In what should be a new low for women rights in Europe, Austria’s leftist President Alexander van der Bellen has called on “every woman to wear headscarf” in order to fight growing “Islamophobia,” Austrian media reported today. Going by the Austrian media coverage, the otherwise perpetually-offended feminist groups in Austria and Europe have failed to respond to this outrage.
“[I]f it goes on like this, with the rampant Islamophobia, a day will come when we will have to ask every woman to wear a headscarf,” President Van der Bellen, Austria’s recently elected Head of the State could be seen saying in a video clip addressing young students.
Austria’s centre-right government has been mulling new legislations aimed at banning the burqa — Islamic full body garb — from public places. The government is also considering a ban on headscarf for civil servants with executive powers, state attorneys and judges. Austria’s president is infuriated at these developments, which he sees as “Islamophobic”.
As far as liberal European leaders like Van der Bellen are considered: It’s better for every women in the country to be stifled beneath a hijab than to question the rising Islamist tendencies in Europe that want to push women out of public life, and reduce them to second class members of the society.
The video footage of the president’s remarks that were made few weeks ago had only surfaced in the Austrian media on Tuesday. The Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung reported today:
[Austrian] President Alexander Van der Bellen will soon be completing 100 days in office. To mark this ‘jubilee’ [Austrian broadcaster] ORF aired a report on Tuesday looking back at his tenure so far. In the course of the coverage a talk was broadcaster that took place in the ‘House of European Union’ – that clip is now causing uproar in the social media. [In that clip] President could be heard telling students that the day will come when we would have to tell all women to wear headscarf “out of solidarity”.”It is the right of a women — do men wear headscarf? — to wear whatever they please. That’s what it think about it. And not just Muslim women. Every woman can wear a headscarf. And if it goes on like this, with rampant Islamophobia, a day will come when we will have to ask every women to wear a headscarf. Everyone, in solidarity with those, who do it for religious reasons,” explained the Austrian Head of the State. [Author’s translation]
Austrian daily Kurier, while regretting the President’s formulation, came to his defense saying, “No, he didn’t mean to say that.”
Van der Bellen, son of Russian immigrant parents who fled Stalinist purges, has been a lifelong Social Democrat, but switched over to Austria’s Green Party in the 90s and soon became its leader. As professor of economics at the University of Austria, Van der Bellen came under attack during the presidential campaign for his track record as an advocate of unilateral disarmament of the West during the Cold War, with his opponent, the Nationalist candidate Norbert Hofer, accusing him of aiding Soviet Union and even espionage.
Van der Bellen was the EU-establishment candidate in December’s presidential election. Despite active support from the EU leadership and mainstream media, Van der Bellen only narrowly won the election by a margin of less than 1 percent against the anti-EU candidate Norbert Hofer.
While feminists were out protesting Ivanka Trump at the Women’s Summit in Berlin this week, they couldn’t be bothered to defend their eroding freedoms at the hands of regressive Islamism rising around them — a phenomenon aided by clueless politicians running Europe.
Video: Muslims in Vienna protesting government’s proposed Burqa-ban (February 2017)
[Cover image courtesy France24, YouTube]
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY