Vienna Officials Block Christian Monument as “Islamophobic”
Supporters of the monument accuse the council of rewriting history to avoid offending Muslims.
Austrian bureaucrats just blocked a key part of Christian history because they said it is “Islamophobic.”
In summary statements published online, Greens Councillor, Ursula Berner, from the City of Vienna, said a statue honouring Polish Christian King Jan Sobieski would attract “far-right extremists.”
According to Berner, remembering King Sobieski’s key role in breaking the Islamic siege of Vienna in 1683 harmed Vienna’s status as a cosmopolitan city.
Arguing the revisionist angle, she stated that, “it is not so simple to assess an image of Sobieski and his significance for Austria and Vienna.”
“The statue intended for the planned monument on the Kahlenberg depicts a horseman trampling other people – presumably Ottoman soldiers in the given context.
“This depiction attracts right-wing extremists.
“In the context of a united Europe as a peace project,” Berner protested, remembering this Christian victory over Islamic invaders was “out of touch.”
This battle wasn’t Islam vs. Christianity, Berner declared, it was “a political struggle between ‘two major powers’.”
Put simply, the Left blocked the proposal because marking such a significant event in Christian history “could be interpreted as anti-Turkish.”
This, the Greens added, would also be used “by the [so-called] far right to fuel anti-Muslim sentiment.”
Notably, outside of implying critics of Islam, Berner did not define what she meant by far right.
Also opposed, Socialist Safak Akcay essentially stated that celebrating King Sobieski and the Christian victory for Vienna, “no longer reflected the European understanding of coexistence.”
Those strongly in favour of the Sobieski monument included Councillor Judith Edelmann, who launched a broadside at the Greens for hypocrisy.
They have no problem, she pointed out, with “monuments to Che Guevara and Stalin in the city.”
This is despite “those statues being no longer appropriate in this day and age.”
Especially, the memorial to Stalin in Meidling, and the “Liberation Monument honouring the soldiers of the Soviet Army at Schwarzenbergplatz.”
Supporting Edelmann, Councillor Lukas Brucker, “accused the city of ‘applying double standards and being blind in one eye.”
The “that’s Islamophobic” justifications for blocking a monument to Austria’s Christian heritage didn’t end in the council chamber.
Doubling down, Socialist councillor, and Turkish Austrian, Aslıhan Bozatemur, took to social media, celebrating the Christian King’s cancellation, saying,
“There is no place in Vienna for a monument that promotes xenophobia, ‘Islamophobia’ or anti-Turkish sentiment.”
The monument to Sobieski, she appeared to claim, glorified all three, adding that it “leads to discrimination and incites hatred.”
Memorials, Bozatemur insisted, “should be balanced, and emphasise peace and understanding.”
Bozatemur has not responded to questions about how, or whether or not, her argument applied to Turkey’s apparent occupation of Constantinople and illegal presence in Cyprus.
Notwithstanding, the weaponisation and continued Islamic desecration of the Hagia Sophia.
To slightly paraphrase Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist and political aficionado,
It seems as though “Bozatemur would have preferred it if Ottoman jihadists had conquered Vienna.”
They would have “made it an Islamic city after massacring or forcibly converting the natives.”
“Given her blue eyes and light skin, Bozatemur would have been among those the Ottomans forcibly converted to Islam or among those Europeans whom Ottoman jihadists kidnapped en route to Vienna.
“Turkish-Islamic brainwashing regarding history and lack of self-awareness is off the charts.”
Boom!
“Please build monuments to your national heroes all over Europe and never let these fifth columnists call you “Islamophobic.”
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