BUILD TRADE UNION-CENTRED MASS ACTIONS TO CRUSH THE FASCISTS!
26 July 2014 – The pathetic group retreated in defeat. The extreme racists of the “Party For Freedom”. Today, they had tried to picket the Woolworths store in the multiracial Sydney suburb of Marrickville in protest against the Muslim festival of Ramadan. However, their efforts to whip up hatred and violence against Muslim people were thwarted by a counter-action of about 80 anti-racist Marrickville residents, trade unionists, Aboriginal activists, anarchists and socialists. Despite a line of police protecting the violent racists, the determined anti-fascist counter-demonstrators, chanting “Drive Out, Drive Out, Drive Out the Racist Filth!”, ensured that the white supremacists lost possession of the two large bags of racist leaflets that they had as well as many of their placards. Before long the demoralized “Party For Freedom” scum abandoned their demonstration. This was an important victory against extreme racism – fanatical racism that sprouts from atop the official racism of the Abbott gang as well as the ALP Opposition and which finds fertile soil in the conditions of economic insecurity, unemployment and casualisation of work created by decaying capitalism.
Following the victory in Marrickville, the core of the anti-racist demonstrators marched to nearby Tempe to picket a meeting of the fascist Australia First Party held at their heavily fortified shop/bunker. The picket was able to ensure that no one responding to the advertising leaflets for the meeting could have entered through the main entrance of the shop front on Princes Highway. However, protected by a cordon of police, including riot police, the neo-Nazis entered through a back entrance. Police also outrageously arrested and charged one anti-racist demonstrator. All anti-racist activists must demand the immediate dropping of all charges against our anti-fascist brother.
In response to the chants of anti-fascists, the Australia First Party filth shouted out from their store, “White Australia!” This highlights how anyone who is not of white skin is an immediate target of these groups. Thus, while today’s Australia First Party meeting was aimed against mainly East Asian and Indian international students, tomorrow their main target could be Aboriginal people, the next day people of Middle Eastern background and the day after that those of an African origin.
The fascists are the most extreme of backward elements amongst economically uncertain small businessmen/individual contractors and amongst unemployed/under-employed layers of society who fanatically take their insecurities out on ethnic minorities and the organised left and workers movement. Fascism when it becomes a mass movement mobilises the most reactionary layers of the middle class in fearful rage against those below them on the socio-economic scale. Sometimes certain fascist groups claim to also represent middle class hostility to the bankers. However, their extreme opposition to the workers movement – the only movement able to defeat the financial elite – means that they end up pandering to the finance capitalists as well. Thus fascists end up being the crudest and most rabid enforcers of capitalist interests in every way imaginable. When fascist movements in Australia reached their high point in the late 1920s – early 1930s – in particular the Old Guard and New Guard outfits – these paramilitary fascist squads were notorious for attacking workers’ strikes, bashing union leaders, violently storming communist meetings and even targeting left ALP events and politicians.
Today’s fascists in Australia are seeking to acquire the strength to replicate the anti-union and anti-Left violence of the Old Guard and New Guard days. They are also the most fanatical champions of one of the capitalist class’s key strategic goals – to destroy socialistic rule in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Both the “Party for Freedom” and the Australia First Party seek to whip up hostility to the PRC by promoting the myth of an impending “Chinese takeover” of Australia. The “Party for Freedom” also rails against communist “atrocities” in China and on May 14 hosted a film night in Sydney featuring whacko claims that the Chinese government was harvesting the organs of political prisoners. The meeting hosted by former One Nation NSW Chairman, Bob Vinnicombe, included Chinese Falun Gong members and featured a film about supposed cruelty to Falun Gong members in China. What unites the white supremacist Party For Freedom fascists with the right wing, Washington- funded Chinese group Falun Gong (which poses as simply a harmless religious group) is fanatical hatred of communism and a shared belief in unscientific, fascist notions of racial purity. Thus, when he toured Australia in 1996 the Falun Gong fuhrer, Li Hongzhi, ranted that mixed race children are the spawn of the ‘’Dharma Ending Period,’’ a Buddhist phrase that refers to an era of moral degeneration. He even disgustingly claimed in a speech in Sydney that heaven itself is segregated: “‘the yellow people, the white people, and the black people have corresponding races in heaven” (The New York Times, 30 April 2000) and thus mixed race people have no place in heaven! Falun Gong also share the fascists’ reactionary program on other social questions. They spew fanatical hatred of homosexuality and denounce the anti-capitalist, 1949 Chinese Revolution for destroying traditional Confucian values – values that justified the cruel oppression of women and children in pre-1949 China.
This alliance between the Australian fascists and Chinese hard line, anti-communists explains why a Chinese looking man was amongst the white supremacists participating in the aborted Party for Freedom rally in Marrickville today. It seems that a non-white person is acceptable to the white supremacist filth as long as they are an extreme anti-communist who is sufficiently fanatical in their commitment to the fascists’ – and, indeed, the mainstream capitalists’ – strategic goal of smashing socialistic rule in China. Whether non-white, right wing allies of the white supremacists would escape the gas chambers in the event of a fascist takeover of Australia is, perhaps, another story!
THE LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM THE JULY 26 ANTI-FASCIST ACTION
Currently, the fascist groups in Australia are not a mass movement as they are in large swathes of Europe. However, the inevitable deepened economic crisis that capitalism will engender in Australia could give them an opportunity to also rapidly spread here. Furthermore, even now these groups can play a dangerous role by at times igniting the widespread racist sentiments within Australian capitalist society into burning and violent racist hatred. An example of just this was the role that the Australia First Party played in inciting the horrific December 2005 white supremacist riot at Cronulla Beach. More frequently, extreme racist political groups can push the many individual, garden-variety apolitical racists out there into a more conscious and violent bigotry. On the other hand, every public blow landed against the violent racist groups sends a message to the unorganized bigots as well that it is not in their interests to bully non-white kids at school, abuse Asian passengers on public transport, spit on Muslim women on the streets or pick fights with African youth in nightclubs. While white, middle class liberals can comfortably preach the virtues of “ignoring” the fascists, for Aboriginal, Asian, African, Middle Eastern and Islander people, crushing the fascists is a matter of enforcing their right not to have to face constant racist harassment. For activists standing for the interests of the working class, stopping the fascists is absolutely vital. If fascists are allowed to spread racial hatred, efforts to unite workers to fight for their rights will be sabotaged.
That is why we congratulate all those who sincerely participated in the anti-racist victory in Marrickville today. Special mention must go to the Red Anarchists (“anarcho- communists”) and anarchists who took the important initiative of calling for and building today’s anti-fascist action. We Leninists in Trotskyist Platform are happy to have been able to contribute to driving today’s action forward and to have worked hard to promote the action in working class suburbs in the days leading up to it. Two other socialist groups also joined the Marrickville anti-fascist action: Socialist Alliance and Solidarity.
We should, however, not become complacent following today’s victory. Although the humiliating retreat they were forced to make today will surely demoralize the fascist Party For Freedom and discourage unorganized racists from joining them, the next time they will surely be more prepared. Given the violent essence of the fascists and the fact that they have the police on their side, we need to ensure that every anti-fascist action is properly planned and built. It follows then that we should not at this stage think we can simply respond to every single fascist provocation but should, instead, respond only to those provocations where we reasonably believe that we have the required lead time and means to build actions that can overwhelm the fascists with numbers. What we should avoid is the situation that occurred in Doonside in Western Sydney on May 24. Then, despite the sincere efforts of rally organizers and participants, an anti-fascist picket (of an Australia First Party meeting) that was only built up in a short space of time ended up with a smaller number of people participating in the picket than were at the violent racists’ meeting. This not only put the anti-racist activists in a physically dangerous situation but it did little to encourage the development of the anti-fascist movement for the future. Victories over the extreme racists like today’s at Marrickville strengthen the anti-fascist movement and demoralize the enemy. But defeats or impotent actions have, unfortunately, the very opposite effect.
To build a powerful anti-fascist movement we must, of course, learn lessons from every action that we take. Even a victorious action like the one today provides valuable lessons and shows up the current weaknesses of the movement. One of the key lessons from today is that it showed once again that in the struggle between extreme racists and anti-racists, the Australian police are clearly on the side of the violent racists. It was obvious to nearly all anti-racist demonstrators today that the police were protecting the fascists in both Tempe and Marrickville. Furthermore, not only did they arrest one anti-fascist demonstrator but while we were outside the Australia First Party store in Tempe they provocatively videoed us while not doing the same to the racist filth hurling abuse from inside their lair. This is little surprise as police act to defend the same capitalist class whom the fascists actually serve. As Trotskyist Platform comrades stressed when addressing today’s demonstration, to force the police to stand aside so that the fascist threat can be crushed requires the power of the multiracial workers movement to be brought to bear. And the numberical strength and industrial power of the workers movement is all the more important when the fascist enemy is fortified in a bunker as they are in Tempe.
To win sections of the union movement to the anti-fascist struggle requires persistent work. We need to show active workers that defeating the violent racists is part of building the unshakeable workers unity that is so indispensable to the struggle for workers rights. That is why the official calls for anti-fascist actions must in this way appeal to the class interests that the workers movement has in stopping the fascists. The official call for today’s action did not do this and this must be rectified for the next anti-fascist action. Of course, appealing to the class interests of the working class necessarily means turning off anti-union, small–l liberals. But so be it! The fascist threat is not going to be stopped by well- heeled pacifist liberals but by the mass power of the working class united with Aboriginal people, non-white “ethnic” communities and committed anti-racist activists.
A powerful union presence on our side would also help rectify a weakness in the anti-fascist movement that was to some extent evident today. That problem was a tendency for a portion of the anti-fascist activists to sometimes move to a different geographical area without taking the rest of the demonstration with them. Although there were no adverse consequences from this today, it sometimes left parts of the demonstration in Tempe in a state vulnerable to a potential violent fascist counter-attack (and one would be foolish to rely on the police to protect us anti-racists from this). For the future, those planning anti-fascist actions should organize a small, respected leadership team and marshalls for the day to ensure that all demonstrators move together as one and also to be able to make quick decisions when the need for either a rapid offensive or a quick retreat does not allow for consensus discussions to take place. The workers movement has an inate ability to organize in such a disciplined manner because workers’ own experience in daily struggles against the capitalist bosses teaches them that only through collective, tightly united action can they defeat their enemy.
We reprint the leaflet that Trotskyist Platform issued to help publicize today’s anti-fascist action. The leaflet was mass distributed in multiracial working class suburbs and worksites.
UNION CONTINGENTS UNITED WITH ABORIGINAL PEOPLE, LEFTISTS & “ETHNIC” COMMUNITIES CAN GET THE JOB DONE JUST LIKE ON MAY 2ND IN BRISBANE!
DRIVE THE EXTREME RACISTS OUT OF MARRICKVILLE
22 July – Sinister forces are trying to infect society with a dangerous disease. The disease of fascism. On July 26th in Sydney, two extreme white supremacist groups are planning provocations aimed at inciting racist violence. Firstly, at 11am the Freedom Party of Australia plan to picket outside a Woolworths store in Marrickville in opposition to Woolworths putting “Happy Ramadan” signs on some stores as a marketing method. This protest by the fascists has nothing to do with supporting secularism and everything to do with whipping up hatred against Muslims, Arabs, North Africans and South Asians. Thus, the call for the fascist demonstration features inciteful and ridiculous claims that celebrating Ramadan is equivalent to supporting terrorism, paedophilia and world domination by Muslims. Then at 1:30pm, the Australia First Party, led by former Australia Nazi party activist Jim Saleam, plan to hold a forum at their Tempe bunker titled, “Overseas Students Go Home.” This group no doubt hopes to stir up a wave of violent assaults and even murder of Indian and Chinese students like the horrific wave that swept Australia in the 2009-10 period.
The two fascist events on July 26th are aimed at recruiting to and organising for racist violence. They present an immediate danger to Asians, Arabs, Africans, Aboriginal people and other non-white people. These events are also an immediate threat to the interests of the entire working class. The extreme racism that they will pour into society is absolute poison to workers’ unity – the unity without which workers cannot organise to fight for their rights against exploiting bosses. Thankfully, left-wing autonomous- minded activists around the Black Rose library have taken the worthy initiative of calling for a counter-action against the July 26th fascist provocations. They are calling for people to gather at 11am outside the Woolworths at 463 Illawara Rd, Marrickville to stop the disgusting anti-Muslim action by the “Freedom Party.” After that provocation is dealt with, anti-racists may then move on to picket the sinister AFP meeting in Tempe. It is expected that many anti-racists, leftists and trade unionists will participate. We in Trotskyist Platform call on trade unions to take the lead in supporting the July 26th anti-fascist counter-demonstration. Trade unionists must join together with Aboriginal people, Asians, Africans, Middle Eastern people, Islanders, leftists, feminists, Jews, Muslims, gays and lesbians as well as other members of the LGBTI community, anti-racists and all other intended victims of the fascists in a mass action that sweeps the “Freedom Party” filth off the streets.
Fascist groups in Europe like the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party in Greece and various sinister outfits in Ukraine have been growing by feeding off the massive unemployment and insecurity caused by the capitalist economic crisis. Their counterparts here are seeking to emulate this. Some of them are following the road of the likes of the Front National in France, the British National Party and Jobbik in Hungary who have tried to hide their neo-Nazi essence in order to win greater electoral support. Yet these parties find it hard to hide their Hitler-like hatred for non-Aryan people. The Freedom Party of Australia policy while welcoming immigration from Europe and North America calls for banning immigration from Muslim or Third World countries. They then go on to “justify” this with nutty claims that “third world populations” have disproportionately higher crime rates. The Australia First Party is even more fanatical – if that’s possible. The featured section of their website dealing with immigrants includes links with such “civilised” headings as “Barbaric Cultures,” “Ethnic Crime Wave” and “Foreign Monster Doctors.” What this kind of propaganda is aiming to achieve was seen in December 2005 when the Australia First Party played a prominent role in organising the Cronulla riot where a horde of white supremacists unleashed shocking violence against Middle Eastern, South Asian and Aboriginal youth who went to visit the beach. And this very year on January 26th in Brisbane, the AFP attacked the Invasion Day protest march which was being led by Aboriginal people. That is why it is not possible to debate these fascists. They are organising for racist violence. The physical threat that they pose must be met with a powerful physical response. Mass action must show those considering joining these outfits that it is a serious health hazard to be associated with these fascist groups.
The violent racism of the fascists goes hand in hand with their hostility to the workers movement. The Freedom Party want to turn the long term unemployed into a slave labour workforce by making them work for private businesses who, according to the Freedom Party’s policy, will only have to fork out 25% of market wages. The AFP for its part rabidly joins the bosses’ campaign against the construction workers union by railing against “CFMEU thugs.” Just like Mussolini and Hitler, if these fascists ever came to power they would smash all independent unions and would jail or execute union leaders and activists. That is why it is in the direct interest of the working class to smash the fascists. The workers movement here is key both because of its numbers and also because the day to day experience of working together at the same workplace gives the proletariat the unique ability to organise and to act in a disciplined and unanimous manner – the disciplined unity in action needed to physically stop the violent fascist threat. This power of the organised working class was evident in glorious form on May in Brisbane when over a hundred construction workers from the BLF, CFMEU and ETU trade unions formed the core of a demonstration of 200 anti-racists that successfully shut down an attempted march by the fascist Australia First Party through the streets of the Queensland capital.
In combating the white supremacists, we should not make any appeals to capitalist governments of any stripe to act against the fascists. These governments, like the capitalist state in general, serve the same capitalist exploiting class whom the fascists – with their divisive extreme racism and hostility to the workers movement and the Left – also serve. It is the official racism of Liberal, ALP and, indeed, even ALP/Greens coalition governments – with their racist war on refugees and their
paternalist Intervention against Aboriginal communities – that is fuelling the fascist fire. The police who murder Aboriginal people in custody and regularly harass working class African, Asian, Middle Eastern and Islander youth and the courts that disproportionately jail Aboriginal people and Asians for minor offences have far more in common with the white supremacist thugs than they do with anti-fascists. That is why, every time that anti-fascists have mobilised against a neo-Nazi threat in Australia the police have protected the fascists – and often have attacked the anti-racists as well. Police planned to do the same in Brisbane on May 2nd but the presence of large contingents of construction unionists at the anti-fascist counter-action gave them pause. For the workers contingents had not only physical muscle but industrial muscle – the power to shut down production through collective industrial action. The police knew that if they attacked such a large amount of trade unionists they risked provoking strikes that would hurt the profits of their capitalist masters. That is why the struggle to defeat fascism must be centred on a perspective of mobilising the working class. Should the capitalist state, in order to preempt an anti-fascist mobilisation, decide to pull the leashes in on their fascist dogs for a while we would not get in the way of this. However, we certainly should not be directly appealing for this to happen as that, ultimately, would only build dangerous illusions in the capitalist state. It would have the effect of demobilising the necessary mass anti-fascist actions by making people believe it is the state that can stop the violent racists for us.
Similarly, we should not be appealing to Woolworths bosses to take action against the fascists. Instead, we should be appealing to Woolworths storemen and women and service staff who are not only part of the working
class that is threatened by the fascists but, moreover, are immediately threatened by the Freedom Party’s planned picket. In contrast, if the Woolworths bosses do take legal action against the fascists for their own commercial reasons then this would be a hollow victory for our side. It may well impede the immediate fascist provocation but by circumventing the necessary mass mobilisation it undermines the energisation and organisation of the masses against the fascists that alone can, in the long run, combat the overall threat of fascism.
In the end, to bury fascism for good, the working class must lead all the downtrodden in overturning the capitalist system whose unemployment, poverty and official racism are the bedrock on which the fascists grow. In that struggle the Woolworths bosses as well as the capitalist courts, police and governments are on the opposite side of the barricades. When the toiling masses take power they will establish a new state that in place of killing Aboriginal people, protecting fascists and attacking workers’ picket lines will, instead, crush violent racists and enforce the creation of a classless socialist society. A society of such abundance, egalitarianism and anti-racism that the need for a coercive state itself will, one day, eventually wither away.
The struggle to build militant working class action against the neo-Nazi threat is an important part of the struggle for workers’ rule because it trains the masses to rely only on their own collective power, increases their self- confidence and tightens unity both within the working class and with their brothers and sisters in oppressed ethnic and religious communities. It is also in the first place a matter of simply defending the working class and its allies against the threat of racist violence. So let’s work hard to build a mass action of trade unionists, Aboriginal people, non-white “ethnic” people and anti-racist activists of all colours to crush the planned white supremacist provocations on July 26th. Let’s ensure that the working class-centred May 2nd victory in Brisbane is repeated on July 26th in Marrickville!
