📜 Our Principles
As a grassroots group, our principles are the basis for all of our decisions. We are our principles and our principles come from us. We are grassroot democratic, independent, anti-racist, emancipatory, queer-feminist, solidary, anti-ableist, anti-fascist, anti-heteronormative and anti-capitalist. If you want to know more about a principle then click on it for more information.
Grassroot democratic
For us, grassroots democracy means representative work in which everyone can participate equally. We do not want to make decisions as a small group, but rather motivate as many students as possible to participate in our work in order to represent the opinions and needs of the student body. It is essential that our decision-making processes are as broad-based and consensual as possible. In contrast to conventional democratic structures, in which a minority is inevitably outvoted, we only make decisions that everyone agrees with.
Independent
Many of the parliamentary groups of the Austrian Students’ Union are the students’ organisations of existing parties. In contrast to those, we have no links to any such party. This means that we can act free from party-political considerations and do not have to follow the guidelines of a superior hierarchy. Our work for students is therefore not financed at the discretion of a party, but rather independently of any political influence, from your students’ union’s fee.
Anti-racist
Racist tendencies continue to permeate Austrian society. This particularly affects life at the university. In the committees we are involved in we firmly advocate the dismantling of racist structures within the university. In addition, we also offer support and space to non-academic anti-racist organisations. At the same time, for us, anti-racism means gaining an understanding of our own involvement in structural racism and making a critical study of it.
Emancipatory
The university has always been a place where young people find their political identity and learn to make a critical study of their own and others’ opinions. For us, emancipation primarily means personal liberation from imposed thought patterns and standing up for one’s own interests and opinions. We see it as an important part of our work to offer students spaces for a free exchange of opinions and to promote personal participation in political processes.
Queer-feminist
Our society has long been not only coined by patriarchal patterns but also characterised in its entirety by hierarchical and discriminatory structures. Queer-feminism is aware of these power structures, especially those that prevail between genders. It explicitly opposes discrimination against queer people and advocates equality as well as self-determination for all genders and identitites - not just those that fit into a binary system.
Solidary
As a student representative body that is also general political, we would like to support organisations and campaigns whose fundamental values are compatible with our principles. Our solidarity takes various forms, often in the form of financial support, the provision of spaces for events or participation in protests. For us, solidarity also means seeing ourselves as part of certain movements. Only sympathy allows for effective solidarity.
Anti-ableist
Ableism is discrimination against neurodivergent people and people with disabilities of all kinds. Such people are often reduced to those characteristics that distinguish them from the social “norm”. We want to take a firm stand against the existing marginalisation and ruthlessness as well as for the removal of all barriers and stand for equal opportunities regardless of neurodiversity and disabilities. In our plena, all people - regardless of their linguistic abilities, for example - are therefore listened to equally.
Anti-fascist
Anti-fascism means being aware of the historical uniqueness of the crimes of National Socialism and fascism as well as understanding this awareness as a mandate for one’s own actions. At the same time, anti-fascism also means not dismissing these crimes as the work of individual evil people. It can happen again. Under the right circumstances, our generation is also capable of committing such crimes. Even today, we are seeing an increase in authoritarian and nationalist movements, both in Austria and around the world. Anti-fascism means not only standing in the way of these movements, but also removing the basis for fascism. Fascism can only thrive on a breeding ground of hierarchies, social exclusion and hatred. For us, being anti-fascist therefore means countering these social tendencies with democracy, openness and solidarity.
Anti-heteronormative
When the US Air Force redesigned its cockpits in the 1950s, they tried to determine the number of “normal” pilots. Normal pilots were those who deviated less than 30% from the mean in all 10 measurements taken into account (height, sleeve length, etc.). Of the 4,063 pilots, not a single one was “normal”. This already shows that a concept of normality for people is inappropriate. Everyone deviates from the perceived norm at some point. Each of these deviations is sanctioned in various ways in our society. While many of these sanctions may go unnoticed, people whose sexuality, gender or appearance and behaviour deviate significantly from the perceived normality make life considerably more difficult. We endeavour to break out of the normative thinking that prevails in our society and try to reduce the sanctions we experience as much as possible. This applies in particular to heteronormativity and the associated (gender) roles that many people struggle with. We also try to treat people like the people they are and to not allow our behaviour to be influenced by social norms.
Anti-capitalist
Capitalism as a form of organisation is fundamentally undemocratic. The accumulation of surplus value allows the capitalist class to control investment decisions in our economy. Whether coal-fired power stations or wind turbines, high-speed trains or private jets, tanks or hospitals, these investment decisions determine all of our lives and decide the direction in which our society develops. However, it is not the majority, not the consensus that decides, but capital. For us, anti-capitalism means calling for the democratisation of these decision-making processes. We want to breathe life into thisdemand with our grassroots democratic organisational principles. Capitalist relations of production as well as social norms and structures in social life shape and stabilise each other in a constant interplay. For us, queer-feminism, anti-racism and anti-heteronormativity are therefore absolutely necessary in order to bring about lasting change to capitalist modes of production. As a small contribution to these efforts we organise our parties and our drink sales in a non-profit-oriented way.