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This also applies in a political sense. Not mainly because of the government’s crown management. There was and still is much to criticize, but even a quick look around ensures that apart from the vaccination rate, of course, there are hardly any countries to be envied. Everywhere it is more or less the same rummaging through the fog, the struggle for the right combination of measures, for the balance between opening and closing and, ultimately, between freedom and security.
No, the times are politically lean due to the whole scenario: two governing parties that are not really harmonious, which we nevertheless have to imagine, loosely based on Camus’s Sisyphus, as a happy coalition. Chained, first by the pandemic, but also by the lack of alternatives. What remains at best: the return to the unloved grand coalition, from which the country had to be liberated for good reasons, first Wolfgang Schüssel and then Sebastian Kurz departed. This is the only realistic alternative: if these are not difficult times …
But for the moment, the fight against pandemics naturally overshadows everything, and one wonders over and over again whether the light at the end of the tunnel is real or just an illusion (longed for). We have heard too often that the next few weeks will be decisive, that now it is about persevering and things like that. And yet the growing numbers cannot be overlooked or downplayed. The situation is also dramatic in countries that are better at vaccinating than Austria, such as Hungary.
So, to some extent, we live in a continuous Holy Saturday, the end of which, at best, is only dimly in sight. Naturally, it is more difficult to persevere here, it can also be said, in a saturated and prosperous society, than previous generations who were familiar with hardships and deprivations.
The Catholic tradition knows the so-called “Risum paschale”, the Easter laugh. Even if no one is in the mood for such a thing right now, perpetuated Easter can be more easily mastered with joy, confidence, and optimism. That attitude will be essential for the time that follows.
