After the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) councillors Caroline Hungerländer and Laura Sachslehner criticised the exhibition “Muslim Contemporary” and attested to a certain closeness to political Islam, the initiators now reacted with an open letter. In it, they accuse the ÖVP politicians of simply pursuing anti-feminist and racist policies.
In November 2021, an Islam exhibition took place at the Academy of Fine Arts with strong support from the university. The exhibition was intended to highlight the everyday racism to which Muslims are exposed and to offer a platform to “structurally disadvantaged persons”. The occasion was the one-year anniversary of the Austrian police operation “Operation Luxor” against suspected Muslim Brothers on November 9.To this day, some suspects accuse the authorities investigating them of being Islamophobic, most recently in a report on the Arabic TV channel Al-Jazeera, in which some observers see the “voice of the Muslim Brotherhood”.
Now the two ÖVP politicians Caroline Hungerländer and Laura Sachslehner have put a critical question in the Vienna parliament because they see a “radical Islamic element” and “left-wing extremist sentiments” in the art project. The exhibition curators responded with an open letter. Their claim: Muslim life in Austria would be ” attacked in an anti-Muslim way” by the criticism.
Among the supporters are Green and Social Democratic Party politicians as well as the Muslim Youth of Austria (MJÖ) and one of its controversial founders, the activist against Islamophobia Farid Hafez, who was brought to the police’s attention in the context of Operation Luxor last year. The JUNOS (young NEOS) Vienna, several professors from various Viennese universities as well as the youth organisation of the SPÖ (Social Democratic Party of Austria) also support the exhibition series, which has already taken place in the past.
“With Muslim* Contemporary, not only was an inclusive space created, but also a critical one,” the letter reads. “The exhibition took place on the first anniversary of ‘Operation Luxor’ and addressed this largest police action of the post-war period through the means of art and dialogue from the perspective of those affected.” November was also the anniversary of the attack by the terrorist Kujtim F. His four victims who were killed are not mentioned in the letter.
The Vienna People’s Party also reacted immediately to the open letter. Secretary General Sachslehner and integration spokesperson Hungerländer were “downright astonished”. They see it as an “attack on the democratic right to information”. The two politicians emphasise in their statement: “It is a democratic political right of an opposition party and of every single member of parliament in Vienna to submit a written question. Addendum: “Especially when it is about the use of public funds.”
Turning this into an attack on artistic freedom is “completely absurd”. Once again, the VP representatives ask “the justified question of whether efforts to curb political Islam are being thwarted by possible funding from the City of Vienna”. They see the open letter as an “attack on an objective question in the Vienna City Council”.
https://exxpress.at/nach-oevp-kritik-initiatoren-von-islam-ausstellung-schreiben-offenen-brief/