I was recently invited to a house concert where the wonderful stuttering, a Viennese acoustic duo, played. They regularly fill large halls and also appear in larger formations, but I’m completely in love when there are only two of them: so gentle, so fine, so mean. Their repertoire is a modern form of the Viennese song with borrowings from jazz and blues, and when they also sing lyrics by the wonderful poet and non-fiction author Peter Ahorner, then I’m blown away.
At the recent house concert, the Strottern also sang one of Ahorner’s best-known songs: “in Schönbrunn is Großalarm”, which is a bit reminiscent of a children’s song; it tells of how someone unlocks all the cages in Schönbrunn Zoo at night – and lions, bats, elephants and skunks enjoy their freedom in Vienna. Ahorner has written subtler songs and nastier ones, but this one suits the capital. Because animals are a particularly popular means of self-portrayal for politicians in their Austrian habitat.
Animals, children, cars aroused the most positive emotions, said political scientist Peter Filzmaier on Thursday at the presentation of the book “The Professor and the Wolf”, which he wrote together with ORF journalist Armin Wolf (Here you can read more about it). And reminded of the “first high phase” of the political media staging, before Sebastian Kurz’s team then downright professionalized it: The first black-blue government under Chancellor Wolfgang Bowl (ÖVP) made a class trip to the zoo in 2000, where every minister chose his favorite animal. Karl-Heinz Grasser, the beautiful Minister of Finance, who has since been sentenced to eight years in prison for breach of trust, falsification of evidence and acceptance of gifts, opted for the shepherd dog, who was so “loyal”. The then FPÖ Vice-Chancellor Susanne Riess-Passer – now married to EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn and a member of a “future team” led by ÖVP Chancellor Karl Nehammer – at least brought up the self-irony of choosing the king cobra as her favorite animal. That was her nickname once, FPÖ-internally.
The combination of politicians and animals is a popular vehicle when it comes to courtesy reporting against government ads. Before the National Council elections in 2008, when SPÖ candidate Werner Faymann was campaigning, headlined the Crown newspaper actually: “animals would choose Faymann”. In 2017, when Sebastian Kurz urgently wanted to become Chancellor, the ÖVP-led Ministry of Finance had a survey conducted and placed in a tabloid newspaper comparing politicians to animals. Surprise: Kurz was a sympathetic and clever dolphin, opposition politicians ended up as hyenas and monkeys. Today, the public prosecutor’s office is investigating because of such tax-financed senseless surveys.
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