Although many people here in Austria beg to differ, it’s actually quite a nice country to live in. Especially if you’re a fugitive, or emigrated to Austria in search of better living conditions.
The downside is, that our government is not only ruthlessly conservative, it’s also extremely, and I’d like to emphasize on that, extremely stupid. Apart from the fact that it’s destroyed itself in 2002, only to return again with some shifted balance, or that ministers tend to come and go as quickly as the tenants in my neighboring flat (considering that about a year ago two con-artists used to inhabit said flat, I don’t think my comparison is very far off the mark), it is filled with idiots who think that the greatest threat to our nation lies in the millions of immigrant children trying to cheat their way into becoming legal citizens of Austria. Thus they’ve devised a little scheme in order to sort out those who really are worthy to become citizens of this great nation and those who better keep their Turkish, Albanian, Nigerian or whatever citizenship. So, here’s their plan: If you’re an immigrant child, they want some kind of proof that you’re actually not too stupid to become Austrian (which is interesting, because if you’re born in Austria you can be as stupid as you like, and still keep your citizenship…hell, you can even found new parties and cheat yourself into the government).
Well, so government has devised this plan that any kid who’s failed a class, is not eligible to become an Austrian citizen. So even if you’ve mastered the German language (something which probably about 1/10th of BZÖ politicians have managed to do), but are not exactly a whizz-kid in maths and failed that class, well, then you’re out of luck.
So here’s my proposal: Why not let every member of government take that test they devised for kids who failed classes, and everyone who doesn’t have a perfect score will have to be let go?
Here’s a link to an article describing the mess. In German. Which you should be able to read around here.
