Pomp and Circumstance for Haider

Jörg Haider’s funeral brings 30,000 people to Klagenfurth, many of them Nazis. The press ignores this and concentrates instead on defamation of gays and gay lifestyle.

Jörg Haider

Jörg Haider got a state funeral with pomp and circumstance on Saturday. The pomp was due to him as governor of Austria’s Carinthia state. The circumstances leading up to his smashing his car on the roadside were not part of the ceremonies.

30,000 people are said to have lined the streets of Klagenfurt, Carinthia’s capital, as the coffin was driven to the funeral in Klagenfurt’s cathedral, bedecked in flowers and covered with the Corinthian flag. Amongst the mourners were seen many Vienna cabinet ministers led by President Heinz Fischer, Saif al-Islam, son of Libyan dictator Khadafy, and many old SS veterans, but also many young Nazis from half of Europe. Surprisingly missing at the funeral were Haider’s right wing counterparts in France, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and in Switzerland, former Minister of Justice Christoph Blocher.

The amount of people should give authorities pause to think about the enormous attraction Nazi thinking seems to develop for old and young alike. Especially in a country like Austria who has never faced up to its devastating role in the War, this should be closely watched. But seemingly neither governments nor press are sensing or seeing the danger, spending their time rather in defamations of others.

Before the funeral came the news release from police which was less than welcome to family, friends and party fanatics. Apparently, Jörg Haider had been drunk when driving home, having spent the evening first at a reception, then in a nightclub and finally in a well known gay bar. Apparently he spent a late night hour in the company of an unknown young man in the gay venue. A guest who offered to drive Jörg Haider home, seeing he was heavily loaded, was rebuffed.

Having read many press reports on the case of Jörg Haider, I have noticed that the press instead of concentrating on the unprecedented coming together of apparently 30,000 Nazis in Austria has misused their articles for negative and nugatory remarks about gays and gay life. That is not only deplorable, it is outright dangerous. It is the sneakiest way of being politically incorrect.

In fact, in half the articles I found the gay bar was used in conjunction with negative remarks or riders, such as ‘sleazy’. I am positive that none of the writers have been in Klagenfurt at any time of their life. If they have been there, they certainly were not in that bar enabling them to judge if it was sleazy. And it’s people like these journalists who make public opinion. Doesn’t that frighten you?

It frightens me, because defamatory insinuations like these are the cesspool of public opinion. Just because a bar or any venue is gay operated and frequented mainly by gays and lesbians does not make it in any way sleazy.

For the prequel of this text, please press here.

Further reading
Monaco in World War II
From Iron Cross to OBE
Don't Speak Well of the Dead