The emergence of the fascist groupuscle the United Patriots Front from within the larger, more amorphous Reclaim Australia movement poses a challenge to the media: namely, how should such an organisation be described?
In the face of controversy, journalists too often revert to the old 'he said, she said' convention. That is, when covering a contested issue, they report what both parties to the dispute say and then let the readers make their own judgements. Jay Rosen, the influential journalism academic, notes that the practice offers a solution to 'quandaries common the reporting trail':
'When, for example, a screaming fight breaks out at the city council meeting and you don't know who's right, but you have to report it, he said, she said makes the story instantly writable. Not a problem, but a solution to the reporter's (deadline!) problem.'
The practice becomes particularly handy when writing stories in which you know you'll get pushback. Think of your standard Middle Eastern correspondent quoting, with professional evenhandness, what first the Israelis and then the Palestinians say about a deadly incident in the Occupied Territories.
As that example suggests, 'he said, she said' often functions as an evasion. The Golden Mean might be a classical principle of aesthetics but reporters' loyalty should be to accuracy, which isn't necessarily about compromise between extremes. When denialists and climate scientists take diametrically opposed stances, the truth doesn't lie somewhere in the middle. Sometimes, one side's objectively right and the other's just wrong.
Blair Cotrell, the leader of the UPF, denies being a fascist.
He's lying.
Yes, 'fascism' is a term thrown around lightly, used by some as a simple insult for any politician to the right of the Greens.
Paradoxically, it's also freighted with an almost impossible heft, serving to signify the ultimate evil. For understandable reasons, after Auschwitz, fascism in general — and Nazism in particular — can seem, as manifestations of incomprehensible depravity, entirely divorced from the everyday world. Hence the popularisation of Godwin's law, in which the first party making reference to the Nazis during an online debate gets adjudged the loser.
Yet fascism was once a mass phenomenon, a political philosophy with adherents in every developed nation. Its followers did not come with devil's horns attached. They were everyday people, who just happened to agree with fascist principles.
To put it another way, fascism grew once and it can grow again. By ruling the term out of polite conversation we deny ourselves the ability to recognise the continuities between the past and present.
In most newspaper reports about the UPF, journalists quote anti-racists accusing the group of fascism and then follow with a UPF leader denying the charge. There's nothing wrong with that. But reporting others' perspectives doesn't abrogate the publications' responsibility to make its own judgements.
The Age piece on Shortis, for instance, describes the UPF as an 'anti-Islam street movement'. Elsewhere, Fairfax calls the group 'far right'. The Herald Sun prefers the term 'hardline'. Crikey uses 'nationalist'.
These terms aren't wrong. The UPF is all of those things. But calling it 'fascist' isn't mere bluster. It's an accurate, even necessary, description of the group's core beliefs.
In an article for the Sydney Morning Herald, Michael Bachelard and Luke McMahon note UPF leader Blair Cottrell's enthusiasm for Hitler: Cottrell once responded to a Facebook image of the Nazi dictator with the words 'there should be a picture of this man in every classroom and every school, and his book should be issued to every student annually'.
Veteran anti-fascist 'Slackbastard' has compiled far more extensive screenshots of Cottrell's (since deleted) ruminations about Nazism. A sample passage: 'Please shut up and take a week off the internet to read Mein Kampf. The basis for national socialism is race, which exists, it is real and important. The basis for communism on the other hand is a set of abstract ideals hidden within a mendacious global (yes Jewish) agenda. No more bullshit please, just read the book.'
And there's much more where that came from.
Cottrell's main lieutenant is a certain Neil Erikson. Erikson, says Slackbastard, has 'a criminal conviction for harassing a rabbi and has otherwise been active with the (now defunct) European Australian Civil Rights League and Nationalist Alternative, as well as having attended neo-Nazi gigs organised by Blood & Honour and the Southern Cross Hammerskins, met with Canadian Holocaust denialist Paul Fromm during his tour here in late 2010 and attended various anti-Muslim protests in the company of other neo-Nazis.'
On the UPF Facebook page, Cottrell and the other spokespeople generally eschew the references to Hitler. But they don't hide their adherence to fascist principles. In Cottrell's video rants (some of which have been republished by the Brisbane Times), he regularly outlines his contempt for egalitarianism, his belief in natural hierarchies (including between races) and his desire to smash those he describes as 'communist traitors'.
Again, describing the UPF as 'fascist' isn't hyperbole. It's an accurate description of the philosophy it espouses.
Why does this matter?
Last Sunday, members of the UPF, led by Cottrell, made their way inside Melbourne community radio 3CR, where they filmed themselves strolling about and then uploaded the footage to Facebook.
They also went at the headquarters of the Melbourne Anarchist Club. Again, they filmed the encounter; again, they posted the clip online.
A few days later, Fairfax published a profile on a man called Chris Shortis, one of the UPF members present at the raids. It included several photos of the burly Shortis posing with a Bible and an assortment of pistols and high-powered rifles.
The University of South Australia academic Chloe Patton, an expert on the far right, told Fairfax: 'Here we have an individual who is clearly radicalised, who is brandishing firearms while preaching holy war. The intricate conspiracy theories and crusader symbolism immediately brings to mind Anders Breivik.'
Breivik, of course, murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011, as part of his campaign against Muslims and the 'cultural Marxists' who he said were enabling them.
This is not Germany in 1933 and the UPF, with its tiny band of supporters, is not on the brink of state power. But Patton's comments highlight just how intimidating the group already is. Both 3CR and the Anarchist Club have associations with anti-Nazi activists, particularly the aforementioned Slackbastard.
As the comments on the UPF Facebook site made clear, the visits were intended by the UPF to send a message to campaigners against racism: we know where you are and we can reach you if we want.
It's easy to mock the philosophical pretensions of the UPF's roided-up leader. But the UPF is not simply a joke. It's tiny, yes, but it's still dangerous and it needs urgently to be stopped. Calling it by its real name is a step in the right direction.
Jeff Sparrow is a writer, editor and honorary fellow at Victoria University.