Letter From Austria: Is Europe’s ‘Tolerant Society’ Backfiring?
Not long ago, riding the subway with my 8-year-old son to his school here, I noticed a headline in a newspaper left on a nearby seat: “Schoolteacher sues Muslim father for refusing to shake hands with her.” Compared with the alarming rise of the far-right Freedom Party here in Austria in recent months, this was minor news, but resonant. It seemed to point in some way to the clash-of-civilizations narrative feeding the xenophobic brand of politics ascendant on both sides of the Atlantic.
It’s been barely nine months since the horrifying images of a truckload of asphyxiated refugees found baking in the summer heat on the side of a highway southeast of Vienna prompted German and Austrian leaders to open their borders and issue high-minded assertions that their countries could absorb far more refugees than they had been.… Seguir leyendo »