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February 11, 2000/5 Adar 1 5760, Vol. 52, No.23
Fiddling with the enemyEditorialTheodore Bikel, the well-loved Austrian-Jewish performer, is remembered warmly for his role as Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof." Bikel's response this week to the inclusion of Jorg Haider's far right Freedom Party in the new Austrian government, is a far different refrain than the sweetly sentimental words of "Sunrise, Sunset."In a letter to the Austrian Consul General in Los Angeles declining an invitation to attend a dinner later this month honoring Austrian born entertainers in Hollywood, Bikel writes that the "obscene calls of Seig Heil" on the streets in Vienna in March 1938 "still ring in my ears." The singer joins a chorus of condemnation for Haider's repugnant revisionist view of the Third Reich and Austria's role during those years, and his inclusion in the government of President Thomas Klestil. Both the United States and the European Union have instituted diplomatic sanctions, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has recalled Israel's ambassador from Vienna. Bikel's outrage, based on what he calls "alarming echoes," should resonate for every individual for whom the Holocaust remains the moral nadir of our times and a disturbing reminder of human depravity. Haider's public expression of "honor and respect" for the Nazis defies belief and his later apology for "hurting the feelings" of Hitler's victims strains credulity. Yet, it further flushes out a politician whose election posters warned of "over-foreignization" and whose campaign stoked Europe's growing xenophobia toward its immigrant workers. It is a sickening replay of Hitler's crusade against the alien, only then "foreigner" was a Jew and now he or she is a Turk or an African. Racism is racism, and hatred is hatred, and it is incumbent on all those who define themselves as moral human beings to speak out loudly and vociferously against the Freedom Party's far-right politics. If Austria allows Haider to play, then it must be forced to face the music. Anything else is just fiddling with the enemy. |
