The Canberra Anti-Racism Rally kicked their sorry arses
Posted by John, July 19th, 2015 - under Anti-fascist, Anti-racist, Canberra Anti-Racism Network, Fascists, Racists, Reclaim (white) Australia.
I have just got back from the Canberra Anti-Racist Network rally against the racists and fascists from Reclaim Australia. It was fantastic. There were about 30 of them and 150 of us.
We spoke about how they were responding to Tony Abbott’s agenda of fear and division and his talk of Team Australia. Demonising refugees, attacking Aborigines and belittling Muslims all combine, in times of a worsening economy, to give a spark to the racists and fascists and their simplistic and very very dangerous rubbish.
We marched to their corner car-park site and chanted at them. One chant was “Muslims are welcome, racists are not.” We even proclaimed, very ‘politely’ but rather loudly, ‘racist scum, off our streets.’
We then played tag team with them, one step ahead, as they marched, protected by the cops of the ACT Labor/Greens government, up a main road entrance to Parliament House. The cops stopped us from following them.
We walked another way to Parliament House and stood about 25 metres from the racists and fascists.
Roxley Foley, from the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, stood very near the Reclaim White Australia group with a sign which read ‘not yours to reclaim’.
Photograph: Elise Scott/AAP
We chanted the usual stuff, and told the racists and fascists, rather loudly, that hate speech was not free speech.
Looking at the small rabble, we sometimes chanted: ‘You will always lose in Canberra.’
‘Losers, losers, losers’ echoed at times too from us in the direction of this sorry solitutude of racists.
We kicked their arse. It was a great turnout. Well done to the Canberra Anti-Racism Network and to all those who attended.
But we cannot be complacent. The material conditions exist for their growth. If the economy worsens (as appears likely) they may win more audience to their ideas. We have to continue the struggle and mobilise against them every time they try to win broader support.
The racists have been complaining about our ‘violence’.
Violence? Nonsense. There was no violence from us.
We chanted at them and made the precious little flowers feel uncomfortable. Good. The lessons of history show that driving this filth off the streets can stop the Nazis and their useful idiots from growing.
Oh hang on, the ABC is reporting violence at the Canberra protest. A Reclaim White Australia supporter threw a punch at one of us after the rally.
And one of my comrades in Socialist Alliance has written that a racist tried to stab her with an Australian flag.
The cops have done nothing. I will leave it to you to think why that might be.
The racist who wrote the sobbing cry baby report below is also wrong about their numbers. They had thirty at maximum, even with a flown in speaker from Adelaide and the late arrival of a couple of skinhead fascists who tried to spark a fight with us.
He also doesn’t mention the split between the racists and the fascists as another reason for their small numbers, the same number who turned up at their last rally, despite the fact they had two months to organise. Our numbers grew five fold. A great day.
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Comments
Comment from John
Time July 20, 2015 at 1:28 pm
And when that hate speech leads to more violence against minorities? Do you support that too? And when that hate speech leads to concentration camps and the extermination of 6 million Jews and 5 million other people, do you support that too?
Comment from Lorikeet
Time July 20, 2015 at 8:27 pm
Freedom of Speech is one of the cornerstones of democracy, and includes love speech, hate speech and everything in between. I think it is extreme to infer that a person who believes in Freedom of Speech would support the extermination of anyone, let alone millions.
A couple of years ago I left an organisation which allowed right wing Muslim haters to take the place of a union speaker at a seminar. I tried telling them that the Greens were a much greater threat to the Australian way of life than ordinary Muslims.
Comment from Lorikeet
Time July 20, 2015 at 8:29 pm
I noticed you also removed 2 of my comments. Is that democracy in action?
Comment from John
Time July 20, 2015 at 9:12 pm
Sure did. Nonsense right wing posts. Not denying you free speech. Just moderating my blog. You can post that sort of rubbish elsewhere.
Comment from John
Time July 20, 2015 at 9:15 pm
The Greens? Oh dear. The real threat is Abbott or whoever else is in government running capitalism. And capitalism itself. Perhaps you could convince Reclaim Australia to target the Greens instead of Muslims. Freedom of speech eh? Like jailing doctors and nurses for reporting abuse in Australia’s concentration camps for refugees. The real threat is Abbott.
Comment from Lorikeet
Time July 21, 2015 at 6:27 pm
No, wrong again. Tony Abbott is just the current Prime Minister. The United Nations has most of the say now and their bankers (capitalists) are the real threat. They demand access to cheap labour. They don’t mind if they set the socialists against right wing extremists in their quest to run the show.
I am not a right wing person at all, and there was nothing wrong with my previous comments.
In case you failed to notice, the Greens tend to get their own way eventually, as they are the instrument of global capitalism, no matter what they pretend to be. Or perhaps I should say they support a Corporate Neo-Communist Regime, which is exactly the same thing.
Comment from Lorikeet
Time July 21, 2015 at 6:32 pm
I’d say that the rally set one group of extremists against another. I think we need to reclaim Australia against capitalists, not allow them to set racist right wingers against socialists.
Shouting nasty slogans will only inflame the problem and allow the federal government the opportunity to bring in more undemocratic laws.
Comment from John
Time July 21, 2015 at 9:41 pm
Van makes some excellent points which undermine your argument. http://www.theage.com.au/comment/extremist-groups-wilt-under-public-scrutiny-20150721-gih7co.html
Comment from Harry Feldman
Time July 22, 2015 at 12:02 pm
While it’s important and significant that we outnumbered the racists on the day, the reason we oppose them is not that they are the minority, or fail to mobilise effectively. To argue, as one did at the rally, to ‘get with the strength’, sounds indistinguishable from ‘jump on the bandwagon’. If we had been the ones who drew smaller numbers, if one day we lose in Canberra, we’d still be right to oppose racism.
Comment from Lorikeet
Time July 22, 2015 at 6:15 pm
But is it really racism? Religionism? Or just naked greed?
At the seminar I attended where a union speaker was replaced by an anti-Muslim extremist, I thought they were more worried about Sharia Law in relation to the banking system.
I tried to make them see sense. Then a second man got up and said: “The best thing for a Muslim is a bullet.”
At the time, I belonged to the Democratic Labour Party, and all of those present from the DLP were appalled by both the lack of the union speaker and these 2 idiots. There were also numerous other right wingers present who were free marketeers. The air smelled of enormous greed.
Comment from Lorikeet
Time July 22, 2015 at 6:26 pm
Thanks for the link, John. I read Van’s article. I still think the government’s main aim is to shut everyone up.
As mentioned before, I have counselled people out of destructive cults. I think a lot of the racist and religionist yobboes around fail to realise that every religion or belief system can have destructive groups. This does not mean that all groups (whether Muslims, Christians, Pagans etc) are dangerous and out to destroy the Australian way of life.
I still think part of the racial and religious issues are deliberately driven by government, and result in part from the importation of too many foreign workers when there are already high rates of unemployment and underemployment.
Capitalists want obedient, underpaid, overworked employees and the Australian government aims to provide them (glut of workers, undemocratic laws).
Comment from Lorikeet
Time July 20, 2015 at 12:36 pm
I also think people should be able to say anything they like. If others don’t like it, hard luck. That’s democracy in action.