May Day
Update from Friday's post, visit to the arrival center today, a few brief observations.
We didn’t have a May 1st growing up in the land of capitalist dreams, so this day off seems foreign, particularly when I typically associate it with post-communist countries. Nevertheless, I felt the need to stay productive over this long weekend, so I spent yesterday afternoon sorting through donated books (motto being “less is more” if I think there is no chance anyone will buy this book, I am not going to have it take up limited display space at the sale). It was fascinating and I am both excited and nervous going into next weekend. I also spent some time doing what I am truly terrible at, namely, trying to market our event in various online groups and “what’s on in Vienna” pages. I would be a horrible PR person. I would give up after the second email. We have a full schedule of volunteers, many of them Ukrainian, and I am excited for us all to come together for a good cause next Sunday. Excited and anxious, but mostly excited. I am not great with little details either, so I hope I haven’t forgotten to do anything critical. I had my youngest make some signs for book categories, we have some disposable cups for coffee & tea, and I am leaning towards pricing on a donation basis, i.e. pay what you can, but some have warned me we need prices as guidelines. Need to think about that for a few more days. It is an experiment. We have never tried, until now, to raise funds for Cards for Ukraine other than asking directly for donations. Genuinely curious what lessons we will learn and how successful the event will be (or not, but we won’t know until we try).
I have an update for you about Friday’s post. A few hours after I published, I was contacted by a local journalist, very concerned about the family, and wanting to learn more. The family agreed to a meeting which hopefully will take place this week. The family is also very nervous about talking, out of a natural fear that this might make things even worse. There is a procedure underway already involving doctors and courts. I could only give my own opinion, which is talking is better than not talking, because the more local people who know about what you are going through, the more likely someone can help you, now. Unfortunately, correcting wrongs via the legal system can take years in Austria, and money they do not have. I see the media as one of the few levers anyone can use to publicly declare an injustice. I explained you do not have to name yourselves, you do not have to agree to photographs, just talk. Just share your story and your perspective. I really hope for the best and am grateful my writing about the situation led to an immediate interest on the part of professionals who should be in a position to shed light on it. I cannot imagine the stress they are under.
I was back at the arrival center today. I had two more cards to deliver. I still cannot embed tweets, so do forgive me these screenshots, they save me from writing the same things twice:
I will stay in touch with the family. I have asked and received confirmation from residents there are unaccompanied minors of both sexes from Ukraine in the dorm I had in mind in Vienna. I gave the family the address and suggested they try to ask for a placement there. No idea if it is possible. I gently warned against any kind of orphanage/boarding school type solution.
I keep thinking so much about the echoes of every conversation I have lately with Ukrainians. No one knows how much longer the war will last for. No one can plan anything for the future. Everyone is suffering economically, on top of the emotional strain of living under the constant threat of missile attacks in the night. Ukrainians across the board are used to working hard and stretching what they have. They are resourceful by nature. But with inflation on basic goods still running very high, and many out of work, the period, as this mom told me, of hoping it will all be over in a few more months, is over. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Imagine this on a national scale. Many, many people have lost their jobs or are only being paid a fraction of their pre-war salaries.
My week ahead includes getting ready for our sale and thinking about where to find 18 more €50 grocery cards. As always, to help my little waiting list, the fastest way is to buy Hofer €50 online gift cards and email them to me, or please donate here.
I also just read this from the tireless Albina in Tirol, so make that 19. Unbelievable what people are going through. For no good reason other than people in positions of power cannot be bothered to do more than the bare minimum.
This year has made me think so much about “red” Vienna (and not only, but Vienna in particular likes to market itself as heaven on earth for “social democrat” values), about bureaucracy designed to be as inefficient as possible, for no reason I can comprehend (other than job creation?), low-level authority figures who de facto yield ridiculous power over the fates of incredibly vulnerable people. It’s really enough to almost make one a libertarian if you stop and think about it.
A dysfunctional state funnels money into semi-independent (co-dependent is probably the better term) NGOs that are then charged with helping people navigate the said bureaucracy created by the state. Imagine if the money was simply handed to those who need it. I am pretty sure the same could be said of organizations helping the working poor and unemployed in Austria, too, I just never encountered them personally, so I can only speak to the refugee experience. It seems to be a modern European disease (or is it a Hapsburg leftover?), in a way, to grow a state so big you need co-dependent bodies to help navigate it and at the end of the day the only folks actually better off are those receiving salaries to be the “helpers”.
The capitalist in me wants to see many more people working in the private sector instead, and simply more equitable distribution of those resources earmarked for people in need. Less red tape, at the end of the day lower taxes when much of the bureaucratic fat is cut, less people on the ‘state or nearly state salary cannot be fired’ drip, just cash in the hands of those who desperately need it and know how to spend it wisely. With caveats? Sure, attach strings. Push people into legal work as soon as possible. Don’t pull their housing out from under them the moment they try and do the right thing and get a full-time job. Imagine paying social workers thousands of Euros a month each to counsel folks receiving, in some cases, as little as €40 per month from the state (as they are “fed”) instead of giving refugees directly what they need to get on their feet. With a cut-off date. With a message of the help does not last forever. If you are able to work, you must work, that sort of thing. Imagine not “feeding” refugees via NGO/corporate middlemen, but letting them feed themselves in affordable housing designed for long-term living.
It’s good I don’t have an actual job which would involve sitting in any of these “policy” or brainstorming meetings; I most certainly would not have been able to sit quietly and listen to justifications a la this is how we do XYZ because it is how we always have done it. And then you look at the broader political atmosphere in Austria and it is bleak, bleaker than I can remember ever before. An openly fascist right wing party making racist statements on a daily basis, holding Orban’s Hungary up on a pedestal, conservatives happy to get into bed with these fascists just to hold onto power, and a left of center totally self-obsessed in an ugly, mud-slinging three-way leadership battle for the social democrats, who seem more concerned with internal drama than presenting a tangible vision of the future that would resonate with ordinary voters. They talk about a fantasy 32 hour work week for all instead of an actual minimum hourly wage and then each individual would decide how much to work (or not). It’s all so…simplistic, shortsighted? And never once do they mention cutting the proverbial fat I described above. And have been continually very wrong on Ukraine, to the point that it feels like more than a few bad apples. Oh, and yes, the communists, even further to the left, are enjoying a little moment in the spotlight. Yes, they actually call themselves communists. They campaign on local issues like affordable housing (genuine areas of legitimate concern for many) but have no problem with the communist label apparently. It blows my mind. All of it.
But then I look at America and we will have the most geriatric upcoming presidential election in history and that is equally maddening, plus women are having their rights to their bodies stripped by the minute and buying a gun fit for a war zone is easier than ordering a Big Mac so I would say Austria is not the only place that scares the shit out of me. I just happen to live here now, so I feel it more. But I look across the pond and worry. If my kids were to ask me where they should live when they grow up, I really don’t know what to tell them. Canada, maybe? I know they are very lucky to have choices. But I don’t look to the future with the same optimism I once had at their age. I wonder sometimes if that is a factor of my now old age, or the world just got more fucked up.
On that uplifting note, enough for a long weekend post.
A book recommendation! Before I forget. I just finished this brilliant novel set in Ukraine and I and cannot recommend it enough: GREY BEES by Andrey Kurkov.
Thank you for reading and for your continued support. If you are in Vienna, please do spread the word about our book & bake sale this Sunday! Facebook (cringe) event here.