Politics Opinion

Fascism will fall when action speaks louder than words

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Police face off against members of the National Socialist Network at a rally (Screenshot via YouTube)

Supporting anti-fascist movements takes more than endless explaining online, it takes action to prevent neo-Nazi events from taking place, writes Tom Tanuki.

THERE IS A neo-Nazi event being held today at a space called the Legacy Boxing Gym in Industrial Drive, Sunshine West. The gym was deregistered last year by Boxing Victoria when The Age uncovered its White supremacist ties, but Legacy has persisted and now serves a strictly neo-Nazi clientele. 

National Socialist Network (NSN) members are gathering from across Australia to do powerlifting, listen to shit Nazi bands, and “luncheon” together (their words). Anti-fascist group Campaign Against Racism & Fascism has called a counter-rally to protest the event — they’re meeting at 2 PM today at the Sunshine West IGA. (Attend. Bring a mate. Showing up is important.)

I noticed a response to these events by a group called TRAC (which stands for “Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium”). Specifically, I was stunned to see it post the whole and unadulterated NSN flyer to Twitter. It attached no analysis, no thought and certainly no call to oppose the event in any way. It included the link there for anybody interested to join the NSN Telegram channel, essentially serving as an ad for neo-Nazis on a big tech platform.

I messaged the Australian anti-fascist research group the White Rose Society, to ask them for more info on who TRAC is:

TRAC promotes and disseminates extremist content for free on behalf of neo-Nazis, especially accelerationists. We saw them repost European Australian Movement/National Socialist Network’s “White powerlifting meet” flyer to Twitter as free advertising for the event. On Terrorgram, Neo-Nazis celebrate the free promotion they receive from TRAC. TRAC has a history of stealing the work of antifascists (including ours) and other researchers and paywalling it. They are parasites.

In a sense, TRAC is similar to the local Anti-Defamation Commission, chaired by Dvir Abramovich, who is greenlit by Meta to post regular NSN updates to big tech platforms without censure.

I’ve already discussed Dvir’s tendency to signal boost for local neo-Nazis in this column space. He posts regular screenshots of antisemitic abuse and says, See? Look how bad Nazis are. That isn’t analysis. It’s useless. It’s a free ad for Nazis, of no benefit to anybody. So Nazis vie for his attention and they celebrate when he mentions them. 

So it is with TRAC on an international level, like White Rose said — they’ve birthed an entire Nazi Telegram channel called ‘TRAC Stars’, where White supremacists celebrate being shared by TRAC.

It’s got me thinking about the absolute limits of a distinct approach to political extremism that comprises solely of explaining it over, and over, and over again. We need activist outcomes that interfere with White supremacy. We cannot explain it into submission.

U.S. journalist and researcher Jared Holt recently posted something to Bluesky to this effect:

Thought I’ve been having lately is whether the anti-extremism realm is ready to move out of its post-J6 “rediscovery” phase where a lot of people ran over the basics enough times to make them pulp.

 

The next step in all this basically needs to involve the research lane’s embrace of anti-fascism as a guide stone, IMO. If your goal isn’t to pulverise these forces, get out of the way and go write the 10,000th paper about what QAnon is.

I might be in a better position than many to articulate what’s going on in the Australian far-Right, given my experience and background. But we are well past due the need to move beyond generating bulk explainers. My intention is to have my information aid the taking of real, concrete action.

I asked White Rose Society why they publish their information, including working with high-profile journalists like Nick McKenzie, to expose Australian White supremacists:

We publish our work as widely as possible so that as many people as possible are informed about the risk of fascist and neo-Nazi individuals and groups in their communities. We want to make sure this information is shared outside of social media echo chambers. What we publish can serve as a guide or starting point for effective community responses. We expose fascists and neo-Nazis to show them there are consequences for their actions.

 

Antifascists use different strategies and tactics. Antifascism doesn’t begin and end at counter-protesting. The best actions are: stay informed, be alert, share information, build groups and network with others to band together. Are neo-Nazis meeting in your area? Get together with others to inform, campaign, leaflet, and pressure the local council and the building owners. Prioritise the safety of locals when neo-Nazis are meeting in areas that have large migrant populations.

White Rose Society presented one particular example — a community effort in Sydney to close a neo-Nazi clubhouse:

Ashfield Community Action (ACA) was a group of community members who came together to kick Lads Society out of their clubhouse in Ashfield. They postered the area with multi-lingual warnings about neo-Nazis and the clubhouse, so the message was accessible to migrants of different backgrounds. They lobbied the landlord of the clubhouse about cancelling the lease.

 

They also encouraged people to share information through their Facebook page about fascist presence at the clubhouse to build a sense of antifascist community surveillance. When politicians attempted to join the campaign, ACA held them to account to ensure that their words weren’t just hollow gestures without action.  In the end, they were successful.

I expect that today’s rally in Sunshine West will lead to the kind of flash-in-the-pan explosion of interest in the far-Right that we’re used to seeing from Australian political figures and the media, if it generates the usual bulk Victorian Police attendance and resultant spectacle. At these times, the number of explainers explodes. Everyone pops their head up to explain, explain and explain some more. Explainers on how neo-Nazis speak, recruit, talk, act and so on. And people regularly call for cops and politicians to solve the issue. 

White Rose Society remarked to me:

Tagging AFP, ASIO, VicPol or other police on Twitter isn’t antifascism and your message won’t go anywhere. Find comrades and friends in real life to take action with. Poster or sticker your neighbourhood with antifascist messaging. Go to your local council meetings and ask questions about the neo-Nazi gym in your area. Find creative ways to disseminate information on fascists and Nazis online and offline for different platforms. Build relationships in your community outside of your immediate social circle, because strong communities are resilient and keep each other safer.

We must hook our impeccable understanding of exactly what the problem is with White supremacists to tangible, activist action. We cannot deal with these scumbags merely by endlessly explaining them to each other. Support anti-fascist action by being part of it and support the protection of Sunshine’s multicultural community by making it hard for neo-Nazis to comfortably organise events there.

Get up, if you are physically able to and go to the rally today.

Tom Tanuki is a writer, satirist and anti-fascist activist. Tom does weekly videos on YouTube commenting on the Australian political fringe. You can follow Tom on Twitter @tom_tanuki.

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