Palm branches in the classroom and the students’ visit to an Easter market is “Christian fundamentalism” for an Upper Austrian AHS headmaster – he reprimanded the teacher and cancelled the Easter custom.
The decisive factor for this (over)reaction of the headmaster, who also accused the teacher of “insensitive behaviour”, was a letter from the father of a pupil whose parents are second-generation Bosnians. He angrily addressed the school with the following sentences:
Our child reacts very disturbed to the transformation of his classroom into a church. An Easter market is also completely unacceptable for M.. We will therefore leave our child at home for the time being.
The provincial party secretary of the Freedom Party of Upper Austria, Michael Gruber, a member of the provincial parliament, reacted indignantly to this incident. He said that those who come to us must accept our values, traditions and culture – bowing down is the wrong way to go about it. In a statement he also said:
Neither the decorating with palm branches nor a visit to an Easter market should take place. For me, this is another example of a misunderstood tolerance at the expense of our traditions, values and culture.
Gruber spoke of “anticipatory obedience”. Pork would be removed from the menu, the Advent Market would be renamed Winter Market, the feast of St. Martin would become a procession of lights, and the visit of St. Nicholas would no longer take place at all. Gruber demanded the intervention of the Ministry of Education and said:
If we do not put a stop to these goings-on, we run the risk of losing our own identity – in the cultural, socio-political and religious spheres.
The teacher and columnist Niki Glattauer, who – as reported in the newspaper Heute – received a letter from the teacher reprimanded by the AHS headmaster, is in the same vein as Gruber. With the following content:
I ask you, are palm leaves fundamentalist and an Easter market totally unreasonable for schoolchildren?
To which Niki Glattauer replied:
You are asking me? Well, the only thing I find unacceptable, Madam, is the behaviour of your management.
Quote, “If we do not put a stop to these goings-on, we run the risk of losing our own identity – in the cultural, socio-political and religious spheres.”
Well that is the whole idea, & then Islam will replace it by their cultural norms.
Demographics have predicted that Germany & France will be a majority Islamic country by the year
2050.