Rebellion

This manifesto grew out of a conversation about a music box. Someone walks through Feldkirch at medium volume and wonders whether that is a good idea. From that question came three articles and one insight: Austria does not have a volume problem. It has a permission problem. I. The Diagnosis France has written into its constitution that resistance to oppression is a fundamental right. Austria has written into its culture that one should not stand out. ...

In France, resistance is not a disruptive factor. It is a civic duty. This attitude is not a whim, not a national cliché, not a matter of temperament — it is the result of a history that has consistently repeated itself over centuries. Whoever wants to understand why millions of French people take to the streets for weeks over a pension reform, while in Austria a letter to the editor is at best what gets written, must know this history. ...

Third part of the series “Rebellion as Civic Duty” The first two articles dealt with the big question: why does France rebel, and Austria does not? With Hofstede and Milgram, with police and media, with systems and structures. This article goes back to the beginning — to the moment when rebellion in Vorarlberg actually happened. Briefly. Loudly. And then it was over. Feldkirch, 1977: Two Weeks to the First Concert At the end of 1977, a few young people came together at the Graf Hugo youth center in Feldkirch. Galle, Franz, Slaughter, and Chy — four guys who had heard about punk in England through the German magazine Sounds and, yes, Bravo. The spark didn’t come from Vienna, not from Innsbruck, and certainly not from any Austrian institution. It came from a Zurich DIY fanzine called “No Fun,” published by Peter Wittwer and Martin Byland. Inside was a sentence from an English punk magazine: “Buy a guitar, learn a C, learn a D, learn an E and join a band.” ...

Follow-up to: “Rebellion as Civic Duty: What Austria Can Learn from France” The first article was about the streets — about the difference between a culture that understands protest as a civic duty and one that perceives it as a disturbance. But rebellion does not only take place on the streets. It takes place — perhaps even first — in the media. Or not at all. The question is not only: who takes to the streets? But: who tells the story? Who decides what the public learns? And who pays for it? ...