May 2016 – Mirek Navrat's Blog

Austria 2016: I would vote for Karl Habsburg-Lothringen

The people of Austria have to send a signal do Wien, Berlin and Brussels. Therefore I could not vote for Van der Bellen. However, I could also not directly vote for FPÖ. How to solve it?

In the Czech Republic, we now have a very problematic president too. We also do the stupid thing that we elect him directly. And it all brings us to the question why we are even republics. As a political liberal I believe in a constitutional and parliamentary regime. But seriously, wouldn’t it be better for our countries to have a king (or a queen) instead of presidents?

We don’t have to be one federation as the Austrian Empire (or the Austria-Hungary) once could be after the WWI. But we could be a personal union. We could be free and sovereign countries with the same head of our states.

As well as Elizabeth II is the queen of New Zealand, so the Karl Habsburg-Lothringen could be the king of the Czech lands. And also the king of Austria and maybe even Slovenia or other countries of the former Austrian Empire that would like to be constitutional and parliamentary monarchies instead of republics.

Hofer or Van der Bellen?

I am really unhappy that Austrians have to choose between these two choices now. Their elites have failed and it seems that the problem with mass immigration escalated. Their elites probably forgot to ask the people if they agree with such an amount of immigration and they forgot to think about if it is even realistic to deal with it.

Of course, we are Europeans, we want to be humanists, and we inherited a lot of guilt from our ancestors, so we feel a duty to help the less advantaged in this world. But we also inherited a civilization which must not be destroyed. Not only by intolerant cultures within it, but also by the logical radical reaction from our home inhabitants.

If the elites, and mostly the centre-right, would not let the things go so further, the Austrians would not have to choose between someone who probably doesn’t understand the problem, and someone who is from a party which is very problematic.

When it comes to me, if I could vote in this election, I would make my own ballot with a name of the King on it, and I would hope that Hofer will not be so bad, and that the elites in Wien, Berlin and Brussels will understand that something has to change before there will be created a space for much more radical parties than FPÖ is.

You can read this article in Czech here.

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Eurovision 2016: Ukraine won and it’s alright it’s political

The demand to have apolitical songs is nonsense. Even peace or freedom is political value. As well as transgender emancipation or international justice is. Where else was the problem this year?

I am always watching Eurovision since 2007 when my country first participated. I like this show because it’s a great opportunity when all Europeans can have a feeling of being an European. And we can see that this contest is political in its substance. The aim of it is a unity and peace of all European nations. Isn’t it political?

However, this year was special. The favorite didn’t win. The best song didn’t win. It was the emotionally strong story of the song that won. Before the Finals I didn’t intend to think that Ukraine could win but something happened in one moment during Jamala’s singing.

When she screamed in the time from 2:25 it was like hearing all of the 230 000 of Crimean Tatars who were forcibly deported by Stalin or the circa 100 000 of those of them who died because of it. In that moment I was sure that I will vote for Ukraine. And it was political. Not in the conspiracy way of the Russian propaganda. It was my free authentic and conscious choice. Something what I hope even Russian people will some day know.

Anyway, the Putin’s propaganda went crazy after the results. Russia won the heart of the European people. Ukraine could win only because of the votes of the special jury, as it is always done. People began to argue that Russia won but it’s corrupt because it’s political and Ukraine won only because the political goal was to support Ukraine against Russia. No evidence of that but a good conspiracy. However, I suppose that we all have a lot of these pseudo-news websites in our countries full of the Kremlin propaganda and we know they are good at it.

Maybe they are too good. Jamala said that she thanks to Europe. But I am skeptical about Europeans in this. The popular vote was won by Russia. And why? Their song really wasn’t the best, maybe the special effects. Are we Europeans really so superficial that we prefer this over the strong story of historical and international in/justice?

And most of the people, who began to argue that the Ukraine’s victory wasn’t fair because it was political and so on, weren’t the paid staff of the Russian propaganda. Mostly, they were only the naive Europeans. No offence, but we could call them useful idiots. And it is very problematic how so many Europeans aren’t immune to Putin’s propaganda. The Dutch people showed it to us a few weeks ago in their referendum.

However, back to the Eurovision. I don’t understand why the organizers chose this way of the results announcement. It was really stupid. Now it seems we have three winners. Of the jury – Australia. Of the people – Russia. And the real winner – Ukraine. And it’s weird.

I am not against announcing the results both from the jury and from the people. But it should have been done in another way. I would prefer if the correspondents from each country in the live entry said first the points from the jury and add the points from the popular vote. We would get all three information from every country and we would know the only one winner in the end as it always used to be.

Another problem is that this year Australia could win. It is European contest and it might be logical that there are countries such as Israel, Russia, Turkey or Georgia, but it makes no sense to have there Australia. But maybe our need to have it there shows that there might be a need for a global song contest.

Last thing I would like to mention is that we should realize how we decide who will receive our votes. Some people say that neighboring countries always support each others. If we look at the winners it doesn’t seem to be truth. Sometimes even the best special effects or the best music doesn’t win. What wins, in my opinion, is the message. And it is often very political and it is perfectly fine.

You can also read this article in Czech here.

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How I studied in Mar(x)burg

The motto: “Who is not left-wing in youth, has no heart,” is meant literally at my host faculty in Marburg, Germany. Primarily it’s funny because we, the young people from Central and Eastern Europe, often see it a little bit differently.

In the era when the Czech Social Democrats were led by Jiří Paroubek (around 2005-2010), it wasn’t cool to call yourself left-wing among young people at all. Although it was pretty superficial, but almost every young person was against this kind of left-wing populism and we also saw the threat that our free land could once again be ruled by Communists.

Many of us are also from families that have a direct personal experience that the regime under the leadership of the Communist party oppressed them, made it impossible for them to live freely, to develop their talents and so on. It is natural for us to be anti-communist, and we tend to consider this ideology as equally bad or maybe even worse than Nazism or fascism.

But in West Germany they do not have this kind of experience. For young people there, the role of the authoritarian and reactionary evil is played by conservative, christian-democratic or right-wing liberal ideologies and parties. For them these are associated with the evil Western and global capitalism, imperialism, (neo)colonialism and so on. Professionally, it is then called for example neoliberalism. And the worse are only nationalists or Nazis.

The funny point is that Marxism or neo-Marxism are regarded as an intellectual paradigm there. If a person is centre-right, so he or she feels like inappropriately as well as the radical left-wing students must feel like at our universities in Czech lands.

Generally, one has a feeling that even Bernie Sanders in such an environment would be condemned as a radical right-winger, and it is unlikely to meet there someone who would have another favorite in contemporary America.

However, it seems that the situation that Czech (but also probably other Central and Eastern European) departments of Political Science/Philoshophy or social science faculties are very often right-wing/centre-right, is quite rare in the global context.

I hope it will not be a problem to publish here some photos. The mixture of radically left-wing anarchism, Marxism and neo-Marxism, in which one doesn’t know if it is still a revolt of youth, or already a uniform setting of everyone who do not want to be labeled a neo-Nazi, is in the context of the historical experience of my country very interesting. And there are a lot of more of these signs and stickers on the faculty and around the city.

The inscription on the left of the entrance to Philosophical Faculty: Capitalism kills!