We at Fight dem back! do not want to besmirch the good name of Dr James Saleam, 49, of Marrickville, Sydney.

We don’t want to cast aspersions on his good character.

Really.

Unfortunately, we must, as he’s a bit of a nut and you can’t trust a word that comes out of his mouth.

Not exactly boy scouts…

James Saleam joined the National Socialist Party of Australia in the late 60s. The ANSP were friendly lads, who would often help old ladies across the road, and sell cookies door-to-door.

Well, they would have liked to, but it was hard to find the time what with all of the ANSP’s other activities, which included:

• Dressing up in full Nazi gear.
• Assaulting anti-war and anti-apartheid demonstrators.
• Stockpiling weapons (for the race war).
• Desecrating synagogues.
• And a wide variety of other such fun, fulfilling activites.

While it’s believed that the NSPA was behind the 20 April 1972 (Hitler’s birthday) bombing of the Brisbane office of the Australian Communist Party, what is known for a fact is that Jim Saleam was behind the firebombing of a left-wing Brisbane bookshop (The Eastwind bookshop in Elizabeth St). He was arrested and convicted in 1974.

In the mid-70s, Saleam grew tired of sunny Brisbane, and moved down south, enrolling in Sydney University.

In 1977, he founded the Australian National Alliance, the policies of which included the permanent reintroduction of the White Australia Policy. In 1978, the group pre-emptively announced that the “enemies of Australian Nationalism['s] days [are] numbered.”

The time for hesitation is through

On Anzac Day, 1982, Saleam founded National Action, bringing together a number of small pro-nazi groups and religious sects into one big, happy family.

Under Saleam’s guidance, National Action toned down the overt nazism (which Saleam recognised as being a barrier to gaining political credibility) and focused instead on the perceived “Asian Invasion,” a brand of racism that was acceptable to a far greater audience.

The Jim Saleam Guide To Politics:

1. Don’t mention that you worship Hitler.

And boy, did National Action live up to it’s name. It was nation-wide, and by jove, was there ever some action!

1983 was a pretty quiet year for NA. Their stormtrooper squad, “The Sons of Kokoda,” spent their evenings intimidating and assaulting Asian students and anti-racist activists, but it wasn’t until 1984 that they really got into the swing of things.

They:

• Beat and hospitalised an anti-racist UNSW student leader.

• Attacked the offices of Greenpeace and the Movement Against Uranium Mining, Community Aid Abroad, the Socialist Workers Party, Bob Gould’s Pitt St Bookshop, and the Maoist East Wind Bookshop, to name a few.

• Threw bricks and firebombs through the windows of anti-apartheid activists Meredith Burgmann and John Brink respectively.

Things quietened down for National Action for a little while after that, until 1987, when they got back to their fire-bombing tricks in Adelaide. Jim Saleam’s attentions were directed elsewhere, however. In 1987 he was convicted and jailed for insurance fraud.

But he was back on the streets in 1989, and he wasn’t happy with Sydney African National Congress representative Eddie Funde. In January 89, Saleam supplied two NA members with a shotgun and some liquor (to shoot at Eddie and to calm their nerves, respectively) and sent them over to Funde’s house, where Funde and his children were sleeping. The boys fired a few rounds at the house, and Saleam went down for 3 1/2 years in 1991 for possessing a firearm and organising the attack.

I’m just here to get my baby out of jail

But when the Doctor got out — he had changed!

The New Jim Saleam Guide to Politics:

1. Don’t mention that you worship Hitler.
2. Don’t have such an overt army of violent thugs who go around trying to kill people — it doesn’t win you votes.

To this end, Saleam joined the Australia First party. Founded in 1996 by disendorsed ALP member Graeme Campbell, Australia First would be a serious political party. Campbell could see that there were a number of voters who were disenchanted with the Labor and Liberal parties policies on such things as immigration and Aboriginal land rights. What he didn’t see was One Nation. Australia First was absolutely trounced by Pauline Hanson at the 1998 Federal Elections.

Saleam has run as a candidate in local elections for Australia First, and insists he is a changed man: “I still believe in extra-parliamentary politics,” he said in 2004, “but maybe the way I do it should be more akin to the way the Greens do it, rather than the more swashbuckling days of National Action, which was a contentious organisation.”

These extra-parliamentary politics include putting up anti-multiculturalism posters in some of the more diverse parts of Sydney… written in Greek.

But at least he isn’t organising goon squads to beat the daylights out of international students, right?

Enter the Patriotic Youth League

Founded in late 2002 by Stuart McBeth, the youth wing of Australia First has been heavily mentored by Saleam, especially in regards to the first rule of Saleamist Politics: Don’t overtly worship Hitler.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t taught them the second rule quite so well.

Sticker campaigns warning students at Newcastle University that they would contract AIDS if they slept with foriegn students, and that international students took university places from Australians, coinicided with a number of racially motivated verbal and physical attacks on international students.

One Kenyan students was badly beaten and it is believed that PYL members were behind the attack. Naturally, the PYL denies all involvement, though Victorian representative Luke Connors admitted that the student had been “outspoken against us from the start” and that similar attacks could occur at other places where the PYL set up.

While Saleam was obviously not physically responsible for these attacks, it is worrying that a man with a history such as his is in such a position of influence over a group of skinheads. Whether he be sending NA goons after his political enemies, or sending his son to the Marrickville Easter Parade dressed as a confederate soldier, it’s been proven time and time again: Jim Saleam + Impressionable Youth = Trouble.

Of course, this is just a realistic and honest look at the political career of Dr. Jim Saleam… others see him differently:

James James, Dr. James Saleam
(ala James James, Morrison Morrison by A.A. Milne)
Douglas Robertson, 2004

James James, Dr. James Saleam
was a radical nationalist man
He was determined to save Australia,
and developed a marvellous plan

James James wrote many papers
and published them all on the net
He hosted the Sydney Forum
and spoke to all that he met

James James was a great patriot,
though his enemies thought him the worst
He called together the Nationalists,
saying “We must put Australia first!”

James James, Dr. James Saleam,
commonly known as Jim,
searched everywhere for some good folk
and asked them to listen to him

James James said to the Nationalists
“We’re fighting for our country and kin.
Now be prepared, and strengthen your will,
for when we go fight, we must win!”

How can we stay mad at you, Jim, with fly rhymes such as these?