The fog has a firm grip on downtown Linz. There is silence around the plague column when the main square sinks into the sea exactly at 6 p.m. In the sea of lights. Under the motto “Yes, we care – Linz!” Thousands of participants commemorated the more than 13,000 Covid deaths in Austria on Sunday. And showed solidarity with the health workers.
“We want to show that we as a society can only get through the pandemic together. Only if we all stick together, look at each other and finally enter into dialogue again,” says Barbara Mitterndorfer. “Some demonstrators are terribly loud and aggressive, we are setting a different signal.” The sea of lights was organized privately by Barbara Mitterndorfer and Beatrice Keplinger. The response on social media has been tremendous.
Silence and candles
No loud speeches, no banners with pithy slogans and no Austrian flags either. The participants in the sea of lights only brought their candles with them. And there is also no music on a continuous loop. Only saxophone player Charly Schmid. A few minutes before 6 pm, “The Winter” from Antonio Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” echoes across the main square. The signal for silence. The first candles are lit, if you don’t have one, you use the mobile phone light. For a few minutes the participants hold their lights up in the air.
“13,000 people died of Covid-19 in Austria. They were especially missing at Christmas and New Year’s Eve. We have to focus on what is essential, the togetherness,” says participant Monika Weilguni.
“We also want to show the nursing staff that we are there. And also draw attention to the young people. It makes this time of uncertainty and division particularly difficult,” says co-organizer Beatrice Keplinger. But the candlelights are not only flickering on Linz’s main square. If you couldn’t come to the action, you put a candle in the window at home. Before Charly Schmid takes a breath again. “Tears in Heaven” by Eric Clapton announces the end of the campaign.
The Catholic Action (KA) Upper Austria also supports the silent protest. “There are so many people who stand up for their fellow human beings and their health, who care full of empathy and devotion. And then they are also insulted. That simply cannot be”, says KA-OÖ President Maria Hasibeder. “With the sea of lights we thank those who do inhuman things.”
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Viennese model
On the evening of the fourth Sunday in Advent, Vienna’s Ringstrasse was transformed into a sea of lights. Thousands attended. The impulse for Mitterndorfer and Keplinger: “When we saw the campaign in Vienna and how many people took part, we knew we needed something like that in Linz too,” says Keplinger. And already on the day after the Viennese sea of lights, they registered theirs in Linz.
“We want to say thank you,” says Keplinger. “But we don’t have to be loud and conspicuous for our message to be heard.”
Source: Nachrichten
