1993: “Anti-Migrant Referendum” / “Sea of Lights” Demonstration

On January 23, 1993, up to 300,000 people gathered on the Heldenplatz square in Vienna to raise their voices against xenophobia and intolerance. They were reacting primarily to the referendum Österreich zuerst (“Austria First”) initiated by Jörg Haider’s FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party), which was available for signing from January 25 to February 1. The referendum demanded a constitutional provision that Austria was not a country of immigration, a freeze on immigration, as well as various other restrictive measures against “foreigners”. It was thus also known as an “anti-migrant referendum”.

The so-called Lichtermeer (Sea of Lights) demonstration was organized by the newly formed NGO “SOS Mitmensch”, which was supported by a broad alliance of refugee aid organisations, the Austrian National Union of Students, unions and religious groups, and additionally by representatives of the Social Democrats, Greens, Communists and also the ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party). A few days after the Sea of Lights, five FPÖ MPs split from the main party, formed a separate parliamentary group led by Heide Schmidt and founded the Liberal Forum as a new party. It distanced itself from the xenophobic approach and sought to represent classic liberal standpoints.

The FPÖ’s anti-migrant referendum and the responding “Lichtermeer” protests did not only stand between the controversial Waldheim presidency and Austria’s entry into the EU: the 1990s represented a decisive phase for foreign and migration policy in Austria as it saw the introduction of new immigration laws, residence acts and an amendment to the asylum law. A politicisation of migration policy began, which previously had largely evaded direct political influences and political debate due to the Austrian system of social partnership (institutionalised cooperation between the representations of employers and labour). Yet, in the 1980s, the political landscape of Austria was changing with the transformation of the FPÖ into a right-wing populist party under chairman Jörg Haider and the rise of the Greens and later the Liberals as new political powers.

While “Lichtermeer” remains the biggest demonstration of the Second Republic to this day, the referendum only received 416,531 signatures (7.35% of the voting population),  and remaind far behind the expectations of 20% by the FPÖ. The demonstration also attempted to redefine the meaning of Heldenplatz, to reject how it had been branded by the cheering crowd when Hitler announced the “Anschluss” (“annexation”) of Austria to the German Reich on March 15, 1938.