Bush-bashing in Vienna

Vienna boiled the day American President George W. Bush visited the city for a European Union-US meet.

During his short stay of 24 hours, politicians in power pampered Bush and his wife Laura, but most people in the city were not pleased with the inconvenience caused to them on the street.

Temperatures on that day reached 35 degrees Celsius and tempers soared higher. Tourists were prevented from exploring the Imperial City, taxi drivers were discontent, shop keepers cursed as 300 businesses remained shut and thousands of anti-Bush demonstrators including Cindy Sheehan, the American Peace Mom, chanted that Bush go home.

An already nervous police force coped with several bomb threats that turned out to be false. Both military soldiers and 3,000 police officers participated in security arrangements never organised in Austria on this scale before. Another 1,000 security personnel arrived from the USA to protect Bush, reminding many of a time when fascists here had turned the cosmopolitan capital of the Habsburg rulers into a police state before World War II.

The entire area close to the palatial Hofburg Conference Center was blocked and security check of pedestrians increased. Porsches were prevented from moving and all BMWs made to wait as the only traffic seen on the main streets of the city was an ending convoy of blue and white vehicles used by the Austrian police department.

Annoyed at not being allowed to tell Bush what it thought of him, one family used the red tiled rooftop of their home to spray, “BUSH GO HOME” in white paint.

“Dieser bloeder Bush” (this stupid Bush) echoed around the city as ordinary people sweated to complete daily chores.

“I have not seen a democratically elected leader who is so afraid to face the people,” clucked a Viennese who is accustomed to watching mayors bicycle around town here and it is not at all rare to find a cabinet minister sitting on the opposite seat in a public bus.

“If Bush can turn our life inside out in one day I can imagine how it must be for the poor people of Iraq,” said another. 

Bush dared to spend one night at the Inter Continental despite the fact that the hotel is located opposite the Embassy of Iraq only because the present government in Iraq is seen as a friend of the Bush administration.

Inside the hotel, plainclothes policemen waited in scattered places of the premises with large dogs resting at their feet. The same hotel that is also the venue of the flamboyant Vienna Film Festival and home to numerous visiting artists and musicians wore the insecure look of a military outpost as countless men in dark suits and intimidating stares whispered into invisible microphones.

Students, including many women sporting headscarves, joined anti-Bush demonstrations. A young woman shouted, “Your bodyguards may protect you but you are not safe on the streets anymore.”

Many carried banners that read, “Stop Bush, Stop War”. The city was plastered with colourful posters of Bush that called the American President, “The World’s Most Wanted Terrorist”, and gigantic scaffoldings were pinned with larger-than-life banners repeating that Bush should stay home.

Teachers from the American International School told Hardnews that they are proud to be Americans but ashamed of Bush. Most people talked to did not want to see their names in print out of fear that they might be singled out as unpatriotic and anti-American.

However, Sheehan repeated that Bush is a boil on the ass of democracy that needs to be lanced! She wants Bush impeached or voted out of office.

She said that 70 per cent of American people are against Bush and that does not make them anti-American. Bush, she said was not elected by the people but appointed president by the Supreme Court.