Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group

The far Right “Reclaim Australia” plans to hold an anti-Muslim rally in Melbourne and also at other places around Australia. They want people to believe they’re just “ordinary Australians” who are worried about “radical Islam”. What they’re NOT telling you is that they are Fascists – yes, actual far Right, Hitler-loving racists who have decided it’s a tactical advantage to wrap themselves in Australian flags. Just check the Slackbastard blog to see what he’s dug up on them: http://www.slackbastard.anarchobase.com.

Of course, not everyone who turns up to their rally will be a booted and suited Fascist. The organisers have told their followers to “leave your swastikas and your white pride T-shirts at home” (which speaks volumes in itself). They are hoping to attract people who are just prejudiced against Muslims and who can’t tell the difference between most followers of a religion and what a handful do in its name. They hope to recruit people by claiming to be the only “patriots” who are prepared to act against the phantom Islamic menace against which they foam.

It is in the interests of workers in Australia to oppose Islamophobic racism and take a stand in favour of freedom of religion – the right to believe any religion or none, the right to practice any religion or none and the right to preach any religion or none. Today, it is Muslims who find themselves attacked for exercising this right. Women are assaulted in the street for wearing the scarf, objections are raised against the construction of mosques and absurd fantasies are conjured up about halal certification.

The right to be a Muslim in Australia is the front line in defending the freedom of everyone. We must defend freedom of religion here in order to spread it to places like Saudi Arabia or Iran. If the right to live according to one’s conscience is destroyed here, we cannot establish it elsewhere. So come to the counter-rally – say no to racist Islamophobia and block the Fascists who are trying to use it to make themselves respectable.

This leaflet was produced by the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group as a contribution to the United Front Against Fascism.

http:www.melbacg.wordpress.com E-mail: macg1984@yahoo.com.au
PO Box 5108 Brunswick North 3056

Callout for an anti-fascist united front and inaugural organising meeting to counter Melbourne’s Reclaim Australia rally

This is a callout to everyone who wants to be involved in organising a large counter-mobilisation against the Reclaim Australia rally in April, with the goal of stopping the building of a fascist movement. Reclaim Australia’s Melbourne rally on 4 April will be at the Shrine of Remembrance: (https://www.facebook.com/events/1036290713053574/?ref=3&ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular)
 
Fascism is a violent and murderous movement, fostered by the capitalist élite when needed to crush growing resistance. Today, fascists churn up racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia to divide and weaken our resistance and build their base, just as Nazis used anti-semitism and racism last century. But all groups in society who are exploited, oppressed and resisting are in their sights.
 
This call is for the formation of a democratic united front of today’s and tomorrow’s targets — Muslims, immigrants, refugees, trade unionists, Jewish, Aboriginal and LGBTIQ people, people with disability, feminists, socialists, anarchists and other anti-fascists.
 
Come to the inaugural meeting that will form this united front against fascism and organise a counter-action capable of stopping the fascists on 4 April. This meeting will be held Thursday, 12 February, 6.00 pm at Trades Hall (corner Lygon and Victoria Streets, Carlton).
 
For more information, E-mail: macg1984@yahoo.com.au.

Against the Gag Laws, Against State Repression!

WHEN : Noon, Tuesday, 23 December
WHERE : Spanish Consulate, 146 Elgin St, Carlton 3053

On 16 December 2014, Spanish police launched ‘Operation Pandora’. Round-ups, searches, and arrests were carried out at squats in the ‘Casa de la Montaña’ district of Barcelona, at the libertarian San-Andres reading room, the anarchist Poble-Sec reading room, as well as 15 private homes.

Presently, 11 anarchists have been detained incommunicado by the state and accused of belonging to an ‘anarchist terrorist’ organisation (https://libcom.org/news/spain-pandora’s-box-17122014).

At the same time as these attacks upon the anarchist movement, the Spanish government has introduced new laws which criminalise a wide range of political activity. Among other things, the new laws “allow fines of up to €30,000 for disseminating photographs of police officers that are deemed to endanger them or their operations. Further, individuals participating in demonstrations outside parliament buildings or key installations could be fined up to €600,000 if they are considered to breach the peace. Those insulting police officers could be fined up to €600. Burning a national flag could cost the perpetrator a maximum fine of €30,000″ (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/20/spain-protests-security-law-parliament).

The police action and the enactment of new, harshly repressive laws come at the same time as the Spanish state is implementing deeply unpopular austerity measures, part of a European-wide attack on working conditions (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/01/spain-pain-austerity-deepens). In response, mass popular movements have arisen to contest these measures (therealnews.com/idirect.php?i=8838) and it is surely no coincidence that the state now aims to criminalise these movements and their activities.

On Tuesday, we will be joining the tens of thousands of workers in Spain who have already mobilised in response to state terror and repression to demand: the immediate release of the anarchists; the repeal of the new gag laws and; an end to the attack upon working conditions and workers’ movements in Spain.

Please join us outside the Spanish consulate in Melbourne at midday on Tuesday and let workers in Spain know that they do not struggle alone.

https://www.facebook.com/events/304306116435173/

The working class must take the issue in its own hands!

During the last 3 years in Greece, savage austerity imposed by the Troika (International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and European Commission) has crippled the country’s economy. The austerity has led to a depression that is as bad, if not worse, as the Great Depression was in the United States. Enjoying the atmosphere of anguish and despair associated with economic depression, Golden Dawn has flourished, espousing an ideology of hate. It is in effect a Fascist party that promotes anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant and misogynist chauvinism and has grown to become the third most popular political party in the country.

It is this threat which led the Greek government to arrest the party’s leadership and dozens of its followers after a Golden Dawn member fatally stabbed anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas in September last year. Some Golden Dawn members (including senior leaders) have also been charged by police with bashing defenceless individuals, whom Golden Dawn deemed to be enemies, for causing explosions and for blackmail. A police investigation that has been launched into the party, but has failed to produce clear results.

Beyond their racist, bigoted ideology, Golden Dawn draws inspiration from the violent methods of the Nazi German regime of the last century. Its members and supporters routinely whip themselves into a frenzy of hate with torchlight rallies, demagogic rhetoric and stiff arm salutes.

Golden Dawn is promoting division between ethnic and religious communities in Greece. It also promotes hateful attitudes towards women and espouses the marginalisation and suppression of people who it deems to have an ‘unnatural’ sexuality. Tellingly, it denies the Jewish Holocaust during World War II.

It is no accident that Golden Dawn has arisen in Greece at the present time. Fascism is capitalism’s last line of defence, the refuge it seeks when all else fails and it needs to crush the working class. As workers in Greece mobilised against the Troika’s brutal austerity assault and the political establishment imploded, sections of Greek capitalists turned to Fascism in order to protect their wealth and privilege. If capitalist democracy cannot save Greek capitalism, Golden Dawn is in the background to impose capitalist dictatorship.

Golden Dawn was planning a visit to Australia in late November by Eleftherios Synadinos and Georgios Epitideios. They are former army generals and are Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) representing Golden Dawn.

This planned visit was cancelled after organising against it started to get up a head of steam and the Fascist MEPs’ visas were delayed. An antifascist group in Melbourne, centred on workers of Greek background, reached out to unions and to community groups and received a significant response.

In May this year, black-shirted Golden Dawn followers in Australia tried to hold a rally outside the Greek Club in Brisbane, supported by Fascists of the Australia First Party. They were successfully confronted by members of the Greek community, unionists and other antifascist protesters. They have also twice held similar rallies outside of the Greek Consulate General in Sydney. In Melbourne they have not organised similar rallies but they have been active through a front charity called “Voithame Tin Ellada” (“We Help Greece”).

The cancellation of the Golden Dawn visit is a victory, but we must not be complacent. In the event of Golden Dawn making another attempt to visit Australia, community groups, Left organisations and, most especially, the unions, must take the initiative to act in a united front against the Fascist scum. They must be stopped in their tracks by a massive mobilisation of the working class.

FASCISM – NO PASARAN!

This article was published in The Anvil Vol 3 No 1: https://melbacg.wordpress.com/the-anvil/

The Liberal Government brought down a budget in May that outraged workers across Australia. It is a massive attack on the working class across the board, with cuts to pensions, Medicare, higher education, State funding for health and education, unemployment benefits and much more. There is hardly a sector of the working class that won’t be dramatically affected.

Touch One, Touch All

We can’t base our strategy on negotiations in the Senate. That would leave us at the mercy of capitalist politicians. Anybody who thinks we can rely on the Palmer United Party, the Motoring Enthusiasts Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, Family First and co needs their head read. These people, where they’re not loose cannons, are hardened reactionaries.

Leaving the Budget to negotiations in the Senate also breaks the Budget up into single issues that may be wangled through piecemeal with dirty deals. We might be divided on this cut or that, on the basis of “Thank goodness it’s not touching me”. We must oppose the Budget root and branch, because an injury to one is an injury to all.

Anyway, much of the Budget (like the cutting of funding to the States) doesn’t need a specific Act of Parliament, having been included in a supply bill which has already passed. To win, we must defeat the Liberals.

A General Strike

The Liberals have nailed their colours to the mast and their credibility would be destroyed by backing down, so only the strongest possible working class mobilisation could defeat them – and a general strike is the strongest mobilisation we can perform.

Three other considerations show that a general strike the best strategy. Thirty years ago, a single militant union could go out on its own and win disputes, but at the moment nobody wants to stick their head up. It is necessary to go all out at once to avoid martyring a single militant union. Secondly, a general strike would bust the anti-union laws up for good. They can’t prosecute millions of workers, so they’ll be forced to let us go. And thirdly, a general strike would give millions of currently non-organised workers a strong reason to join their union.

Rank & File Movement

Many might ask, “If a general strike is such a great idea, then, why aren’t the ACTU organising one?” We all know the answer to that – the ACTU Executive is so committed to the ALP that it couldn’t possibly initiate action that would go against the ALP leadership’s wishes. The official representatives of 1.7 million workers are reduced to begging for crumbs.

What is required is a rank and file movement in the unions that can take them back from the craven collaborators who dominate them. We need to re-build the rank and file networks that were mostly wound up in the 1980s as the so-called “Communist” Party of Australia surrendered to neo-liberalism and became key supporters of the Accord between the ACTU and the Labor Government. The rank and file movement would operate on the basis first enunciated by the Clyde Workers Committee in 1915. Its motto would be “We will support the officials just so long as they rightly represent the workers, but we will act independently immediately they misrepresent them”. In this movement, all political currents within the working class would advance their views and have them judged on their merits in the course of open debate and the benefit of experience.

Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott

In order to create this rank and file movement, the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group has taken the initiative to start up the Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott. Because only the ACTU can call a general strike at the moment (if anyone else did, the strike wouldn’t happen), it takes the form of a petition to the ACTU Executive.

In the course of building support for the petition, a rank and file movement will come into existence and it is that movement which can compel the ACTU to organise the strike – or can organise the strike itself if the ACTU refuses. And the rank and file movement will itself change the politics of the unions by challenging the union bureaucracy, who are wedded to capitalism, Parliament and neo-liberalism. The MACG would argue for the perspective of taking the unions out from under the officials and restructuring them along libertarian lines, with federal structures and autonomy for local initiative.

The Campaign is structured as a united front, where all currents within the working class can speak freely, advancing their views and having them tested on their merits. In addition, the demands have deliberately been couched in relatively vague terms, describing what we are against, because positive objectives and essential questions like the length of the strike will have to be determined in the course of the campaign. To set them out in advance would be either to limit the appeal of the campaign, to foreclose radical opportunities, or both.

The Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott meets fortnightly in Melbourne and can be contacted by E-mail at generalstriketostopabbott [at] gmail.com or via Facebook: Campaign for a General Strike to Stop Tony Abbott.

You don’t have to be an Anarchist to join. In fact, the campaign wouldn’t work if it was restricted to Anarchists. All you need is to agree that Tony Abbott needs to be stopped and we should have a general strike to stop him. So let’s get cracking.

This article was published in The Anvil Vol 3 No 1: https://melbacg.wordpress.com/the-anvil/