Abstract
The content of right-wing populism is currently built largely upon Islamophobic mobilization, whereas, before the Second Republic of Austria, anti-Semitism was the principal content of populism in Austria. This article engages in a comparative discussion of the anti-Semitic propaganda deployed by political parties before the rise of the Austrofascist state and National Socialist rule in Austria and Islamophobic propaganda in present-day Austria. Specifically, the article compares the anti-Semitic discourse of “Jewification” that circulated between 1876 and 1934 with the current Islamophobic discourse of “Islamization,” which is used by political parties such as the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the Christian democratic Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), which together currently form the coalition government in the Republic of Austria. This article comparatively investigates anti-Semitic and Islamophobic topoi to consider what continuities and shifts have occurred within the imagining of the (Oriental) Jewish and Muslim “other.”
Highlights
In several accounts published in the symposium series of the Leo Baeck Institute, Werner Jochmann (1971: 409–510, 1976: 389–477, 1988) demonstrated the central role that political organizations plays in disseminating anti-Semitism within society
One should not forget that anti-Semitism was present in relation to the Social Democratic Party in Austria, within which many Jewish people were leading party figures; these figures would sometimes struggle with their Jewish identity being contested in the public sphere (Hanisch 2011)
The political systems of Austria, from the Habsburg Monarchy to the Austrofascist times on one side and the Second Republic following World War II on the other side differ in crucial aspects
Summary
In several accounts published in the symposium series of the Leo Baeck Institute, Werner Jochmann (1971: 409–510, 1976: 389–477, 1988) demonstrated the central role that political organizations plays in disseminating anti-Semitism within society. Kalmar and Penslar remind us not to neglect the religious dimension in the conception of the “Muslim” and “Jewish other” to the Christian West, as Christian identity is seen as competing with the two other Abrahamic traditions—the Jewish and the Muslim one—rather than other religions (Kalmar and Penslar 2005: xxi–xxii) Against this historical background, many studies have stressed the commonalities between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. According to Peter Pulzer (2005: 165), most historians argue that a “modern” expression of Austrian antiSemitism is linked to the emergence of mass politics and is a direct reaction to the final enactment of civic equality in 1867 in Austria It was the continuous appearance of anti-Jewish publications that politicized hatred of Jewish people, spreading to a hitherto unknown degree as a result (Pulzer 2005: 165). This poster represents a typical strategy for the presentation of the “enemy” by the Christian Social Party
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