Tagged with Neo-Nazi skinheads

antifa notes (may 9, 2018) : aryan nations, murder, right wing resistance, muzak

[Update (May 13) : Yeah nah — Hellraiser IX (see below) has been cancelled — or at least, is no longer taking place at The Last Chance; ‘BANNED BY ANTIFA’ according to the nazi wankers from Woodend. Talk about melodrama … ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Update (May 10) : It appears as though Hellraiser IX will no longer be taking place at The Last Chance as the venue has removed the gig from its Facebook page.]

Briefly:

Ordinary Mums & Dads

Yesterday, Perth couple Robert Wayne Edhouse, 22, and Melony Jane/Jayne Attwood (Taylor), 37, were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder in April 2016 of Alan Taylor, 42. Edhouse and Attwood were members of neo-Nazi grouplet ‘Aryan Nations’. The pair also played host to their comrades in the now-defunct ‘United Patriots Front’ when they travelled from Melbourne to Perth to attend the ‘Reclaim Australia’ rally in November 2015. UPF fuehrer Blair Cottrell took the opportunity to announce the launch of the UPF’s stillborn political party, ‘Fortitude’, at his comrades’ house — which only five months later was the site of the grisly murder.

See : Neo-Nazi Aryan Nations lovers Robert Edhouse and Melony Attwood jailed for murder, Joanna Menagh, ABC, May 8, 2018 | Neo-Nazi killers to serve life terms over Perth dad’s murder, Phil Hickey, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 8, 2018 | Neo-Nazi lovers given life sentences for brutal murder, Tim Clarke, PerthNow, May 8, 2018.

Note that the ‘Aryan Nations’ in Perth re-badged themselves as ‘Combat 18’ following the arrest of Edhouse, while the UPF is now organising around ‘The Lads Society’ in Cheltenham, a project which also incorporates members of neo-Nazi grouplet ‘Antipodean Resistance’.

Patriotik Yoof Down Under

Speaking of Aussie Pride, the little nazis of Antipodean Resistance (AR) have been profiled by Julie Nathan for the ABC’s Religion & Ethics blog. See : Antipodean Resistance: The Rise and Goals of Australia’s New Nazis, April 20, 2018. (Versions of the article have also appeared on the Times of Israel and Executive Council of Australian Jewry website.)

On April 21, the Sydney Criminal Lawyers website also published ‘The Rise of Australian Neo-Nazis: An Interview with Online Activist Slackbastard’ by Paul Gregoire, which discusses AR in the context of a broader discussion of fascism and the far right Down Under.

Right Wing Resistance & Ethan Tilling

Last week, Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop, Suzanne Dredge, and Michael Workman of ABC Investigations dropped ‘From Neo-Nazi to militant: The foreign fighters in Ukraine who Australia’s laws won’t stop’:

When Australian former Neo-Nazi and registered gun owner Ethan Tilling flew into Brisbane this year, he was returning under the radar of Australian authorities with newfound combat experience from a brutal and forgotten war.

Mr Tilling, who was until recently a member of the Nazi group Right Wing Resistance, had spent the Australian spring in the bitter cold of Eastern Ukraine firing Kalashnikovs, rocket launchers and grenades at Russian-backed separatists …

Go Ethan!

Members of RWRAU were in attendance at last year’s ‘True Blue Crew’ flagwit parade, which will be regurgitating racism and fascism onto Melbourne’s streets again this year; in response, the Campaign Against Racism & Fascism has organised an event titled ‘Unite to Stop The Far Right’ (Sunday, June 24). Note that in September 2016 another RWRAU hero, Ricky White, was arrested for allegedly setting fire to a church in Taree, NSW (but I dunno what the outcome was).

See also : Extremists in the Military A Longstanding Problem, Booth Gunter, SPLC, November 11, 2012.

National Socialist muzak

Neo-Nazis in the local metal scene have organised a gig at The Last Chance Reich Rock ‘n’ Roll Bar on Saturday, June 9. Dubbed ‘Hellraiser IX’, the gig is being hosted by ‘Australibus Tenebris’ and features the glittering talents of Vrag (TAS), Belligerent Intent, Goatblood and Molog.


Above (L to R) : Joey Edwards, Neil Erikson, Dan Newman, Richard Whelan, Gareth/Jack Sansom @ State Library of Victoria, September 2012.

For those of you coming in late, the Hellraisers were originally organised by Nazi-in-Vrag Gareth Jack Sansom, under the auspices of ‘White Noise Productions’. As WNP, Sansom organised various gigs around town, including ‘Hellraiser IV’ at The Tote in December 2011 (the last time I paid attention), and released albums by ‘Perseverance’, among others, in 2011 and 2013, while Sansom also established ‘War Doctrine’ in order to release neo-Nazi muzak by his own band Waffenbrüder (2010–2014) and a handful of others. After publishing a White Nationalist manifesto (A Reckoning Force, 2012), Sansom buggered off to Tasmania, where he continues to make muzak and propaganda and to organise with his neo-Nazi chums.

Responsibility for Raising Hell now belongs to UPF fanboy Luke Nukem of ‘Australibus Tenebris’ (AT, 2013–):

In addition to the usual Blackness, the label distros a range of exciting products, including a 7″ co-released with NSBM label ‘Darker Than Black Records’:

One of the most notorious of the early NSBM bands were Germany’s Absurd, who collectively lured 15-year old Sandro Beyer to his murder in 1993. Led by Hendrik Möbus, the Beyer killing was allegedly motivated by Beyer spreading rumors about the band, including the salient gossip that Möbus had been carrying on an affair with a married woman. While the murder itself was not deemed political in nature, Möbus has always been vocal in his neo-Nazism, having violated his probation shortly out of prison by performing the Nazi salute in concert, and the man currently operates a self-described NSBM record label called Darker Than Black.

The 7″ by WewelSSburg and AT’s Rattenkönig is just one of many similar releases on AT, and if the booker at The Last Chance knew how to use a search engine and/or was familiar with the genre, they’d find much more neo-Nazi nonsense associated with the above artistes and their various projekts.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

See also : Deströyer 666 Australian Tour (November 2016) (October 13, 2016) | NB. Vomitor (May 29, 2012) | A Brief History Of Neo-Nazi Music In Australia (December 2, 2010).

antifa notes (march 21, 2018) : nazis, patriots, drama, murder … the usual

Yeesh: talk about drama.

Party for Freedom /// Neil Erikson

Nick Folkes’ micro-‘Party for Freedom’ (PFF) has undergone some settling of contents over the course of the last few months. Gone is George Jameson and Penny Louise/Tridgell, along with a number of PFF placards, which George has apparently refused to return to Nick. The placards made a brief appearance at a ‘True Blue Crew’ (TBC) anti-Muslim rally in Belmont on February 24. (Note that, in reality, it appears as though there is no application before the local council for the construction of a new mosque in the area.) Incensed by this traitorous act, Nick has been going off on Facebook, taking aim not only at George and Penny but also the TBC (in both NSW and VIC), the Australia First Party, its leader Dr Jim Saleam (who he accuses of playing spin-the-bottle), and one of Jim’s QLD-based flunkeys, Jim Perren (who notably helped organise the United Patriot Front’s (UPF’s) doomed party launch in Toowoomba in February 2016 — describing it as ‘a Nuremberg rally minus the swastikas’). Oh, he also accused Melbourne local Paul ‘Guru’ Franzi of drug abuse(!), and more besides. Further, Nick’s sidekick Toby Cook has recently gone full Nazi, and the day after the TBC rally in February attended Jura Books, where he and two others — Matt Lowe and Christopher Grantham — proceeded to make arses of themselves. To top it all off, Nick invited valour thief and serial pest Ralph Cerminara to act as mediator between the TBC methgoblins and whatever remains of the PFF in Sydney in order to arrange the return of the preciousss to Nick.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In any event, here’s a sampling of the sparkling prose coming from the patriotik camp:













Last week, serial pest Neil Erikson was in court again, on this occasion to be sentenced for contempt: see : Judge scolds far-right activist Neil Erikson as ‘childish’ for wearing uniform to court, Karen Percy, March 13, 2018 | You’re talking ‘rubbish’, judge tells far-right activist Neil Erikson, The Age (AAP), March 13, 2018. While sentencing has been reserved, Neil and his dickhead mates — Garry Hume, Ricky/Rikki Turner and Richard Whelan — are due back in court in June to face charges of riot, affray, assault etc arising from the MILO stoopid of last year.

Oh, Neil also acted stoopid outside Northcote Town Hall on election day in Batman and in the company of two other men later stalked Greens leader Samantha Ratnam.

True Blue Crew

Notwithstanding the angwy words with Folkes and Freedom, the TBC is making money thru selling memberships and merchandise — seemingly, with a plan to open a gym in Melton along the lines of their kameraden ‘The Lads Society’ in Cheltenham. Last month, the TBC’s number one fan, Phill Galea, was declared fit to stand trial for alleged terrorisms:

Anti-Islam extremist Phillip Galea to stand trial on alleged bomb plot
Tessa Akerman
The Australian
February 6, 2018

An anti-Islam extremist accused of plotting bomb attacks has been ruled fit to stand trial by the Victorian Supreme Court.

Phillip Galea is charged with collecting or making documents to prepare for terrorist acts between 2015 and 2016.

Police allege Mr Galea talked about bombing the headquarters of Melbourne’s anarchists.

Mr Galea is currently represented by Legal Aid after he sacked his first law firm, which commissioned a psychiatric report that found he was unfit to stand trial.

Barrister Tim Marsh today told the Supreme Court two subsequent psychiatric reports found his client able to explain the role of judge and jury and the difference between pleas.

Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth said it appeared as though the author of the first report was trying to determine Mr Galea’s beliefs and whether they were “radical”.

The Magistrates Court has previously heard Mr Galea has links to anti-Islam groups and had allegedly made an order for potassium nitrate, which can be used to manufacture explosives.

Mr Marsh this morning said the additional reports covered whether Mr Galea would be able to participate in a trial, and he and the commonwealth prosecution were in agreement that Mr Galea was fit to stand trial.

Justice Hollingworth remitted the case back to the Magistrates Court, where Mr Galea’s case is listed for committal in April.

Otherwise, the methgoblins cancelled a proposed meeting in Tarneit to organise anti-African vigilantes, but on the plus side have declared that, in-between court dates, they’ll be having another flagwit parade in June in Melbourne (see : June 26, 2016 : True Blue Crew & Co ~versus~ Melbourne and Australian Pride /// Flagwit Rally, June 25, 2017 : Recap), and will be joined by dozens of racist gronks in Sydney and elsewhere.

Aryan Nations /// Antipodean Resistance

In Perth, Aryan Nations members Robert Wayne Edhouse and Melony Attwood were convicted of murdering Attwood’s partner, Alan Taylor, seemingly in order to obtain his life insurance. See : Robert Edhouse and Melony Attwood convicted of murder in Nazi ‘death squad’ killing of Alan Taylor, Tim Clarke, The West Australian, March 12, 2018 | Perth murder scene reveals desperate attempts to conceal what really happened, Phil Hickey, WA Today, March 13, 2018 | Melony Attwood made distressed triple-0 call over murder with Aryan Nations boyfriend, Joanna Menagh, ABC, March 15, 2018.

While this may suggest the end of Aryan Nations in Perth, at least some of the handful of boneheads associated with the brand have instead decided to re-badge as ‘Combat 18’. Oh, I should also add that the site of the murder was also the site of Blair Cottrell’s announcement in November 2015 that he would be forming a political party (‘Fortitude’); he and other members of the UPF Melbourne having been guests of the Aryan Nations’ murderers for that weekend’s ‘Reclaim Australia’ rally.

As for Antipodean Resistance, they’ve been carrying on chucking up posters and going for walks and doing some other stuff. Their kameraden in the US (Atomwaffen) and the UK (National Action) have also been making headlines, albeit for killing people and doing terrorisms. VICE UK has recently published a series of articles on the far-right under the collective title of ‘Hate Island’; it includes one examining ironmarch dot org, a/k/a ‘The Obscure Neo-Nazi Forum Linked to a Wave of Terror’ (James Poulter, March 12, 2018):

Ironmarch.org was not the kind of website to hang out on if you knew what was good for you. A swastika-plastered forum which took its users on a shared journey of extreme radicalisation, it kickstarted an international wave of Nazi terror.

Users of Ironmarch.org have attempted a mall shooting; murdered two young men; attempted to hack a Sikh dentist to death with a machete; and have been found to be in possession of illegal weapons and materials to make bombs, among other crimes. While these acts of violence mostly took place in North America, the forum had plenty of fans in the UK.

One of Ironmarch’s administrators founded the banned British Nazi terror group National Action (NA), while an infographic produced by the site lists NA among its “affiliated groups”, under the heading “Ironmarch members in the global fascist struggle”.

Curiously, along with National Action (banned by the UK government as a ‘terrorist’ organisation), Atomwaffen and Skydas (Lithuania), Antipodean Resistance is the only other group listed as an affiliate of IronMarch.

Meanwhile, antifa in Eugene, Oregon have been doing a bit of digging into Atomwaffen: Mr. and Mrs. Maci: The Atomwaffen Division Implodes (March 8, 2018).

See also : YouTube Belatedly Bans Neo-Nazi Group Atomwaffen, Melanie Ehrenkranz, Gizmodo, March 2, 2018 | Read the Chilling Texts of Nazis Celebrating the Murder of a Jewish Teen, A.C. Thompson, Ali Winston and Jake Hanrahan, Mother Jones, March 1, 2018 (‘When Samuel Woodward was charged with killing Blaze Bernstein last month, other Atomwaffen members cheered the death’).

Jordan Peterson

Kermit The Flog was in town recently. The following reviewers give his latest tome on 12 Rules For Life Big Ups:

Postmodernism Did Not Take Place: On Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, Shuja Haider, Viewpoint, January 23, 2018 | A Messiah-cum-Surrogate-Dad for Gormless Dimwits: On Jordan B. Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life”, Houman Barekat, LA Review of Books, March 11, 2018 | The Intellectual We Deserve, Nathan J Robinson, Current Affairs, March 14, 2018 | Jordan Peterson & Fascist Mysticism, Pankaj Mishra, The New York Review of Books, March 19, 2018.

*US propagandist Daniel Pipes was also recently in the cuntry: see : Daniel Pipes Comes to Melbourne: Are Australian Muslims Right to be Outraged?, Chloe Patton, ABC Religion and Ethics, March 8, 2018.

Mr Potato Head

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has extended the white hand of friendship to white farmers in South Africa and informed them that STRAYA has indeed ‘boundless plains to share’ (with white men). According to Jason Wilson, Peter Dutton’s offer to white South African farmers started on the far right (The Guardian, March 16, 2018) — which seems about right. According to Jon Piccini, Peter Dutton’s ‘fast track’ for white South African farmers is a throwback to a long, racist history (The Conversation, March 19, 2018) … which again, seems about reich. (See also : Drawing The Global Colour Line, Henry Reynolds, Marilyn Lake, Melbourne University Press, 2008.)

Dutton’s kamerad, the Very Ethical Jim Molan, was angwy and upset (presumably) when Little Britain First leaders Paul Golding and Jayda Fransen were jailed for hate crimes a few weeks ago; worse yet, the hate criminals had their Facebook page deleted. Oh, and Golding was attacked in prison and had his nose broken last week.

See also : Debunking a Myth: The Irish Were Not Slaves Too, Liam Stack, The New York Times, March 17, 2017.

terrorisms

In Germany, a number of neo-Nazis have been jailed for attacks upon refugees: see : Germany: Far-right ‘terrorists’ jailed for attacks on refugees, Al Jazeera, March 8, 2018 (‘Dresden’s high court sentences seven members of the Freital Group to between five and 10 years for attempted murder’).

In Greece, alleged members of neo-Nazi group ‘Combat 18’ got arrest: see : Greek counter-terrorism squad arrests five suspected of neo-Nazi group involvement, Neos Kosmos, March 7, 2018 (‘The men are alleged members of far-right criminal group, Combat 18, and suspected of involvement in a series of arson attacks and explosions’).

anTEEfa

Arsenal Pulp Press in Canuckistan is publishing a cartoon guide: The Antifa Comic Book: 100 Years of Fascism and Antifa Movements Around the World by Gord Hill.

In Russia, police in St Petersburg have arrested a man allegedly responsible for organising the murder of antifascist Timur Kacharava in 2005 (St. Petersburg: Police arrests man behind antifa activist Timur Kacharava’s assassination, Crime Russia, February 23, 2018). Elsewhere, Russian authorities have been keeping busy repressing anarchists and anti-fascists; a useful summary of recent bastardy is available via avtonom dot org: Review of repressions against anarchists in Russia – 2017 and first months of 2018. In Sydney on the weekend, local anti-fascists held a smol rally outside the Russian consulate in solidarity with compañerxs in Russia.

Finally, two four recent articles examine the impact anti-fascist action has had on fascist organising in the US: Is Antifa Counterproductive? White Nationalist Richard Spencer Would Beg to Differ., Natasha Lennard, The Intercept, March 17, 2018 | The alt-right is in decline. Has antifascist activism worked?, Jason Wilson, The Guardian, March 18, 2018 | How Antifa uses no-platforming successfully to fight white supremacy, David Griscom, New Statesman, March 19, 2018 | Antifa Has Richard Spencer on the Run. Does That Vindicate Its Tactics?, Joshua Holland, The Nation, March 22, 2018 (‘There’s good reason to believe that antifa’s success has come despite violent tactics, not because of them’).

Speaking of which …

Heimbach, Spencer, & The Yanqui AltReich

Recently, in Michigan, both Richard Spencer and Matt Heimbach had A Very Bad Time: see : After Fights And Arrests, Richard Spencer Speaks To Tiny Crowd At Michigan State, Christopher Mathias, Huffington Post, March 6, 2018 (‘Spencer and his white supremacist buddies had a miserable two days in Michigan. Everywhere they went, anti-fascist protesters were waiting’). Worse was to come for Heimbach, after he was caught fucking his father-in-law’s (Matt Parrott’s) wife; Parrott also being the other key leader of the neo-Nazi groupuscule ‘Traditionalist Worker Party’. See : How a white nationalist’s family came to blows over a trailer tryst, Marwa Eltagouri and Avi Selk, The Washington Post, March 14, 2018 | Neo-Nazi Group Implodes Over Love Triangle Turned Trailer Brawl, Kelly Weill, The Daily Beast, March 14, 2018 (‘Matthew Heimbach and his spokesman came to blows after Heimbach was caught sleeping with the spokesman’s wife. What’s more, Heimbach is married to the spokesman’s stepdaughter’).

M A S T E R R A C E.

See also : Alex Jones is a menace to society. I’m suing him., Brennan Gilmore, The Washington Post, March 14, 2018.

#UnitedPatriotsFront sent packing in Richmond

naziboneheadmay31

“Come To Richmond”, They Said; “It Will Be Fun”, They Said …

Briefly:

The United Patriots Front (UPF) is a fascist splinter from Reclaim Australia (RA). Its leadership in Melbourne consists of two local neo-Nazis: Blair Cottrell (‘National Democratic Party of Australia’) and convicted anti-Semite Neil Erikson (‘Nationalist Republican Guard’). Several weeks ago, the UPF declared that they’d be holding a rally outside Richmond Town Hall. Why Richmond Town Hall? Because Steve Jolly of the Socialist Party is a Yarra councillor and the UPF hold him and the SP responsible for the disruption to the RA rally of April 4.

UPFleadershit

The weeks leading up to today’s rally saw a stream of (increasingly batshit) invective directed at ‘leftists’ by the UPF, and the fascists boldly declared that nothing and nobody would stop them from holding their little Nuremberg rally at the Town Hall. The UPF also claimed that ‘The Great Aussie Patriot’ — aka Shermon Burgess — would be sure to conduct a huge rally of ‘patriots’ to the Town Hall steps, whereupon he would presumably lead them in chants of ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi’ and denounce the spectre of communism that is haunting their dreams.

But Richmond is a very long way from Cooma, and things didn’t go quite as the fascists hoped it would …

The UPF began assembling in Citizens Park at least an hour ahead of their scheduled rally (1pm). In total, they numbered around at least 50, with various others — including a handful of Croatian fascists — milling about on Bridge Road. Anti-fascists meanwhile, who numbered in the many hundreds, assembled outside the Town Hall, determined not to allow the fascists to reach the Town Hall steps.

At a little after 1pm, the UPF began marching the short distance from Citizens Park up Gleadell Street to Bridge Road and then along it to the Town Hall. A police vanguard formed and attempted to lead the fascists on to the Town Hall steps. Anti-fascists formed a blockade at this point to prevent the UPF and their police escort from reaching the Hall. After several minutes of pushing and shoving, police gave up trying to smash their way through the picket and the UPF were left penned in by a police kettle outside the post office next door to the Hall. This stalemate continued for about half-an-hour or so, before police escorted the fascists down the alleyway next to Town Hall and back to the Park.

upfmay31

In summary, despite a concerted effort by police, anti-fascists in Melbourne were able to prevent the UPF from reaching their goal — or doing much of anything apart from look like a pack of racist dropkicks.

mAAAAAAd props to all who turned out today to stop the UPF and to turn their fascist rally into a deeply humiliating defeat. The UPF will be back on Saturday, July 18 to re-join Reclaim Australia and to continue their public campaign of racial hatred and religious vilification. Rest assured that the people of Melbourne will again be taking to the streets to oppose them.

See also : Anti-Islam protesters and anti-racism activists clash in Melbourne, The Age, May 31, 2015 | ‘You will always lose in Melbourne’: fascists fail in Richmond, Ben Hillier, Red Flag, May 31, 2015.

alwayslose

antifa notes (may 18, 2015)

In response to the announcement of a Senate inquiry into food certification, Guy Rundle has written the following article for Crikey, arguing that the local Jewish community (among others), needs to adopt a more public position on anti-Muslim prejudice. See : Food industry back Senate certification inquiry, hopes to address ‘misinformation’ about halal, Anna Vidot, ABC Rural, May 14, 2015 | Cory Bernardi Has Won A Senate Inquiry Into Halal Food And Goshdarnit, People Still Aren’t Taking Him Seriously, Meg Watson, Junkee, May 14, 2015 | Cory Bernardi forces parliamentary inquiry into halal and kosher certifications, The Sydney Morning Herald, May 14, 2015.

A few notes below …

    ***

Rundle: why Jews (and everyone) need to stand up for halal
Crikey
May 14, 2015

The moral degeneration of the right continues apace, with the announcement that hard-right Catholic Senator Cory Bernardi has won support for his inquiry into halal food certification. The halal certification furore — the suggestion that it is somehow being used to fund Islamist terror abroad — is known in other Western countries, but only in Australia has it become a dominant obsession. If they have any evidence of halal certification companies funnelling money to shady groups overseas, they should present them to the police. There has been none, and the bizarre inquiry is simply a way of harassing and disrupting Muslim religious practices.

Bernardi is simply continuing his long and obsessive history of trying to construct Muslims as non-citizens, outside the rights and freedoms extended to everyone else. His position — celebrating “Australian values” in this — is utterly incoherent, since one of the few codified rights we do enjoy comes from section 116 of the constitution, guaranteeing freedom of religious observance. His focus on Muslims comes from his chauvinist Catholic beliefs — a conviction that there is not merely one truth, but The Truth, and that all others must toe the line. For chauvinist Christians of this type, Muslims are particularly egregious, because their religion breaches the injunction contained in Revelations, the final book of the Bible, that nothing should be added to the holy books after that one. That Muslims incorporate Jesus into their traditions and treat him as a prophet but do not recognise his divinity drives people like Bernardi wild. They can’t let it go.

Of course, there was another religion that the Catholics couldn’t leave alone for centuries, and that was the Jews. They came before, not after, and that meant they didn’t accept Christ’s divinity either. Furthermore, their maintenance of taboo practices was an affront to Christianity. Christianity is simply a fusion of Jewish monotheism with the universality of the Pax Romana that had conquered Judaea. The Pax Romana said that all who lived under the empire were part of it, from Cumbria to the Persian border. The Pax Christi adapted that and said that all humanity was open to salvation, not simply one tribe — and, in doing so, said that tribal taboos were thus abolished by Christ’s divinity, by God coming down to Earth in human form.

For that reason, Jewish taboo laws formed the focus of Christian persecution for centuries — and would become central to it when, in the late 1800s, some obscure Russian-Christian sect created an earlier hysteria about “certification” and argued that the blood of Christian children formed part of Jewish food rituals. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion formed one strand of the refocusing of Jew-hatred/anti-Semitism that would end in the Holocaust.

Let’s be clear about this: halal and kosher are pretty much the same thing, with variations, and an attack on halal is an attack on kosher — and on the concrete practice of religions that involve taboos and observance. Concerns about the alleged money trail of halal certification is, paradoxically, a cover for an obsessive interest in the “purity” of food that has been subject to halal certification. For Muslims, halal food is pure, or at least, permitted; for the obsessive right, the very act of halal certification is a form of contamination. It is a part of the Australian right’s intellectual collapse into myth and magical thinking. It’s inevitable that Bernardi is joined in his obsession by Andrew Bolt.

Personally, I have no doubt that there is no trace of Jew-hatred/anti-Semitism in either Cory Bernardi or Andrew Bolt, but in pushing their line on halal they are playing with fire, because many in the Reclaim Australia and other movements that hang on their every word are Jew-haters and channel every shitty obsession about Jews that has filled the 20th century. Islamophobia? That’s a substitute. Islam was a separate world for centuries, and could be warred with or dealt with as seen fit. Judaism lived at the heart of Christendom for two millennia, and would not die, and its community had solidarity and enterprise — and thus it is a standing abomination to Roman Catholic chauvinist thinking, which has to see the Roman/Christian version as originary and without precedent. It is this need to eradicate the original, Jewish, root of Christianity that has fuelled the frenzied nature of Jew-hatred/anti-Semitism in the modern era.

And it’s time Jewish peak bodies, rabbis and others got a bit interested in this — not merely out of solidarity with a fellow taboo-anchored religion, though that would be nice — but because Jew-hatred/anti-Semitism is on the march again in Australia. Not the confected kind, whereby anyone who crticises Israel is an “anti-Semite”, the real kind, channelling all the obsessions of the last century. Talk to bikies — not all bikies by any means — at a Reclaim Australia rally, and you’ll hear the old Jew-hatred, anti-Semitism, the “socialism of fools”, all the old tunes: how sneaky the Jews are, how they run things, how an ordinary bloke can’t get ahead, 9/11, Building 7, the works. Then ask them about Israel, and you’ll find they’re Zionists to a core. Why? Well anti-Semitic Zionism has a long history, but in this case it’s about plain sight. Israel is “the good Jews”, i.e. landed, nationalised and not a tribal presence in Christian society, who are the “bad Jews”.

This crap is spreading again in Western society, and the cynical determination of Jewish/Zionist peak bodies to label all critics of Israel as anti-Semitic has helped it spread far and wide. Jew-hater/anti-Semite used to be a serious charge — it’s junk now, used to forward Israel’s foreign policy, with the interests of non-Israeli Jews coming a distant second.

In Australia, Jewish community peak bodies need to get really interested in this — because an attack on halal is an attack on kosher, an attack on the legitimacy of relatively autonomous cultural communities within a wider whole. They need to understand that the current no longer runs with them as it did in the hey-day of multiculturalism. Quite aside from actual Jew-hating fascists in Reclaim Australia, there is a reduced tolerance for difference in … middle-class society, compared to say the 1980s. The neo-atheism of Dawkins, Hitchens, etc, has had its effect — there is less tolerance for, say, the orthodox communities of Caulfield, with their strange clothes, their gender-assigning roles, etc, than there once was. Anti-halal can easily flow into anti-kosher, and when they come for the gefilte fish, and I said nothing because gefilte fish, meh … if only there were a poem that said all this.

The leaders of a lot of Jewish community peak bodies are so desperate to run interference for Israel that they won’t speak up about this stuff. They need to. If they don’t, then groups of prominent Jews need to, to defend the right of religion to organise itself without harassment. That’s solidarity. But it’s also forward defence, against an Australian right that is, bizarrely, channeling every crackpot and pernicious obsession of old Europe, at pace, and disguising it with a cloak of pseudo-rationality.

    ***

• On my reading, the local Jewish community has not been as silent on the anti-halal campaign as Rundle believes. See : Senior Rabbi Moshe Gutnick says anti-halal campaign ‘ignorant and prejudiced’, The Age, April 26, 2015. Prior to this (April 7), the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) issued a statement condemning Reclaim Australia for “advocating and inciting religious intolerance which took place over the weekend”.

• The link between the neo-Nazi right and Reclaim Australia (RA) is an intimate one: it was present at its beginnings and is ongoing. In the context of a discussion of the position of Jewish groups in Australia, it’s therefore worth keeping in mind that ‘Nationalist Republican Guard’ — the neo-Nazi groupuscule responsible for collaborating with Shermon Burgess in promoting the event — is largely the work of Neil Luke Erikson, a neo-Nazi with a criminal conviction for harassing a local (Melbourne) rabbi. See also : “Give me the money Jew or else I will get you” (antifa notes, feb 16, 2014) | No jail for Melb man for racist calls, SBS/AAP, February 14, 2014. Otherwise, the neo-Nazi and fascist right has hopped on board the RA bandwagon, was present on April 4 and will also make itself known on July 18/19.

blaironrace

• There’s another kid on the fascist bloc: the ‘National Democratic Party of Australia’ (which is neither national, democratic nor a party). The group had a rather inauspicious beginning, ripping off a WA design company (and the WA RSL) to produce NDP agitprop. A convinced racialist, its chief spokesperson, Blair Cottrell, has some association with the Australia First Party and Nationalist Alternative, both of which had a presence on April 4 and are also committed to returning on July 18/19. The sometime leader of NAlt, Mark Hootsen, was also once ‘White Australian’, one of two mods on Stormfront Downunder. As such, he summarised his opinion on the role of The Jew in Australian politics by way of the following:

whiteAonjewstralia

• The NDP, NAlt, other neo-Nazi groupuscules and various Muslim-hating folks have declared that on May 31 @ 2pm they will be assembling at Richmond Town Hall in order to publicly denounce Islam and leftism. The rally appears to have been triggered by the presence of Steve Jolly on Yarra Council and the Socialist Party’s role in promoting opposition to RA. On the same day and at the time in the city a forum is taking place to discuss ‘Uniting Against Islamophobia: How can we stop Islamophobia?’.

Among those who’ve indicated that they’ll be attending the rally in Richmond is Croatian neo-Nazi Matty Ljubic:

madmattymay
MattyLjubic2
mattyljubic

Note that Ljubic has invited Jamie Lazarro of the ‘Full Blooded Skips’ gang to join him on May 31; the FBS also having been in attendance on April 4 and seemingly having very close relations with a range of local neo-Nazis.

Neo-Nazis @ #ReclaimAustralia in Melbourne

I thought I may as well feature here a few of the neo-Nazis who attended the Reclaim Australia (RA) rally in Melbourne yesterday. First, Shermon Burgess’s #BFF Neil Erikson (far right w camera and orange vest) of ‘Nationalist Republican Guard’:

neilra

The bonehead in the centre of the above photo, Joey Edwards, was very active on the day. The man standing in front of Erikson with his hand on his comrade’s shoulder, Linden Watson, was also very active. He and Erikson later helped launch the ‘United Patriots Front’ (UPF).

bonehead2
bonehead
RAbonehead

Both Joey and Neil attended the 2010 (2011?) Ian Stuart Donaldson memorial gig organised by local neo-Nazi groups Blood & Honour and the Southern Cross Hammerskins and can be seen below grappling/dancing with one another:

isd2011

The bonehead was accompanied by a few other nazis, including some bloke sporting a ‘Full Blooded Skips’ (FBS) hoodie (L) and on the (R), Moody McCann, who is now (2016) a member of the ‘Soldiers of Odin’:

FBS

TBH, I’d forgotten the FBS existed. In brief, it was one of several tiny gangs formed around the same time as and in the wake of the emergence of the ‘Southern Cross Soldiers’, a short-lived yoof gang. Otherwise, the FBS forms part of a loose network of neo-Nazis and white supremacists based in the northern suburbs. At least one member of FBS, Dan Newman (AKA Danny Krieger), also fancies himself a member of another neo-Nazi micro-sect called ‘Combat 18’:

FBSBBQ
B&H

Another nazi to throw his weight around on the day was Glenn Anderson (AKA Glenn Androvski):

anotherRAbonehead

Also present on the day as a small organised group distributing leaflets was Nationalist Alternative. Below is the group’s leader Mark Hootsen:

markra

Another NAlt member, Fergus Hunt (from the nu-metal band Art Of Wor):

nataltfbs
NAlt

And here is an old photo of one the other members of the group present on the day:

NAltRA

The boys of NAlt were joined by the Cottrells: Christopher (left) and Blair (right):

cottrellsra

I’ll probably add moar photos during the week as they’re made available.

Dani the neo-Nazi goth:

spidernazi

[Update : Daniel Jones posted the following on my Facebook page, denying any neo-Nazi association …]

dannotnazi

Beardy neo-Nazi:

beardynazi3

Golden Dawn supporter @ RA:

gdra
GDDegani1

Finally, in a rather humourous development, an organisation known as the Australian Jewish Communal Lobby (no, I hadn’t heard of it either), has offered to pay court costs for any RA supporter who was arrested at the rallies:

AJCL

A pity that the AJCL was not available to provide legal support to Neil Erikson when he was convicted of harassing a rabbi in Melbourne last year.