Support for Lidia Thorpe in the wake of Nazi abuse

Following violent threats online, Senator Lidia Thorpe has now received vitriol on social media after standing up for herself, writes Tom Tanuki.

SENATOR Lidia Thorpe is being targeted by a group of fascists, again. I know enough about the situation to write on it; indeed, I think I might be the one who flagged this latest video with Thorpe's office for their attention on behalf of some comrades. The thought was that it would be best to bring it to their attention, lest it gain traction of its own accord and pop up by surprise in her feed.

Senator Thorpe acted quickly, calling a press conference in Fitzroy and excoriating the Australian Federal Police, the Prime Minister and the Government for their inaction on the threats she continues to receive. That’s her prerogative; she’s a raw and authentic person who bites back and doesn’t tend to take this bullshit lightly. I have always respected that about her.

Now that you all know about it, I figured I’d sit down with the intent to write a gesture of solidarity with Senator Thorpe as she is targeted by these fascists. Then I got caught in the old trap of paying undue consideration to all the squawking, moaning, bitching and yapping that is taking place about her on Twitter by an army of insufferable Labor libs and interchangeable racists.

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Incredibly, I began reading (yet again) about how “rude” Lidia is. Because during her press conference, she told someone who interrupted her to “fuck off”. Someone who, let’s be clear, yelled “Not all cops!” at her as she was mentioning the police’s failure to protect Indigenous people.

All this, when there’s a National Day of Action this weekend concerning Indigenous deaths in custody at the hands of the same police force? We’re seriously once again talking about how rude Senator Lidia Thorpe is just as she is being actively threatened? My eyes started to dissolve at the sight of all this “political discourse”. The white goo of my eyeballs drooled like liquid paper out of the sockets. Before I lost my vision entirely, I closed Twitter and reminded myself of what I know.

I know Senator Thorpe, for one. And I know all about the fascists in question. And that, I remembered, is all I’d need to offer something useful on this matter. All the Twitter yapping about Lidia’s rudeness is white noise — an endless hum and chatter from people who have been conditioned never to shut up while never adding anything of value.

(Besides, I’ve already talked more than enough about this obsession with Lidia Thorpe’s rudeness.)

Regarding the fascists: In this video, they abuse and threaten Lidia. The masked man in it burns a flag. I won’t share the video — it isn’t necessary to see. This is largely the same kind of thing they did in a video around a year ago, which also targeted the Senator.

I suspect I know who’s in the video but I won’t say. However, in it, they call themselves the “Warriors of the Convict Resistance”, as a group did in the last flag-burning video — so it’s worthwhile to look at the neo-Nazis we know featured in the first one.

One of them was a steroided gym junkie who got put into a coma last year after picking a drunk fight with some randoms in the city. The other is a dark-skinned Greek man, who still lives at home with his mum and dad and gets around with a puppy which he carries around in a little dog pram like a Taiwanese woman.

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The last time one of them started a fight with Black people in Australia, they wound up in hospital breathing out of a hole in their neck. And the last time one of them stalked a female politician, they wound up getting bashed by Macedonians in a Ribs & Burgers for it. This is part of a duality here that bears understanding: on an individual level, I cannot help but describe them as ridiculous. And yet, they are key contributors to a very real threat that rises toward Indigenous women like Senator Thorpe.

It is also true and always bears mentioning that these people are connected to a militant fascist organisation that tried to recruit the Christchurch killer shortly before that terrible massacre. Their group publicly venerates his act of mass violence, in fact. (The Christchurch killer was also a ridiculous man, if you know about his life story, but he still did what he did.)

They encourage violence. Their ideology demands it. And their escalating fixation toward Indigenous women in a position of power cannot be taken out of context. It poses a danger in Australia through the current Referendum debate and the target it has painted on Indigenous women in politics and so, too, in Aotearoa where young Maori women running for Parliament are being made to fear for their lives by the far-Right.

Who is next to get dragged into their fold as a result of all this press they’re getting and how far might that new recruit dare to go? Will the next lonely dreg these neo-Nazis goad on to violence, whether it be toward Senator Thorpe or whoever they fixate on next, make good on all the talk? Will we begin to take this problem seriously only after an Indigenous woman in politics is hurt?

I am as surprised as Lidia Thorpe is that a sitting senator cannot expect prompt and effective protection from this rising threat. But what I do know is that for whatever it’s worth, Lidia will receive unending solidarity and support from activists and grassroots anti-fascists in Australia, in whatever way we can provide it. I hope that our communities won’t let her down where so many insufferable liberals, racists, cops and spooks can’t help but do time and again.

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.