Laws, bans and politicians have done nothing to thwart the rise of organised white supremacy in Australia, writes Tom Tanuki.
MOMENTS LIKE the present require me to repeat myself in the plainest terms I can, so I will. No solution in the form of new laws, bans and cops implemented by politicians to address the rise of organised white supremacy in Australia, at the behest of themselves, lobbyists and the media, has ever done anything to thwart it. None of it. It’s only either done nothing, or actively helped them.
Ongoing readers would know I’m only relitigating the same argument I regularly make, so they’ll know I am a bit of a cynic about it all. And I am. Whenever Australian Nazis reappear in public to hoover up more breathless newspaper headlines for the month, I joke in the following manner with mates:
What? A Nazi rallied in hat? Calling for all non-whites to be hanged?
Quick, ban hats!
A Nazi in a Helly Hansen jacket has assaulted several women and children?
Ban the sale of Helly Hansen! Hurry!
A Nazi took a shit before threatening to rape and murder a female politician?
We must ban and arrest all shit-takers!
I suppose it’s just a joke about the ridiculousness of politicians’ recent abuse of the Australian legal framework in a panicked, vain attempt to make fringe politics simply vanish.
So when someone first told me that Premier Chris Minns was calling for bans on Nazi phrases now, after their NSW Police-approved stunt outside NSW Parliament, I initially thought they were joking. With my joke, at that.
But no. Of course it was real.
After banning sieg heils, Nazi symbols, protesting near synagogues and more — measures which all have, in fact, manifold accelerated the rise of the NSN – now we’re making kneejerk threats to ban the things they say.
And after NSW Police let them conduct the stunt in the first place! Which, might I add, is the bleedingly obvious, Occam's Razor answer to the ‘mystery’ of why the NSN were allowed to rally outside Parliament: they were allowed to rally because they were allowed to rally. There were no loopholes, clerical errors or misunderstandings. They just let them go ahead.
And then the white supremacists did exactly as NSW Police would have them do — not break windows, be polite to them and submit the proper form. Aside from any obligatory reputational hassles to follow in the media, I doubt the cops ever batted an eyelid. Like in Melbourne, where the chief concern of the Victorian police force who chaperoned the March for Australia’s assembled white supremacists a second time round was how polite and rock-less they were.
Bloodless notions of "social cohesion", as touted by the same politicians and lobbyists who regularly demand all these laws, aren’t of concern to them. They aren't there to help society cohere. They are there to police it.
So when I say the justice system and the police force have done absolutely nothing at all of any use in staying this group for the past 5 years, I don’t think that’s an aberration or a mistake. I believe these are not tools to do anything about organised white supremacy in the first place.
The laws against sieg heils, in their overbearing ridiculousness, have helped to normalise neo-Nazis before the layperson public, and the court cases they’ve given rise to have given them ample additional promotion. And all they do is use different hand gestures now.
The laws against Nazi symbols have done the same. They’ve also been regularly brought to bear against pro-Palestinian activists, for example, who have used the symbol to comment on the fascism of Israel.
The police scrutiny on neo-Nazis has increased, no doubt, but they’ve also played an active role in screening neo-Nazi events and helping them to take place unimpeded, interfering in and threatening attempted community-led actions to interfere in NSN activities. It’s easier for the cops if Nazis can just hold their events. Less broken windows.
I’ve been saying this for years, but it’s reassuring to see the mainstream media seeking comment from other experts who are making similar comment now: there’s no legislative fix for organised white supremacy. Kudos not only to Greg Barton for saying it to the ABC, but to the ABC’s Pablo Vinales for caring to include this kind of comment.
Communities must lead the charge against organised white supremacy. The community at large has caused more damage to the NSN through doxxing, on its own or in collaboration with the media, than the police have ever done. Mass movements of the public thwart the rise of street-level far-right presences more than an army of cops on horses can ever do. I have said it for five years, since the beginning of the NSN, and I will say it for another five: Anti-fascism must be community-led, and it cannot be led by cops and laws.
Tom Tanuki is an IA columnist, writer, satirist and anti-fascist activist whose weekly videos commenting on the Australian political fringe appear on YouTube. You can follow him on Twitter/X @tom_tanuki.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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