NB. I began writing this in mid-January, put it aside, and am only now returning to it. In the interim, the NSW Humanist Society/Humanist Society of NSW held a meeting on February 14, 2010, to elect a new Committee of Management, but I’m unaware of the results of this meeting (see below), and who now constitutes the Committee. The latest edition of the Society newsletter, however, states that the person previously responsible for letting the Hall (David Duffy) has been replaced, and those wishing to hire it will be more stringently vetted in future.
Introduction
As noted, John August, the President of the NSW Humanist Society/Humanist Society of NSW, has recently released a statement regarding the Society, Humanist House, and the ‘Public Information Forum’ (PIF), a fascist grouping whose meetings at the House in October and November 2009 were accompanied by protest. After detailing some recent history involving the Society’s relationship to and with the PIF (aka ‘Klub Nation’/’Klub Naziya’/’Mark Pavic Group’), as well as an attempt to introduce a statement in opposition to racism and xenophobia into the group’s Constitution, August notes that the Society’s last AGM:
…resulted in a committee which included many PIF members who had not previously attended social gatherings or committee meetings, contributed to the Humanist Viewpoints or otherwise taken an interest in the NSW Humanists. The election was itself problematic, with no scrutiny of candidates before the election, and confusion about preferential voting.
The Society zine (Humanist Viewpoints, Vol.48, No.4, October/November/December 2009) states that the:
2009 AGM was well attended and the new committee consists of John August (President), David Duffy and Waratah Rosemarie Gillespie (Vice Presidents), Victor Bien (Treasurer), Affie Adagio (Hon Sec/Editor) and Angela Drury (Assist. Sec). Ordinary committee members: Dylon Anderson, Ken Cratchley, Tony D’Angiolillo, Hugh Drewitz, Gillian Ellis, Fred Flatow, Robin Hall, Mark Pavic, Andrew Wilson, and John Wright.
The same number also welcomes the (‘White nationalist’) Australian Protectionist Party’s NSW spokesperson Darrin Hodges into the Humanist fold.
Protest
In relation to public protest at Humanist House, August has little new to add. There were two such protests — in October and November — timed to coincide with the meeting of the neo-Nazis. August reiterates the fact that he considered the protests violent (a Society member who witnessed one of the protests asserts that the protesters struck the building, and “a glass panel inside Humanist House was damaged around this time”) and therefore unwelcome, and that he remains at a loss as to the identities of those participating. August also complains that participants failed to contact the Society prior to the protests in order to communicate their concerns, and have not done so since. For their part, the neo-Nazis apparently accused August and the committee of collaborating with the protesters and, inter alia, “claimed that the police would be investigating the damage which resulted to Humanist House”. In summary: “The protester’s careless and ill-thought out actions exacerbated an already difficult and stressful situation. Great work, guys.”
Police
Again, not a great deal of new information. August spoke to Redfern police about the protests, who expressed knowledge of the involvement of participants in other political activity (“The protesters knew that the group went by the name “Klub Nation”… and it seems had been protesting elsewhere”).
Politics
In news just to hand:
I was intrigued to note that the Humanist Society of NSW was not an exhibitor at the Global Atheist Convention, an event at which one of its Patrons, Robyn Williams, was a guest speaker.
Pam Walker has authored an article — Anti-fascist protests at Humanist House, City Hub, March 17, 2010 — which states that Mark Pavic was elected Vice President of the Society at its February 14 meeting. If correct, then the fascists have not only not been removed from the Society but, seemingly, further cemented their place within it. Which is, of course, unfortunate: moaron that subject — and August’s understanding of the political issues raised by neo-Nazi infiltration of a Humanist association — later.
In the meantime, however, readers should note other events from Australian history — from 100 or more years ago. Humanists in particular should discuss the relevance of this history with other groups in civil society.
NB. The Melbourne Anarchist Club was formed on May 1, 1886 by members of the Australasian Secular Association. Anarchists played a key role in challenging Christian domination of the colonies, and in particular bourgeois opposition to participation by the working class in public life. In 1889, and the years following, anarchist and socialist agitators such as Chummy Fleming, Sam Rosa and John White participated in regular public protests demanding the opening of libraries and other civic institutions on Sundays.
Bonus History!
[Source : Radical Melbourne, Jill and Jeff Sparrow, Vulgar Press, 2001, pp.161–164.]
In 1883, The Argus published an article condemning the presence of the poor in the Public Library on Swanston Street:
A visitor to the library may test the matter first by his nose. He can smell vagrancy the moment he crosses the threshold. Using his eyes, he can see it right up and down the long hall; peering curiously about, he can find it in any of the alcoves, nicely sheltered and walled about with books. If he chooses to particularise, he may see an unmistakable specimen enter, shuffle up to a bookcase, select a volume of light literature, choose a seat, set up his elbows as supports to his head, and bend his eyes on the print. In a little while he spits. In an hour he will sleep; if he snores an attendant may disturb him; then he will read and spit again.
The Argus proposed two solutions – regulations forcing potential entrants to show a letter of introduction from a ‘respectable’ household or, failing that, the division of the building into distinct areas for different classes. By name, the library might have been ‘Public’ (or ‘Free’), but there was more than a suggestion from Melbourne’s elite that the building and its collection remained rather too good for the populace, since ‘the books . . . are handled, and soiled, and spoiled, and frequently mutilated, by creatures who would be better bestowed within Her Majesty’s gaols’.
…by way of three way fight, nomattimen: an algonquian (native american) word meaning ‘we are brothers’…
Serbia
Goran Davidović, Führer of Nacionalni Stroj (National Alignment/Formation), a Serbian neo-Nazi group, has been arrested in Germany, 10 months after a court in Novi Sad issued a warrant for his arrest and he fled to Italy (and his wife). AP:
Authorities say a Serbian neo-Nazi leader who fled his homeland after being convicted of inciting hatred has been arrested in Germany. Goran Davidovic was arrested Tuesday aboard a train near the Austrian border, said Alfons Obermeier, a spokesman for prosecutors in Munich. He said Davidovic was arrested under a Serbian warrant and now faces extradition. Davidovic was convicted in Serbia of inciting national, ethnic and religious hatred for infiltrating an anti-fascist rally in 2005. He was sentenced to one year in prison but fled to Italy.
A small group of Serbian pointyheads have previously drawn attention to the rather lax attitude of Serbian authorities towards fascist groups such as Nacionalni Stroj:
We live in a state where there is no guarantee that a person will be prosecuted for his or her promotion of racial, religious and national hatred. In all these years, members of the [clerico]-fascist organisation Obraz (operating without problems since 1993) and the Serbian nationalist movement 1389 (which presents itself as “patriotic” while maintaining close contacts with Russian fascist organizations) have not been held criminally responsible for their acts which involved threats against the LGBT population and numerous attacks and beatings of their members! The leader of a nazi organization “Nacionalni stroj”, Goran Davidović, (“Fuehrer”) was allowed to openly mock the legal system of Republic of Serbia, when he succeeded in his complaint against the guilty verdict in his case, basing it on the fact that documents of the trial were written in Latin letters.
Such attitudes may also be usefully contrasted with that adopted by the Serbian state towards its anarchist opposition. Thus The Anarchists Currently Known As The Belgrade Six face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty of the dastardly act of vandalising the Greek Embassy in Belgrade, aka “international terrorism”. Note that “According to the prosecution documents, the total amount of damage done to the Greek Embassy in the August vandalism incident amounted to 18 euros.”
Russia (For Dion)
Sky News, by way of Amanda Walker, has sit up and taken notice of the fact that there are neo-Nazis in Russia, and they’re killing people. Apparently, “The chilling face of extremism was revealed when another neo-nazi group calling themselves “the warriors of the white revolution” unveiled their video message of the attack on Ghanaian Solomon Attengo Gwa-jio in St Petersburg. They described the footage as “a new year gift” as they pledged further acts of terror. No one has been arrested for the December attack, during which the victim was stabbed 20 times.”
In conjunction with the routine murders committed by neo-Nazis and other racists, Russian authorities are also encouraging the destruction of alternative spaces, as Russians Rally Around a Falling Enclave (Michael Schwirtz, The New York Times, February 1, 2010). Chronic economic dysfunction, social barbarism, and widespread, and occasionally murderous, political repression may be generating stronger opposition, however. Thus ‘Kremlin shocked as Kaliningrad stages huge anti-government protest’: “Special envoy sent to Russia’s western exclave as thousands take to streets in biggest protest since Soviet Union fell” (Luke Harding, The Guardian, February 2, 2010).
“On average, two to three far-right-motivated violent crimes are committed in Germany each day. And there are around three to four anti-Semitic violent crimes each month,” says Jörg Ziercke, president of the BKA. “There’s a real danger to people’s lives because far-right attacks tend to be very spontaneous, brutal and violent.” Right-wing radicals have become increasingly brazen too, carrying out attacks in public places such as train stations, bus stops and outside bars and restaurants. In addition to el-Sherbini’s murder, Ziercke says, there were five politically or racially motivated attempted murders by the far right in 2009.
According to the latest statistics from Germany’s Federal Crime Office, the number of acts of violence perpetrated by far-left groupings in 2009 went up by almost 50 percent over the previous year.
Left-wing anarchist groups, which have been active particularly in Berlin and Hamburg, have recruited new members. Counter-intelligence agencies put the current total number of anarchists in Germany at around 6,600.
“What we’ve witnessed in Berlin and other big German cities is that young people’s readiness to use violence has increased dramatically”, said Claudia Schmid from Berlin’s counter-intelligence department. “We’ve seen that, since last year’s May Day riots and the 2009 NATO summit in Strasbourg and Kehl, the level of brutality in the left-wing scene has gone up steadily”, she added.
Worse yet, while weaning wankers away from licking swastikas is possible (if sometimes difficult):
Opinions divided over exit program proposals
Some conservative Bavarian lawmakers have suggested that exit programs should be developed for young people wanting to turn their backs on radical Islamism or far left anarchism, similar to exit programs already in place for former far-right activists.
But senior intelligence officials are not convinced that this would be effective..
“Left-wing anarchists are highly unlikely to respond to any sort of contact by authorities. It seems easier in the case of radicalized far-right extremists who want to opt out”, says the president of Germany’s Federal Counter-Intelligence Agency, Heinz Fromm.
Free Speech and Fascism
a bunch of revo ratbags Mutiny
No.46, January 2010
[PDF]
In October and November 2009, two community protests took place outside the Humanist House building in Shepherd St Chippendale. Local residents had recently discovered that a group calling themselves KN (Klub Naziya) were meeting there each month – holding an open discussion and social group. The group exists as a coming-together space for nationalists, white supremacists, fascists and neo-Nazis.
The community demonstrations sought to shut down the meetings, with the aim of having KN kicked out of the space, as well as to draw attention to their presence. The neighbourhood was letterboxed, and postered, and the local community turned out to let this group know that they were unwelcome. Passers-by joined in, as did folks from the local pub. The demonstrations were a success, and in December, KN were kicked out of Humanist House. (In the process it was discovered that many of the far-right had infiltrated the Humanist Society and attempted to sell the $3 million building in order to use the money for an “education fund”).
In the process of these actions questions were raised by some as to whether these demonstrations were in themselves a form of fascism – advocating that everyone is entitled to free speech, and that by shutting down their meetings we were denying them this.
What follows is a discussion of the ideas around these questions. It’s not exhaustive, and we are not experts, but it goes someway to addressing the argument.
Why can we shut down summit meetings without question, but fascists somehow deserve to meet unhindered, under the auspices of freedom of speech?
Protests in Seattle, where communities realised their collective power by shutting down the 1999 WTO conference, were celebrated by the radical left throughout the world. Even in Australia, the shut-down of the World Economic Forum in 2000 is seen as the largest victory of the left in recent years. Blockading businesses, occupying offices, and shutting down pulp mills and coal mines are seen as standard actions for the left the world over. But suddenly when it comes to shutting down meetings of neo-Nazis, folks start worrying about their rights to “freedom of speech”. Summit conferences, pulp-mills, coal mines etc are shut down because of the dangerous activities in which they are engaged. But neo-Nazi groups aren’t sitting around debating how they can raise the most funds for the local homeless shelter. Their ideologies are specifically focused on causing harm to people who are non-white, homosexual, transgender, Jewish, Romani. These are folks who wear swastikas; have “88” tattoos (H is the eighth letter in the alphabet – the numerical equivalent of HH, or “Heil Hitler”); use “Heil Hitler” salutes; and actively celebrate Hitler’s birthday. They don’t do this as part of some cute anachronism, but as expressions of their politics, which are part of a continuous trajectory from 1930s Europe.
It’s these politics that mean that even if KN were a group of fascists gathering in Chippendale in order to raise money for the local homeless shelter, their act of gathering would still itself be a violent one. Before even a word is spoken between them, to be seen together: a strong group of neo-Nazis, their presence threatens those in the community they see as their enemies: non-white people, trans-people, queers; and adds backbone to the people in the area who may subscribe to aspects of their ideology.
“Opposing fascism in all its forms”
Some folks have expressed concern with the approach of shutting down neo-Nazi meetings/activities as a form of fascism in itself. Bound up in this concern is the possibility that it could be them doing it to “us”. In essence this is a classic conundrum of anarchist tendencies. What happens when the advocacy of freedom for all comes up against those who would deprive others of lives, safety, homes? But it becomes ridiculously obtuse to suggest that communities should stand by idly in the face of violence against people because of skin colour, ethnicity or sexuality, in order that they should not interfere with the freedoms of the perpetrators. Similarly, to suggest that shutting down neo-Nazi meetings through community demonstrations is necessarily fascist, seems a gross misunderstanding of the nature and extent of fascism.
Is freedom of speech something we even want to defend?
Freedom of speech refers to the freedom to speak without limitation. An often synonymous term, freedom of expression, refers to the act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. Under capitalism, freedom of speech and freedom of expression do not exist for all, despite the rhetoric used by the ruling class. Ideas of freedom of speech are clothed in those of ‘democracy’. It serves to legitimize and consolidate liberal democracy by creating the illusion of freedom. The existing hierarchical class society ensures that it is only a few who have access to the various forms of media and the planning of what is taught in our schools – these are controlled by the government and rich. It follows, that it is the institutionalised racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia that is apparent in both the media and education systems which guarantees that a completely unobstructed access to voicing of opinions on the radio or in the newspapers, for example, is limited to the ruling class.
The idea of freedom of speech has long been associated with impartiality from the government, and as being somewhat of a beacon of truth and justice. However, we only need to look to the historical examples from the civil rights movement to see how freedom of speech is, and always has been, state sanctioned and state controlled. Clearly freedom of speech is related to a person’s right to vote, yet Aborigines have only had that ‘right’ for just over 40 years. Freedom of expression also has clear links to a person’s sexuality, yet it was only in 1984 in Hobart, Tasmania that the last gay man was arrested for having sex with another man on the side of the road in car – he was jailed for 8 months.
A more current example is around the war on terror and the subsequent rise of racism and hate towards Muslim communities. The rhetoric surrounding the war on terror has also ‘justified’ the introduction of new laws that highlight the role that the state plays in determining who does and who does not have the right to free speech. It is now the case that if you are a white, Christian, middle class person, you apparently have more of a right to free speech than, for example a Middle Eastern born Muslim now living in Australia. In anti-terrorism trials in Melbourne and Sydney Muslim men have received jail time for ‘radical talk’; whereas Alan Jones, the radio host who incited the Cronulla riot, received a $10,000 fine (less than a day’s pay).
There are a multitude of examples throughout history that reveal the central role that the state plays in sanctioning who is afforded the right of free speech.
Freedom of speech is not an abstract value that can exist in a bubble separate from everyday life, and relations of power; it is something that only exists in practice, and only insofar as societal relationships work to create it. Rather than unthinkingly defending these so-called “freedoms”, we need to adopt a critical relationship to these notions, in order to develop spaces of genuine freedom.
Outrage over anti-immigration leaflet
Rosie Lewis The Sydney Morning Herald
January 22, 2010
ANTI-IMMIGRATION leaflets posted in letterboxes in the inner-west have outraged ethnic community leaders and a senior Federal Government official.
The leaflets read: ”600,000 immigrants arrived in the last 4 years. That’s more than Tasmania. More than Aborigines. More than Newcastle. More than we need.”
They are part of a campaign led by an anonymous group identified only by a triangular design in the bottom right corner of the leaflet.
The chairman of the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Council of Australia, Pino Migliorino, questioned the leaflet’s intentions. “It’s really interesting that in the lead-up to Australia Day you get such vagrant behaviour … It’s a day that’s supposed to unite us and it becomes a day that can manipulate.”
Mr Migliorino said the nation’s leaders should stand up for migrants. “The Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister need to take the front foot and show they appreciate migration … What we need to do is actively seek to lessen the incidence of racist violence.”
But the parliamentary secretary for Multicultural Affairs, Laurie Ferguson, said the Government supported immigrants. “The Prime Minister recently announced … a belief in Australia having a larger population.”
Mr Ferguson said the information on the leaflet misrepresented the attitudes of Australians.
The chairman of the Ethnic Affairs Commission of NSW, Stepan Kerkyasharian, said Australia Day should be about celebration, not racism. A recent survey by the Scanlan Foundation found 60 per cent of people supported the migration level.
Note:
A story regarding the silly leaflet in question was written by Ebs and published in the Life in Chippendale blog on Monday, January 11.
The leaflet, as noted by Life in Chippendale, is the second in a possible series, the first being distributed in November 2009.
Both leaflets have been distributed in the vicinity of Humanist House, which for the past eight years has hosted meetings of a fascist group. These meetings, conducted under various names and in various guises, were suspended only a few weeks ago, after public protests in October and November, and some turmoil within the group which owns and manages the building: the NSW Humanist Society. While there has been one article (The Sydney Morning Herald, November 15, 2009) in the press about this issue, the real story is the campaign of fascist infiltration of the Society, and the election of a range of colourful characters on to its Committee of Management…
In Sydney, the NSW Humanist Society owns and administers a property in the suburb of Chippendale (an area first occupied by the Gadigal people of the Dharug nation). Since at least 2003, the Humanists have been making available their Happy House to local neo-Nazis, members of the KKK and the (now-defunct) ‘White Pride Coalition of Australia’ (among others). In recent years (2005–), neo-Nazis have been holding meetings among the humanists in the name of ‘Klub Naziya’, the two principal organisers of which have been local Sydney neo-Nazis David Palmer and Jason Rafty (occasionally by use of the title “Public Information Forum”).
Last month, the neo-Nazi meeting was interrupted by a public protest. So too, last Friday (November 6). An account of the protest is available on the Cotton Ward blog: Stomping out Nazis in Chippendale. Jim Perren @ Whitelaw Towers also provides some pretty pictures — http://whitelawtowers.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-are-we-implying.html.
Phoenix
In Phoenix, Arizona, the ‘National Socialist Movement’ held a rally on November 8. According to another bastard: ‘The Anarchists Own the Nazis, and the Nazis Cause a Car Wreck as They Amscray’ (Stephen Lemons, Phoenix New Times, November 8, 2009). The sole NSM representative in Australia is the batshit crazy Carl D. Thompson.
Bonus!
Noam Chomsky: on humanism, the vulnerability of secular nationalism, and the mother of all book plugs The Humanist
January/February, 2007
[Interview by David Niose, attorney and treasurer of the American Humanist Association.]
Noam Chomsky is one of America’s great dissenters. Skeptical of concentrated power in any form, for over forty years the MIT professor and world-renowned linguist has been a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy and militarism. On September 20, 2006, Chomsky’s already considerable fame went up a few notches when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, addressing the United Nations General Assembly, held up Chomsky’s 2003 book, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project), and recommended it to the world, especially to Americans. The book, which had already sold about 200,000 copies, immediately shot to the top spot on bestseller lists. On September 22, as his book was hitting number one, Chomsky sat down with the Humanist to discuss his humanism, the religious right, the American social and political landscape, and a host of other issues.
========================
The Humanist: You recently got the mother of all book plugs when Hegemony or Survival was recommended by Hugo Chavez addressing the United Nations General Assembly.
Chomsky: I got a funny letter from a friend of mine. He looked the book up on Amazon.com and it was somewhere up there, and his book was about 1,253,428. He wrote: ‘Could I get Chavez to write a review for me?’
