中国大好き

Für Zivildienst. Und ein Bundesheer mit breiter Bevölkerungsbasis. Wenn überhaupt ein Heer. Aber zur Polizei hab ich kaum Vertrauen. Wir sind neutral. Nicht bei der NATO. Vertrau ich der Polizei? Warum soll ich einem Berufsheer vertrauen? Wir gehen jetzt zur Flüchtlingsdemo. 13:30 beim Volkstheater. Bis dann, alles Gute. Martin    

We had a vote about our military in Austria on the weekend. And a demonstration for refugees on hunger strike. Complete with a huge Sachertorte. For the protesters. In commemoration of the “Lichtermeer” against racism and xenophobia in Vienna 20 years ago. I didn’t know if I was going to vote, on Sunday morning. So I got Jackie to call our old friend, Gen. A., her employer in Beijing. The Social Democrats wanted to abolish the draft. But some prominent Social Democrats wanted to keep it, incl. the president. General A. is Social Democrat. But he said if the draft is abolished, they will only get certain segments of the population as recruits. You can do all sorts of other things instead of going to the army. Work in a hospital, teach German to refugees (what I did), even go to Qiqiha’er 齊齊哈爾 for a year. (Here is another report in German, translated from 齊齊哈爾日報)。 It’s not that bad if every healthy young man is required to do something for the community. That was my reasoning. When I did that alternative community service thing, we had to do some training at first for being able to help in case of floods, storms etc. That boat thing was fun. The guy in our group whose parents were in the far-right Freedom Party volunteered and was the first to try and row to an island in the icy Danube. Boat leaked. He didn’t get very far. They sent him to hospital. He was ok. Later on he had to teach German to refugees, helping me. He wasn’t bad, they liked him. He really tried, and I’m quite sure his attitude to refugees etc. changed.

标签： austria, civil rights, civil society, democracy, demonstrations, Europe, migrants, military, news, police, politics, refugees, society, solidarity, Vienna

This entry was posted on 1月 20, 2013 at 8:10 下午 and is filed under January 2013, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.