Page - 72 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Petra Herczeg | Migrants and Ethnic Minorities in Austria 72 illustrated to what extent emotions and opinions are expressed in the politically oriented public sphere and conveyed by the media. The number of migrants in Austria is about ten times higher than that of the semi-autonomous minorities. Migrants comprise nearly 15 percent of the Austrian population and are at the centre of media attention and public debate. There are approximately 1.2 million residents who are either foreign citizens or persons born abroad who have acquired Austrian citizenship (Federal Institute of Statistics Austria 2007). 2. Problems in Defining “Heimat” and “Identity” In addition to Croats and Slovenes, groups which have lived in Burgenland and Carinthia for centuries, the “Volksgruppen Gesetz” of 1976 officially recognized Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians as semi-autonomous ethnic minorities. The criteria for such recognition were: Austrian citizenship, non- German mother tongue, existence of a separate nation and the principle of “Beheimatung”, which can be described as maintaining a distinct traditional lifestyle in certain regions of the country. Not until 1993 were Roma and Sinti officially recognized as a semi-autonomous minority. Previously, such recognition had been refused on the grounds that Roma and Sinti were not a “native minority” (“keine bodenständige Minderheit”). After the end of the Second World War, Austrian politicians and nearly all of the national opinion leaders were engaged in building an “Austrian identity”, which was intended to have nothing to do with the “Volksnation” of the Nazis. The somewhat unexpected official recognition of the Roma as an Austrian ethnic group in 1993 was facilitated by concerns for Austria’s international reputation. After many years of fruitless effort, the organisations of the Roma under the leadership of Rudolf Sarközi and representatives of the Centre for Ethnic Groups succeeded in eliminating any reservations against official recognition. At the same time Austria attempted not to compromise itself in the aftermath of the “Waldheim debate”. Because of the discussion about the role of the former UN secretary general and newly elected Austrian president in the Nazi past, the Austrian government took care not to send out the wrong signals by not recognizing an ethnic group which had nearly been totally annihilated by the Nazis. At the same time Austria was promoting the implementation of regulations in favour of ethnic minorities within the CSCE and did not want to make its role there seem questionable because of problems connected to the country’s internal affairs (Baumgartner 2000).