The The ideology of "ordinary people"?
An analysis of antisemitism as ideological basis of the corona protests in Vienna
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15203/4105.vol53.2024Abstract
Protests against the Corona pandemic containment measures have been a major feature of political events over the past years. Previous empirical studies agree that the protests were characterized by conspiracy myths, anti-modern attitudes, and an unwillingness to engage in real political change. However, they only sporadically mention the manifold antisemitism within the protest movement. In order to reveal this characteristic of the protests in detail, this study examines the signs and banners designed by the demonstrators on the basis of more than 80,000 photographs documenting the demonstrations in Vienna from April 2020 to the end of February 2022 and thus depicting their development over time. The central findings of this research are a deeply rooted and shared antisemitism among the participants, which expresses itself in a tendency toward radicalization. This comes to a head over the course of almost two years, from accusations of lying about the dangerousness of Covid-19 to the construction of an almost omnipotent small foreign group controlling events for profit. Contemporary antisemitism is expressed through a mass identification of the protesters with the victims of the Shoah and thus at the same time the relativization of the crimes, which is a new phenomenon.
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Copyright (c) 2024 Carl Dewald
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