Fall thoughts
A turning point of sorts. I wish I knew what more to offer. Some recommended reading.
I am feeling a sort of mental paralysis of late, as I receive questions from Ukrainians in Austria to which there are no easy answers. There are the very sad, like a message I received this morning, from a family friend of a family whose child just died after an operation here. The question was technical. I tried my best to answer it while sharing my deepest condolences. If those who are supposed to help with funeral costs in such situations do not, I will suggest a private fundraising. It is all I can think of when the unthinkable happens.
Most questions, however, are like the ones I outlined for you on Friday, they are technical and the official answers are absurd. We in Austria have a self-created nightmare bureaucracy of legislated rules, not even universally enforced, which act as disincentives and signal to Ukrainians they should not pursue the very things the Austrian state claims to expect of them. On the one hand, ministers all agree they want Ukrainians to join the work force and fill jobs in sectors desperate for employees. They even agree one does not need perfect German to fill these jobs. And then, the moment a Ukrainian takes the job, the rug is pulled out from under her: minimal social payments are stopped, housing is no longer paid for, often without forewarning, or worse — months down the road you are sent a huge bill for housing you thought was still free.
The confusion comes both from terribly written laws and complicated calculations, plus not all states universally enforcing these laws, and then a total lack of transparent information so that one could calculate before one starts working what the impact of paid work will be on the family’s overall financial situation. Simply put: will taking a part-time job make your family homeless? These are the questions many Ukrainians are having to ask themselves now.
Meanwhile, politicians are doing Sunday morning TV interviews talking about limiting social aid and the number of paid German courses for migrants (something I would personally agree with, because when something is free and forever it tends to be both not valued and also abused, and asks as a disincentive to getting into paid work), while totally ignoring the elephant in the room. Ukrainians are an educated group of new arrivals to Europe, many of whom want to work, but the classification they have been given in Austria means they are given very little social support but also punished immediately in a financial sense once they take on any kind of significant paid work. Yet in the same breath policy makers say they want to see more Ukrainians employed. It makes no sense. If you want people to go to work, stop stripping away their meagre benefits and charging them exorbitant rates for social housing after the fact.
In so many ways, it feels as if no one is actually in charge here. School classrooms lack teachers, hospitals lack staff, lawmakers watch the house burn down in slow motion while talking about hot button fluff topics like the right to pay in cash, which no one ever questioned.
Social housing is hard to find and a lottery. No one knows how to play it and come out on top.
If you are lucky to find a job, you have to calculate how your living situation will change as a result and can you afford to walk away from the minimal benefits paid out by Grundversorgung, can you afford private housing? Let’s also remember most jobs offered to non-native German speakers will not be high paying. We are talking about trying to pay for a family on minimum wage as a sole provider while having the little support you are given by the government here stripped from you before you have time to save up a little nest egg, say, for a deposit on an apartment rental.
But we are here for the kids, you say to yourself. And yet it is quite likely some aspect of school here is a real fight: your child feels de-motivated in an “integration” class with children younger than him/her, your child feels academically un-challenged while also trying to master German well enough to be able to attend gymnasium. And then you get questions like from the moon. This weekend a mother asked me about the entrance exam to Vienna’s school of medicine, and I had to explain only 8% of native speakers actually pass the test, and kids study for years to apply. Doctors’ kids worry about not passing. And the I read the fine print. Not an EU citizen? Don’t even think about it until you have been accepted to your local medical school. And with that information, a quick Google, I for sure destroyed this family’s dream.
The same mother who wrote me above about her 20 hour per week job which she may now have to quit because all other payments were stopped is actually already taking B2 German classes (quite a high level — Austrian teens for example must reach B2 English to graduate high school), for which she commutes into Vienna as they are not available in Lower Austria. On paper she sounds like a model immigrant: learning the language quickly, wants to work. In practice, the system works against her and many others, telling them, indirectly, to give up and go home.
So then I ask myself how people like me can even be useful anymore. I share information but the questions are growing more complicated, more long-term, I have fewer and fewer answers as I am terrible at navigating a bureaucracy designed to strangle itself. And no one seems to be passing any legislation to unwind the mess. Not in the refugee sphere, not in any other aspects of life in Austria. Everyone agrees many things are totally broken and in need to being blown up rather than repair, and yet, nothing happens. A lot of hot air and no action.
In that context, I would also like today to share several recent articles which have looked at Austria in quite a critical light. It is an old joke here that Austria never changes until it is embarrassed into action by criticism from abroad, but at this point, it feels like even that criticism would simply be ignored. The far right is polling solidly around 30%, and all indicators point to voters turning more radical in the 2024 election as their grievances pile up and incumbents do little visible work to address these tangible issues.
Waltz with the devil: why Russian spies love Austria
Putin exposes the myth of Austria’s victimhood
Austrian spymaster warns of Russian ties as far right claws back support
Europe may very well have another Orban to deal with next year, and he won’t be speaking Hungarian.
I would also recommend watching this powerful clip from Zelensky’s recent interview with 60 Minutes.
I also recommend this very disturbing piece by BBC Russia (in Russian) about Ukrainian kids in Europe removed from their parents by social services of European countries. It is a difficult topic with certainly no black or white solutions, but I also shared it with the mothers in my Telegram group as I think they need to know how many European countries including Austria “work” in this regard, and that unfortunately, as immigrants, they are under a bigger microscope than locals for the same parental behaviour. The authorities will never say this out loud, but in practice, it works like this. Wealthy children of local elite will never be subjected by those operating on behalf of the state to the same invasions into family privacy as poor children of recent arrivals.
If you read German, this report by Klaus Stimeder from Odesa about Ukrainian men living of fear of being drafted, quite literally off the streets by the “olives”, is a powerful report on a very sensitive topic.
The Race to Save Ukraine’s Abducted Children by FT’s Gillian Tett (incidentally she surely does not remember me but our kids were in kindergarten together in London what feels like a lifetime ago).
While I do not agree with everything in this op-ed, I think it is wonderfully written and includes sharp observations after just three days as a VIP guest in Kyiv with no local language skills. Especially the end, about the fragile miracle of modern peaceful Europe. A Trip to Ukraine Clarified the Stakes. And They’re Huge.
Finally, an incredible overview by Mario of what he has been up to lately (again as a volunteer) and all the nerves he has managed to touch within the establishment. I would say it is shocking, but sadly it is not for those of us who have been watching this country lower its standards and act more brazenly for some time already. As I discussed with someone working as a local social worker helping Ukrainians over the weekend, you tend to fail upwards in state and pseudo-state organisations in this city and this country. Smart people who are not afraid to voice their opinions or offer constructive criticism do not get promoted, while quiet, often lazy types with yes boss attitudes and never questioning the system often fly through the rounds of promotion, much to the detriment of the vulnerable people they have nominally been hired to help.
I have a vision of official Austria as an octopus whose tentacles have grown so big, fat and greedy that it is strangling itself. All while asking for more money. The social contract is broken. And not just with Ukrainian refugees. No one is even talking about them anymore. There will be consequences at the ballot box. The social democratic contract doesn’t work anymore for many, and many already work and pay taxes here without a right to vote. Seems like dark days for democracy are ahead. Autocrats can start out as democratically elected leaders. Plenty of precedent for that if you look around the neighbourhood here.
I don’t want to end with doom and gloom, and I am sorry for that, but if I don’t put these thoughts on virtual paper they eat me up from the inside.
This morning I delivered one card, my last, and I have currently a waiting list of 9 empty envelopes. The fastest way to help fill them would be to please email me (send me a message for my contact) €50 e-gift card(s) if you live in Austria to Hofer or Spar. I print them out and send them off. If you are abroad, please help us via Cards for Ukraine or here. Thank you so much! I received so many lovely grocery photos this weekend. Mario sent out a huge new delivery on Friday. We are not fixing any of the structural problems, but we are providing many families with a tiny financial band-aid, and more importantly perhaps, a sign that people out there, strangers, do care about the fate of Ukrainians who sought refuge in Austria. On a human level, I continue for that reason, knowing full well that €50 doesn’t “fix” anything. I am still getting text messages from Ukrainians who arrived not so long ago asking for help. They write me every day. That means what we are doing is helping and people are telling their friends. I am sticking to the criteria of families with kids, pensioners or handicapped. One card per family, one time, with reasonable exceptions per circumstances.
Thank you.