Far right Austrian leader dies in car crash: Good, now he can join the other ghosts of Austria’s poorly buried Nazi past
(There’s no ground common enough for me and you)
And then they say all the news is bad, these days:
The controversial Austrian far-right leader Jörg Haider was killed in a car accident today, two weeks after staging a comeback in national elections. His car veered off the road near the southern city of Klagenfurt and overturned while trying to overtake another vehicle, according to police officials. There was no sign of foul play. Haider, who was 58, suffered severe injuries to his head and chest and was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead. Haider was alone in the car at the time of the accident.
The populist Haider was governor of the province of Carinthia and leader of the far-right Alliance for the Future of Austria. “For us, it’s like the end of the world,” Haider’s spokesman, Stefan Petzner, told the Austria Press Agency. The Austrian president, Heinz Fischer, described Haider’s death as a “human tragedy.”
Well, let’s hope Haider’s spokesman is right, when he says that, for them, it’s like the end of the world. If the death of Haider will spell the end of his Hitler-light party, he will, at least, have done something useful once, post mortem. Which is more than you can say about his life.
As far as Austria’s president calling it a ‘human tragedy’ is concerned… Well, the usual, polite stance is to say that the death of any of us diminishes all of us. Perhaps, but I’m damned if I’m going to mourn the likes of Jörg Haider. That would be too much like a body mourning the death of a cancer cell.
Not that I’m particularly surprised that an Austrian president mourns the passing of a leader of a far right party. From 1986 to 1992, Austria’s president was Kurt Waldheim, who, as a student, became member of the SS, then joined the German army, and was later proven to have lied about both the length and the nature of his service.
Austria has a lot of ghosts. Me, I’m just quietly pleased that Haider has now joined their ranks.
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