En Passant

We live in dangerous times. The fascists have guns. One tried to bring a gun to a Reclaim Australia rally. A complicit media and political elite remain silent. We must continue our struggle against racism and Islamaphobia.

Well done to all those in Canberra who attended this great turnout to confront the racists. We outnumbered them five to one. We kicked their sorry arses.

Victoria Police should rightfully be condemned for the deployment of chemical weapons, the targeting of medical personnel, casualties and medical treatment spaces with such weapons and, most of all, doing this in order to facilitate a public rally of racists and overt fascists and neo-nazis. Any assessment of the actions of antifascist protesters will conclude that they were inherently defensive: against threats of violence and the use of weapons by fascists and nazis as part of the United Patriots Front, and against the violence of racism and systematic oppression on the parts of Reclaim Australia, the United Patriots Front and Victoria Police.

Just as the Reclaim White Australia racists and fascists plan to rally this Saturday and Sunday across the country, so we are building counter-protests to welcome and defend Muslims. I urge all anti-racists and anti-fascists to attend and spread a message of love against the purveyors of hate, and in doing that help to drive the fascists and their useful idiots back into their cesspits.

The government’s racist and xenophobic attacks not only allow the respectable racists to come forth. They encourage the fascists and hard racists to not only air their filth but to attempt to mobilise around racism. The most recent example was the ‘United Patriots’ demonstration on Sunday in Melbourne which was an attempt to shut down socialist councillor Stephen Jolly. The left mobilised against the fascists and stopped them silencing Jolly. This is a victory for democracy.

The respectable racists have crawled out from under their rocks (often padded with copies of mainstream newspapers) to condemn the anti-fascist protestors. We have to confront not just the fascists but expose the respectable racists and the government which nurtures and provokes their racism too. We have to oppose the racists whenever they organise their Reclaim White Australia rallies. Just as importantly we have to challenge the governments which demonise asylum seekers, which attack Aborigines and point the finger accusingly at Muslims and which attack our jobs, or wages and our services.

The possibility of a populist Hanson and a neo-Nazi right within Reclaim Australia finding common ground, as they appear to be doing, is frightening. It could herald the development of a proto-fascist organisation, based on the disaffected middle and lower classes and racist fear-mongering. We need to gather our forces and begin the fight against the racist Reclaim (White) Australia movement. It is better to remove the weeds before they destroy the garden than after they have. Apply the weedicide now, not when the weeds have overrun the garden and it is too late.

A strong vibrant and active left and trade union movement, with a clear understanding of the nature of capitalism and the threat respectable racism and its hidden guest, fascism, pose to the left and to working people, could act as a pole of attraction offering hope for these middle and working class people currently driven by fear. Building such a left must be our long term goal. In the medium term it means rank and file workers winning back their unions and building strikes to defend workers’ interests. In the short term we have to confront the racists and their fascist bed fellows every time they poke their slimy necks out from their sewers of hate.

So why hasn’t ASIO been all over those Australian Defence League idiots who have been in court a couple of times in the last week?

Operation Sovereign Borders stops innocent people who are fleeing war, murder and rape but Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison won’t stop fascists coming here. Says it all really.