Bob Marley's Redemption Song boomed out over Vienna's Ballhausplatz yesterday afternoon as thousands of teenagers skipped school to protest against the presence in Austria's government of Mr Jorg Haider's far-right Freedom Party.
None of those present, apart from the riot police guarding government buildings and the reporters looking on, was born by the time Marley died in 1981. But his defiant, uplifting hymn still struck a chord within Austria's newly politicised youth.
"Young people have never been so interested in politics. Everywhere you go, in the classroom, in cafes, everybody's talking about the political situation. And we want to do something about it," said Nora (17), a pupil at a private Catholic school for girls outside Vienna.
Nora and her friends Anna and Kathi will have to face the wrath of their headmistress on Monday because, unlike many schools, theirs forbade pupils to take part in the protest. Some schools in the city centre went so far as to lock their doors to prevent pupils from joining the noisy, cheerful crowd outside.
Yesterday's protest was a prelude to the main event today, a mass demonstration against the government which is expected to bring 250,000 people on to the streets of Vienna. Speakers at the closing rally in the Heldenplatz will include the Nazi-hunter, Ms Beate Klarsfeld, and Germany's Jewish Christian Democrat politician, Mr Michael Friedman, as well as a succession of Austria's leading cultural, intellectual and political figures.
There have been demonstrations on the streets of Vienna every day since the new government took office on February 4th and the opposition is planning to institute a regular Monday night march through the city centre.
This is deliberately modelled on the weekly marches in Leipzig that preceded the collapse of the communist regime in East Germany in 1989.
The Austrian protesters have even adopted the Leipzig demonstrators' slogan Wir sind das Volk ("We are the People"), implying that the government is out of touch with popular feeling. Two opinion polls published in the past week suggest that they are right and that the pro-Haider backlash feared by many after Austria's EU partners imposed their diplomatic freeze has not materialised.
Support for Mr Haider's party remains almost exactly the same as it was when he won 27 per cent of the vote in last October's election. One poll suggests that the party has gained 1 per cent, another says support has fallen by the same amount. Meanwhile, Mr Haider's coalition partners in the conservative People's Party continue to lose popularity and more Austrians blame the conservative Chancellor, Mr Wolfgang Schussel, for the present crisis than any other politician.
More significantly, support for the opposition Greens has soared to 16 per cent, making an alternative coalition with the Social Democrats a real possibility for the first time in Austria's history.
If the Liberals, who are currently engaged in a vicious internal feud, were to regain ground lost in the last election, the opposition forces would easily defeat the right-wing government in new elections.
The opinion polls have strengthened the resolve of Austria's EU partners to keep up the pressure on Vienna's new government and the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, this week defended the sanctions. "We could not accept even the act of making Mr Haider's political positions respectable. We faced the question, should we do business as usual or do we say clearly, right at the start, here are the limits," he said.
Mr Schroder condemned Bavaria's prime minister, Mr Edmund Stoiber, for criticising the isolation of Mr Haider and warned that Germany must be especially alert to the danger from the extreme right.
"Stoiber's policy towards the new Austrian government is beyond good and evil. Haider must not become a German problem because the diplomatic and economic damage would be enormous. It is a fact that our European partners are very sensitive to the German reaction to Haider. Our history is still very present," he said.
Nora, Anna and Kathi will be taking part in today's demonstration in Vienna, partly to show the world that Mr Haider is not representative of most Austrians. Anna, who was born in Poland but now has Austrian citizenship, is hoping that the wave of protests will help to change Austrian attitudes to foreigners and halt the rise of xenophobia.
"I'm the only foreigner in my class and I know that a few girls make nasty remarks about me. They wouldn't say it to my face but I know what their attitude is and it hurts me," she said.
