person dares to disagree in the public setting of a lecture series.
The offered lecture series offers a platform for inhuman attitudes and must therefore be cancelled! There must be no ECTS for coronaverharmlosung!
Yours sincerely
ÖH Uni Vienna, Jewish Austrian Hochschüler_innenschaft, ÖH Boku, HUS, IG Powi
Research on lecturers of the lecture series on Corona
Andreas Sönnichsen
The MedUni has distanced itself via social media from Sönnichsen, who already gave a lecture in the first lecture.
In their statement it says "Andreas Sönnichsen from the Center for Public Health represents personal views on the subject of "Corona infection" and makes statements from which the Medical University of Vienna has already explicitly distanced itself several times and continues to do so. This also refers to Sönnichsen's activities in the context of associations or platforms such as "ACU". Andreas Sönnichsen is neither an expert in the field of biology, diagnosis or therapy of viral diseases nor the head of an organizational unit or "board" at the university. We would like to state that in the scientific community it is basically in line with academic freedom for individual scientists to articulate personal opinions. In connection with the statements and remarks made by Andreas Sönnichsen, steps under civil service law are being considered." [3].
These statements - such as the downplaying of the effects of the virus or claims that Covid is "only" dangerous for older people and people with pre-existing conditions (which is dangerous because these people need to be protected just as much or even more) - are given even more space by holding this lecture. According to the Standard, he also called for an end to all disease containment measures in October 2020 "as the second Covid 19 wave was building [...] along with several other medical experts." [4].
Christian Schubert
Sönnichsen, together with Christian Schubert, who is also giving a lecture at the lecture series, is part of the "ICI - Initiative for Evidence-Based Corona Information", who are particularly making sentiment against vaccination against COVID-19 and pointing out its alleged dangerousness[5]. As background to this initiative: DDr. Christian Fiala is also part of the ICI, member of the corona denier party MFG.
Martin Sprenger
Martin Sprenger repeats himself in an interview with profil.at in the claim that it would be "only" old people and people with pre-existing conditions who would be badly affected by Corona. In addition, he called, among other things, the 3-G rule "political[n] actionism" and claimed with regard to Corona: "We have lost more healthy years of life than we have saved"[6].
Andrea Komlosy
Made the following claim publicly in the past: "People without space, it is now no longer Germans who are looking for living space in the East, but Jews in search of space without a people. With the all-too-familiar flaw, a people was there, and in that sense the Palestinians are late victims of the Holocaust."[7].
Such assertions, which seek to place the founding of the Israeli state discursively on a par with the National Socialist seizure of land in the East, which was to be justified by a "Germanic superiority" and thus laid the theoretical foundation for the SS's so-called "General Plan East," i.e., the expulsion and extermination of the "racially undesirable" population, is barely concealed anti-Semitism.
Martina Kaller-Dietrich
Published 3 books to date with ProMedia Verlag[8]. The content of the books is not up for discussion, rather it is about the person behind the publishing house.
The owner of ProMedia Verlag is Hannes Hofbauer[9], who in the past has appeared on KenFM[10] (a blog format that gives space to anti-Semitic & conspiracy theory theories) or Russia Today, the foreign television of the authoritarian-led Russian state, among others. He has also published in Compact Magazin, which is classified as a suspicious case by the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution,[11] as well as in the conspiracy theory blog Rubikon.
Michael Meyen
Has already repeatedly attracted negative attention due to a large number of corona-denying statements, his statements bordering on conspiracy theories about and rejection of fact-checkers, anti-Semitic statements and much more[12].
Sources
[3] https://www.facebook.com/MedizinischeUniversitaetWien/posts/3615202158556220/
[4] https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000130170845/corona-kritische-ringvorlesung-an-uni-wien-sorgt-fuer-kritik
[5] https://www.initiative-corona.info
[6] https://www.profil.at/oesterreich/corona-streitgespraech-soll-man-kinder-impfen/401397936
[7] http://www.gegendenantisemitismus.at/12022009.php
[8] Martina Kaller-Dietrichs Webauftritt auf der Website des ProMedia Verlags von Hannes Hofbauer: https://mediashop.at/autorin/286-martina-kaller-dietrich/
[9] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannes_Hofbauer
[10] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Jebsen)
[11] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_(Magazin)
[12] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Meyen
https://www.br.de/kultur/allesaufdentisch-michael-meyer-volker-bruch-faktenchecker-100.html
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/urteil-zulaessige-aeusserungen-1.5233181