Seeing Red: How to fight war and fascism in Australia

SEEING RED is an irregular column on Fremantle Shipping News by Barry Healy*. In this piece, Barry addresses the question how to fight war and fascism in Australia

On August 31 there were significantly large, right-wing, patriotic rallies across Australia. They have sparked high level political commentary and there is talk of Aboriginal-led, anti-racist rallies on September 13.

According to the March for Australia website “mass migration has torn at the bonds that held our communities together.” The marchers’ aim was to do “what the mainstream politicians never have the courage to do: demand an end to mass immigration”. The website features a photo of hooded people burning an Australian flag, which sparks a particular resonance in me from my youth.

Simply walking Fremantle streets on a Saturday night, you can see the preposterousness of the March for Australiaclaims. Whatever rowdiness or anti-social behaviour there may be is caused by alcohol, not “mass migration”. Unless of course the poor blokes peddling feverishly for Deliveroo are tearing society to shreds.

The 2021 Australian Census found that 48.2% of Australians reported having at least one parent born overseas. The social cohesion that the “patriots” champion was created by migration!

Currently, in Victoria, the most violent, indeed deadly, assault on social cohesion appears connected to the weird, right wing Sovereign Citizen movement.

Imported right wing ideas

The March for Australia events mimicked right wing actions in Britain and the USA, hoping for a breakthrough into mainstream politics similar to Donald Trump’s and Nigel Farage’s. The Murdoch media act as loud hailers for March for Australia and Pauline Hanson and Bob Katter are desperately trying to hitch their wagons to it.

British fascist gangs have held intimidating demonstrationsoutside migrant hostels waving the English Cross of Saint George flag and the Union Jack to enforce their nationalist and racist ideas of “patriotism”.

The Aussie patriots were not articulating their own politics but those imported ideas. No matter the irony of Aussie nationalists aping foreigners, anti-racists must examine how best to combat them.

Is it best to just stand aside and starve the alt-right of oxygenin the hope that they will just wither on the vine? Anthony Albanese and Roger Cook have denounced the marches. Is that enough?

The British gangs’ ambition is to form street fighting cadre like the 1970s National Front skinheads. In Australia there were National Socialist fascists speaking at March for Australia events and in Perth, a contingent of black-clad Nazis led racist chants. In Melbourne a group of those toughs assaulted Aboriginal people at Camp Sovereignty, which is simply bizarre: anti-migrant thugs attacking people who by very definition are not migrants.

That Melbourne attack has inflamed the Aboriginal community into organising the September 13 rallies. The question is: what is the most effective approach?

How to fight racism

Federal Multicultural Affairs Minister, Anne Aly said theNazis at the rallies were looking to “prey on some legitimate concerns”. That is key to repulsing the rise of racism, though the ALP is not capable of leading that.

The path forward is by raising clear ideas giving solutions for the “legitimate concerns”. Those concerns include the rising cost of living, the housing crisis, the looming climate catastrophe and the planned war on China. Neither the ALP nor the LNP offer genuine solutions to those matters. In fact, they just worsen them.

In the 1970s and 1980s in Perth Jack Van Tongeren’s Australian Nationalist Movement covered the city with graffiti proclaiming, “Jobs not Asians”. Tracy Sorensen of the socialist youth group, Resistance, coined the counter-slogan: “Racism won’t create jobs”. The Building Workers Industrial Union donated $500 to fund a print run of stickers bearing those words and distributed them around building sites.

The BWIU leadership knew that racism was a dangerous poison in the working-class movement and would weakenefforts to fight back on all issues. It remains so today and the answer remains the same. The slogans to raise are: “Racism won’t stop inflation”, “Racism won’t build houses”, “Racism won’t stop climate change”, “Racism won’t stop war”. In short, “Racism won’t solve any of your problems”.

Alongside those slogans other demands include: “Tax the rich and corporations to build public housing”, “Index wages to match inflation”, “No war on China”, “Declare a climate emergency – for a carbon neutral economy”. Such ideas will obviously have to come from outside the ALP.

My exposure to Nazism

My first brush with Nazis occurred in 1970 when I wagged school to attend an anti-Vietnam War protest outside Parliament House in Canberra. The movement was in its infancy and only about 100 students from ANU were there. There was a fair number of police present and, most alarmingly, about 20 Nazis dressed in replica Brownshirt uniforms complete with swastika armbands.

The Nazis were commanded by a tall, intimidating, shaven-headed individual who I later found out was from Sydney. He was Ross May, AKA The Skull.

When it came time for speeches, a woman student with an American accent stepped forward, spoke a few words and then held up a US flag and burned it. Following her, a young Australian woman spoke and produced an Australian flag that she had painted on some cardboard, which she set on fire – the only time I have ever witnessed such a thing, March for Australia propaganda notwithstanding.

Suddenly The Skull burst through the crowd behind the woman and bashed her in the back of the head. As she fell, I heard him shout: “You don’t burn my flag, bitch.”

He ran off with a group of male students in pursuit. He ran straight for the police line. I watched as the police ranks parted to let him through and then reformed to stop his pursuers. May stood behind the police laughing and jumping up and down shouting abuse.

On that day I learned everything that I needed to about Australian patriotism and the Australian flag.

By Barry Healy

* Barry Healy is a life-long Marxist who first came to Perth in the 1970s to establish the Resistance young socialist group. He was a founder of the Green Left and currently edits the Culture section of the Red Spark website.

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