Yeah. Thought I may as well throw this up, if only ’cause I reckon Anti-German Translation will link to it, and every time they link to my blog, I get a free bagel from Glick’s (but ssshhh, don’t tell anyone — it’ll like, totally blow my cover!).
It’s the story of a quack who’s gone to the dogs.
Or to put it another way: it’s the story of a nice middle class German boy who went to University, read too many books, joined a Marxist urban guerilla group, went to jail, left jail, became a right-wing ideologue, and is now back.
In jail.
As an historical curio, Sydney-based neo-Nazi Welf Herfurth, along with Adelaide-based Holocaust denialist Uncle Fred Töben, flew Mister Mahler’s flag in Sydney a few years ago. Note that Uncle Fred is also in jail at present, having been sentenced in mid-August to three months’ imprisonment for contempt of court (Toben jailed as appeal fails, ABC, August 13, 2009). Finally, Herfurth’s kamerad Dr James Saleam has kindly made available some of Mahler’s writings in English, which are available here: http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/mahler/index.html.
The Ideological Evolution of Horst Mahler: The Far Left-Extreme Right Synthesis
George Michael Studies in Conflict & Terrorism
Volume 32, Issue 4, April 2009
In the late 1990s, Horst Mahler, a former leader of the Red Army Faction and scion of the radical left, announced his affinity for the extreme right and joined the NPD—Germany’s principal far right party. Later distancing himself from party politics, he founded the Deutsches Kolleg, a far right think tank that promotes German nationalism. Although ostensibly now a rightist, Mahler has synthesized much of his original left-wing ideology into a far right Weltanschauung that features nationalism, anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, with a strident critique of capitalism. As such, it has the potential to appeal to some segments of the contemporary anti-globalization movement, the international extreme right, and even Islamists.
Introduction
Horst Mahler has emerged as one of the leading far right ideologists in Germany. During the 1970s, he attained international notoriety as a left-wing terrorist, but in the late 1990s, he made a political volte-face declaring his unabashed support for German nationalism. Although identified as part of the far right, he nevertheless retains a Marxian critique of capitalism, which he has interestingly syncretized with rightist themes, including extreme nationalism, anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia.
This article examines the ideological evolution of Horst Mahler. First, his early life is sketched. Next, his involvement with the Red Army Faction is examined, followed by discussion on the genesis of his political reversal while in prison. After that, his participation in the NPD is reviewed. Breaking away from traditional party politics, Mahler founded a nationalist think tank—the Deutsches Kolleg—whose major themes are discussed in the next section. His controversial pronouncements did not go unnoticed by German authorities and led to legal troubles which are covered in the following section. Finally, the conclusion explains how Mahler’s syncretic ideology is indicative of a broader trend in which various dissident movements are increasingly converging on a similar critique of certain aspects of globalization.
Following a court battle staged by the liberal Marxist establishment for the benefit of its Bolshevik benefactor in Brockley, the British National Party looks set to change its Constitution so as to allow any non-White silly enough to actually want to do so to join the party party party.
Well, either that, or to join en masse, and stage a party take-over.
The effects of this decision upon the current membership is unknown, but while one or two might be expected to leave as a result, the majority seem happy to leave it up to the one-eyed Welshman — currently condemned to be paid large sums of money (€7000) at regular monthly intervals to sit in a Parliament he wants to abolish — to call all the shots.
Of course, the White nationalist movement in Australia is way ahead of the British in this regard, the largest party of its kind — Australia First — being under the command of a Lebanese-Australian, Dr James Saleam. Saleam’s previous arch-rival, Jack van Tongeren, was, by of his father, of Javenese dissent.
Who said non-Whites can’t assimilate our (White nationalist) values?
“Saleam [Saa-leem],” I say, “isn’t a very European-sounding name.”
“It’s pronounced Saleam [Sail-’em],” he says, correcting me. “Saleam.”
Having obliterated Melbourne from the map in November 2006, English football hooligans have ditched their black hoodies and been seen running amok in Manchester recently (October 10). By way of that powerful notion known as the Hegelian dialectic, The Street Performers Formerly Known As Anarchists have become Zionists, as clearly evidenced by their waving of a flag — and because Nick Gri££in said so.
Anywhere from 200 (Socialist Party) to 500 (SWP) to 1000 (EDL) Little Englanders defended Manchester from imminent Islamisation, while several thousand others defended Manchester from the EDL.
By most accounts, the EDL is still in a process of ideological and political formation, with the one unifying theme being opposition to the Islamic presence in England. Thus it has attempted to distance itself from Gri££in’s cash-cow the BNP — and vice versa. The relationship between the two seems close in some localities (and by way of some firms) and more distant in others.
…The organisation is about seven months old and only started gathering any kind of momentum after 10 Muslim extremists staged an anti-war demo at a Royal Anglian Regiment parade in Luton in March this year. The big divisions are in Luton, Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff. They are a rag tag group of about 400 self-styled English patriots, loosely affiliated with football hooligan firms…
The next match on the EDL fixture is scheduled for Leeds on Walpurgisnacht (October 31) — which side the witches are on remains to be seen. In the meantime, Islamic mentalists are planning a march from Parliament to Trafalgar Square on the same date. Mentalist spokesman Anjem Choudary is a one-man anti-PR band, having supposedly called, inter alia, for the assassination of the Pope. Ironically, like any good Catholic, Choudary seems to be driven by guilt, having as a student indulged in sex, drugs and alcohol.
…It’s a long way from his days as a medical student at Southampton University, where, friends say, he drank, indulged in casual sex, smoked cannabis and even took LSD. He called himself ‘Andy’ and was famed for his ability to drink a pint of cider in a few seconds.
One former acquaintance said: “At parties, like the rest of us, he was rarely without a joint. The morning after one party, I can remember him getting all the roaches (butts) from the spliffs we had smoked the night before out of the ashtrays, cutting them up and making a new one out of the leftovers.
“He would say he was a Muslim and was proud of his Pakistani heritage, but he didn’t seem to attend any of the mosques in Southampton, and I only knew of him having white girlfriends. He certainly shared a bed with them.”
On one occasion, ‘Andy’ and a friend took LSD together. The friend said: “We took far too much and were hallucinating for 20 hours.”
The only sign of religious fervour came in flashes of anger over Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. A friend from that time said: “You didn’t want to get him started on that. He would go on and on about the fatwa and he supported calls for the book to be banned. But he would have a glass of cider in his hand when he was carrying on about it.”
A man has pleaded guilty to offensive behaviour for displaying “white power” merchandise in Alice Springs.
The man cannot be named because the Alice Springs Magistrates Court has allowed an application suppressing his identity.
His defence counsel, Dara Read, submitted an affidavit saying the man had received threats since being publicly outed as the person responsible for the merchandise.
The man admitted having T-shirts and baseball caps made with the slogan “White Power Alice Springs” and displaying them for sale in the main street last month.
He also admitted removing his personalised car number plates because he feared reprisals if spotted.
He falsely claimed the number plates had been stolen.
Magistrate John Birch adjourned the case for sentencing on October 14.
An Alice Springs man who offered “white power” merchandise for sale has been ordered to complete 120 hours of community work.
The man cannot be named because the Alice Springs Magistrates Court has suppressed his identity.
He pleaded guilty to offensive behaviour for having t-shirts and hats made with the slogan “white power Alice Springs” and offering them for sale from his car last month.
The man, fearing attacks, then removed his personalised number plates and falsely reported them stolen.
For that he was fined $1,500 and ordered to pay $2,100 restitution for wasting police time.
Magistrate John Birch says the man received a lighter sentence for offensive behaviour because he had pleaded guilty and was obviously remorseful.
This obviously comes as a blow to The White Man & His Eternal Struggle To Keep Australia Clean. For every cloud there’s a silver lining, however, and White Racial Patriots can still find a whole range of White Power and neo-Nazi music, clothing, key rings and other kitsch from the proudly Australian online retailer 9percent productions. I think my personal favourite is Grinded Nig’s album Freezer Full Of Nigger Heads: ha ha ha! But for the true patriot, albums by Australian boys Axis, Deaths Head, Fortress, Kilgore, Open Season, Ravenous and White Devils are essential purchases.
In even better news, Open Season will be playing on the Gold Coast next year, just a few days prior to Hitler’s birthday!
Perhaps the bestest news for White Australia, however, is the decision by KRudd to keep Tamil trash out of the country — a decision which, just like the sadly-abandoned White Australia policy, enjoys bi-partisan support from the Liberal Party.
Huzzah!
(See : Tamil boat people fleeing ‘genocide’, Tom Allard, The Sydney Morning Herald, October 15, 2009: “Distraught Sri Lankan asylum seekers said they were fleeing ”genocide” against ethnic Tamils in their country, and expressed shock that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, had personally intervened to interrupt their journey to Australian shores…”)
Of course, students from the Indian sub-continent — well, their $ anyway — are still welcome. Very welcome. Especially as patriots in Melbourne and Sydney are doing their best to make sure the foreigners know their place in Australia’s racial hierarchy.
Finally, while I’m not given to allowing emotion to override reason when it comes to determining Government policy, working families should spare a thought for KRudd and his multi-millionaire wife when the pair attend church every Sunday, and a wry smile crosses their faces as they listen to what some dead Jew supposedly said 2000 years ago:
And they brought to him young children on his TV screen, that he might rebuke them for their emotional appeals. And the loyal Labor apparatchiks also rebuked them that brought him such images. 14 Whom when Jesus saw, he was much dis-pleased and saith to them: Don’t suffer the little children to come unto me, forbid them: for we won’t allow such in the kingdom of Australia. 15 Amen I say to you, whosoever shall keep Australia’s borders protected shall receive the kingdom of God – especially from little brown-skinned children fleeing war and persecution. 16 And embracing his Army, his Navy and his Air Force, and further boosting their budgets, he told them to to tell the world: Fuck Off, We’re Full.
In exilent and exciting news, former ‘National Front New Zealand’ Fuehrer Kyle ‘The Pieman’ Chapman is further reinforcing his retirement from racist, right-wing politics by organising a contingent belonging to ‘Right Wing Resistance New Zealand’ (RWRNZ) to march on Wellington next weekend (October 24/25), armed only with flags and the false promise of a new dawn for angry Aryans. It promises to be the biggest Nationalist event EVER!!! I look forward to seeing all his comraids, including several from Australia.
A Wellington police officer has had a busy morning already. He has visited at least one house and one workplace enquiring if a protest was planned at the National Front flag raising ceremony. He identified himself as Detective Richard Grover from Wellington Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB). He said he was in the Threat Assessment Unit (TAU). Richard Grover was caught photographing a small animal rights protest against a restaurant serving foie gras (force-fed goose/duck liver) on 5th August 2009. When questioned by local cameraman Daryl Hunt about what he was doing, Grover initially denied any knowledge of the situation before admitting to taking photographs and hiding his camera in a grocery bag. Later that day when he was contacted at the Wellington Central Police Station and the realisation that his cover had been blown set in, he changed tac[k] once again, this time denying even being at the protest.
According to the NZ Police website, “the Threat Assessment Unit investigates threats against police staff, judges and court staff and other investigative agency staff. They respond to counter-terrorist threats or situations. The unit also collects and analyses potential threats to New Zealand and visiting government politicians and officials.”
The TAU has harassed and surveilled activists for years. The story of animal rights activist Jesse Duffield is most chilling. Nicky Hager writes: “On October 2, 2003 World Farm Animal Day a group of young Aucklanders held a protest at the Tegel Foods offices about treatment of chickens. They scattered some hay on the floor of the reception area and 23-year-old school teacher Jesse Duffield delivered a protest letter. Police documents estimate the cost of cleaning up the hay was $111 plus GST. However, early the next morning, detectives raided Duffield’s home. He was arrested roughly and charged with home invasion (maximum 10 years’ prison) and intentional damage (maximum seven years’ prison). Police opposed him getting bail and later imposed a 9pm-6am curfew. Meanwhile his car was impounded for a week and his house searched by detectives. They seized his computer and mobile phone, plus 100 floppy disks, posters off the walls and a T-shirt saying “GE, you are what you eat.” These possessions were not returned for nine months.”
“The only rational explanation for their actions was intelligence collecting. The police eventually dropped their absurd charges but they’d got hundreds of thousands of emails and texts to build a profile of the animal rights groups. The detective who led the raid, Mike Paki, was not a normal CIB officer, but a police intelligence officer from the Auckland Threat Assessment Unit who was surprise, surprise studying animal rights and other protest groups. It appears police were working their way through activist groups looking for security threats. It’s not hard to see where such ideas would come from.”
Since Operation 8, the state-terror raids of 15th October 2007, we know how closely the TAU and the Special Investigation Groups (SIG) of Aaron Pascoe work together. Richard Grover had involvement in Operation 8 too (and so did Mike Paki who is mentioned above).
If you want to contact Richard Grover: (04) 496 3415, 0274 946 332, [email protected].
NEO-NAZI skinheads allegedly staged a pay-back attack on Melbourne’s anarchist headquarters in Northcote recently.
Anarchists claim the four men, one armed with pepper spray, stormed into an activists’ meeting at the Melbourne Anarchist Resource Centre, [home to] Barricade Books on St Georges Rd on [Monday], September 28, knocking over bookshelves and demanding the group end its anti-fascist activities.
No one was hurt in the incident.
A spokesperson for the anarchist collective said during the attack, the group’s ringleader accused the meeting of graffiting anti-fascist slogans on a Burwood tattoo parlour and warned of violent repercussions if it continued these activities.
“They screamed and shouted, pushed over book shelves, crowded individuals, and threatened physical violence,” said the spokesperson.
“No-one was hurt…we were all a bit shaken.”
The spokesperson said the centre would stay open and the Melbourne Anarchist Club remained “committed to continuing to facilitate anarchist activity in Melbourne”.
Northcote Police said they had no record of the incident.
The Melbourne Anarchist Club has released a statement on the incident, which has been published on Melbourne Indymedia (and elsewhere).
A little history
In general, neo-Nazi and fascist activity is subject to the same peaks and troughs as any other form of political activism.
In the 1980s, the two dominant forces on the far right were Jack van Tongeren’s ‘Australian Nationalists Movement’ (ANM), principally confined to WA, and James Saleam’s ‘National Action’ (NA), which largely confined itself to NSW.
Australian Nationalists Movement
The ANM came to notoriety through its conduct of an arson campaign against Asian-owned businesses in Perth, a campaign intended to drive Asian-Australians from the state and to create a ‘Whites Only’ Western Australia (with van Tongeren as its führer). The plan came unstuck when police arrested those responsible, with van Tongeren himself — a former member of NA — sentenced to a lengthy prison term (1989-2002) for his role as the chief architect. The campaign was murderous as well as violent: ANM member David Locke was killed by two associates after he was suspected of being a police informer.
In 1993, the ANM was the subject of a documentary, Nazi Supergrass, by David Bradbury:
“A film that reveals the extraordinary race war waged by the neo-Nazi Australian Nationalist Movement (ANM) in the late eighties in Western Australia.
This is the chilling story of neo Nazi terrorism under the Southern Cross in suburbia. It explores the dark underworld of neo-Nazis in Australia. Ex-Vietnam vet Jack van Tongeren modelled himself on Hitler and was convinced he was the modern day Fuhrer destined to lead Australia out of a corrupt world where Jews, Asians and Aborigines defiled the majority Anglo Saxon race. Van Tongeren and his Aryan army of malcontent criminals and teenage skinheads lead a terrifying ‘war’ in Perth of the late 80’s firebombing Asian restaurants and defacing Jewish synagogues…”
National Action was formally launched on ANZAC Day (April 25) in 1982. It was at about this time that Saleam bought his property in Tempe (a suburb of Sydney), which became NA’s HQ (and which now forms the HQ of the ‘Australia First Party’). Of this period, David Greason writes:
From 1984 onwards National Action was regularly in the newspapers, accused of terrorism against leftists and anti-racist activists. Saleam would always be there, denying it all, and claiming a set-up by the political police of the NSW Special Branch, hoping no doubt that he could become the new Tim Anderson.
Both the roll-call of violence and harassment against National Action’s critics was damning. Journalist Denis Freney received phoned death threats and had his windows shot through. Bronwyn Ridgway of the NSW Nurses Association had her car firebombed. Meredith Burgmann, now a NSW Labor MP, had the windows of her house bricked. Anti-apartheid activist John Brink had a Molotov cocktail thrown through his bedroom window. Three masked men necklaced an effigy outside the home of Reverend Dorothy McMahon of the Pitt Street Uniting Church. National Action members stormed a dinner, shouting death threats at NSW Liberal Helen Sham-Ho. A meeting of the Gay and Lesbian Immigration Task Force was disrupted. Conservative commentator Dr Gerard Henderson received death threats after criticising National Action in a newspaper column. The Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner, Irene Moss, had racist slogans daubed on her garage.
The case that brought National Action undone, however, came in January 1989, when Eddie Funde, Australian representative of the African National Congress, had his front door shot through. Shotgun pellets were found near his child’s cradle. National Action members Jason Frost and Michael White were arrested. They both implicated Saleam, telling the court that he had given them a balaclava, a shotgun and eight dollars each for a drink to steady their nerves. That had to be Jim, I thought on reading their story. Anyone else would have given them a fifty each.
Saleam claimed it was the political police again, trying to wreck the nationalist cause. The jury was not so persuaded and, in May 1991, Saleam was sentenced to three and a half years jail. This was his second time inside — in April 1989 he’d been sentenced to two years’ hard labour for fraud and receiving stolen property. ‘Ironically, Saleam received his sentence on the same day as the centenary of Hitler’s birth’, the Sydney Morning Herald noted.
Further, on April 20, 1991, National Action member Perry Whitehouse murdered another NA member, Wayne “Bovver” Smith, at the organisation’s inner-Sydney headquarters after an argument.
With the departure of Saleam and the collapse of its Sydney base, control of National Action fell into the lap of Adelaide NA führer Michael Brander. Brander carried on the struggle for several more years, attempting to (further) extend NA’s influence to Melbourne by way of establishing a shopfront in Fawkner in January 1997; the shop was closed in April 1998; barely 15 months after it was opened.
As for Brander, he enrolled at LaTrobe University and, having completed his MA in history, has since been welcomed with open arms by the ‘neo-conservative’ / reactionary Quadrant magazine, which re-published his MA thesis on ‘Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the West’ in its March 2005 edition. Brander also addressed a post-graduate conference organised by the University of Sydney in July 2005, and is currently alleged to be publishing a zine called Australian Resurgence. (For further details, see : Anti-fascism in Melbourne: 1990s, March 20, 2007).
“National Action,” a former member of the group tells me, “was like a model aircraft club with the occasional murder. There were the skinheads and the thugs and the nutters on the fringes, but basically, apart from that, it was a bunch of blokes without girlfriends.”
Australia First Party
Having abandoned NA, after his release from prison Saleam eventually made his way to Graeme Campbell’s Australia First Party (AF), established in June 1996. Following Campbell’s resignation in June 2001, Diane Teasdale became its national president. In 2002, a new AFP branch was formed in Sydney, under Saleam’s control (and which has become the new centre of gravity for the party).
Having contested numerous elections since its formation, its only electoral success thus far has been the election of Bruce Preece to local council in Adelaide in November 2006.
In 2007, AF underwent a split, leading to the creation of two rival groups named AF — one based in Sydney and the other in Shepparton (Victoria) — and a new group titled the ‘Australian Protectionist Party’.
Since 2001, AF, along with others on the far right, has organised an annual conference titled the ‘Sydney Forum’. It has enjoyed the support of various RSL Clubs in Sydney (Bexley, Eastwood and Petersham) and has also been hosted at The Bunker in Tempe. This year’s Forum took place on the weekend of September 26/27, and participants were drawn from a range of far right groups, including the New Right Australia, Australia First Party, One Nation, “National Anarchists”, and the neo-Nazi muzak networks Volksfront and Blood and Honour.
On September 28, the day following the Forum, four neo-Nazis belonging to Blood and Honour and the Hammerskins attacked the Melbourne Anarchist Resource Centre.
The Melbourne Anarchist Resource Centre hosts a number of different groups, including the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation and Barricade Books. Since opening to the public late last year, MARC has hosted film screenings (including a festival of Spanish-language films organised by the Latin American Solidarity Network or LASNET), gigs, parties, workshops and a range of other events, in solidarity and co-operation with a wide range of other community groups.
Barricade Books
Barricade opened its doors for the first time at 115 Sydney Road, Brunswick on February 4, 1995; the outcome of several years preparation by a loose association of local anarchists. Notably, Barricade is the fourth such shop to open in Melbourne since the beginning of the 1970s.
Barricade’s opening didn’t go unnoticed, as just five months later, on July 11, neo-Nazis smashed the shop’s windows. As a result, for almost two years, the infoshop looked like a real live barricade, with ‘temporary’ iron sheets placed over the front windows. Still, the infoshop continued to function.
The smashing of the shop’s windows, and their replacement with temporary hoardings, was followed by various forms of low-level harassment, including the painting of swastikas on the shop’s front door on Invasion Day, January 26, 1996. An anti-fascist demonstration was held in Brunswick soon after, and marched to Barricade in solidarity. Finally, in June 1997, at the end of a long but eventually successful battle with the local council, the shop was fitted with bullet proof plexi-glass.
Since the attack on September 28 of this year, the roller door on the front of MARC has been repeatedly daubed with swastikas and slogans.
In August 2009, the SMH reported that “GRAFFITI daubed on the home of the NSW Treasurer, Eric Roozendaal, is believed to have been done by a group that has links to neo-Nazis. An unknown group painted ”88” on his eastern suburbs home, on the footpath and on the house of a neighbour at the weekend. Among far right-wing groups, the number 88 is taken to represent HH, shorthand for Heil Hitler…” (Neo-Nazi graffiti on Roozendaal home, Brian Robins, August 17, 2009).
A VIP, the neo-Nazi graffiti on Roozendaal’s house gained the attention of national media; not being VIPs, the attack on MARC, despite being of a more threatening nature, has been thus far ignored by all but a local newspaper. It did, however, come to the attention of current AF and former ‘White Pride Coalition Australia’ member Jim Perren, who wrote the following in response to the attack on his blog, ‘Whitelaw Towers’ (a blog which is recommended reading material for AF, and whose main author uses the email address ‘[email protected]’):
Strangely, bizarrely even, it appears @ndy, following months of sustained and concentrated provocation against White Nationalists, has proven to lack the intestinal fortitude for an actual confrontation.
After orchestrating a series of cowardly attacks including (alleged) actual vandalism, he has ‘bottled’ at the first signs of any form of response, let alone real retaliation, and gone running to his handlers in the Government and their attack dogs in the Law Enforcement Agencies.
Oh, what a guy!
Oh, what an “Anarchist”.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
That last comment from ‘bad idea’ is an absolute hoot. Folks, just pinch yourselves and bear in mind we are supposedly talking about ‘Anarchists’ here.
Authoritarian, law abiding, state collaborating ‘Anarchists’ quoting [l]aws, regulations and statutes?
Have we missed something here?
Whatever happened to the Revolution @ndy?
For reasons best known to Jim, the post has since been deleted from his blog.
Bonus!
‘Fear of Nazi revival’, Northcote Leader, Monday, July 17, 1995:
The Friends of Barricade Bookshop group fears a resurgence of neo-Nazi activity in Brunswick after two attacks on its bookshop in as many months. The group claims neo-Nazis smashed its windows at Barricade Bookshop in Sydney Road last Tuesday. “We believe the attack was buoyed by [an earlier] police raid because the news had gone out on the streets and the neo-Nazis acted in response to that”, group member [SS] said. Mr S said members feared a resurgence of neo-Nazi activity similar to that in March last year. Mr S said two witnesses saw three young men, who looked like [boneheads], smash the windows about 1am.
‘Nazi attack on Brunswick shop’, The Melbourne Times, February 7, 1996:
The front of [DG]’s house and the Barricade book shop in Sydney Road, Brunswick, have something in common — they are swathed in swastikas. Barricade Books has a distinctly war-zone ambience, with its smashed windows and semi-permanent shutters… The response from the Brunswick community was a rally at the traditional battleground — Brunswick Town Hall — followed by a march to Barricade Books. The protesters mostly matched the ambience of the any-and-all cause bookshop — shaved heads, coloured hair, overalls, work boots and politics ranging from the local Radical Women group to anarchists to mainstream politicians making election speeches… Speeches were made about “scum” who only come out in the dead of night — in 1993 a group of young National Action members did rally at the town hall, where they were pelted with eggs and abuse… Eventually, after mutual congratulations on a fine rally, the crowd went home — or popped into Barricade for a fresh supply of stickers and PC t-shirts. One member of Barricade’s collective organising committee said the steel shutters would remain while the bookshop tried to get permission to put up proper night security shutters to protect the windows.”
is a wonderful new book by some trouble-making bloke called Iain McIntyre, and is published by the redoubtable and not-at-all nervous Breakdown Press.
Launched in Newcastle at TINA — where L kindly grabbed me a copy — it will be launched again, kicking and screaming, in Melbourne on THURSDAY the 5th NOVEMBER at the BELLA UNION BAR (Victorian Trades Hall, cnr Victoria and Lygon Streets) between the hours of 6 and 8pm.
The book compiles tales of unconventional political dissent included in three previously-published pamphlets — How To Make Trouble And Influence People (1996), How to Stop Whining and Start Living (1998) and Revenge Of The Troublemaker (2003) — and, as an EXTRA! ADDED! BONUS!, interviews with a number of pranksters, photos galore, and er, other stuff.
This statement has been prepared by the ‘Melbourne Anarchist Club’ (MAC), the owners of the ‘Melbourne Anarchist Resource Centre’ (62 St Georges Road, Northcote), in response to recent threatening behaviour by local neo-Nazis.
It is intended to explain what has happened, and our response to it.
WHAT HAPPENED
On the afternoon of Monday, September 28, 2009, four neo-Nazi skinheads, believed to belong to or to be closely associated with the neo-Nazi skinhead groups ‘Blood & Honour Australia’ and the ‘Southern Cross Hammerskins’, attended the MARC. The neo-Nazis interrupted a meeting of a group which happened to be meeting at the time (a group which campaigns against sexual violence).
The neo-Nazis were highly agitated and very aggressive, confronting those present and preventing their exit by blocking the front door. They screamed and shouted, pushed over book shelves, crowded individuals, and threatened physical violence (including the use of capsicum spray or ‘mace’). The neo-Nazis demanded to know if the individuals present were ‘antifa’ (anti-fascists), and to be provided with the name and location of the blogger ’slackbastard’. After approximately 10 minutes, they left MARC with a final ‘Sieg Heil!’.
One of those present at the meeting provides the following account:
At 3pm Monday the 28th of September, several of us were sitting in the Barricade bookshop when four men entered through the front door. One of them, who was carrying a can of mace [pepper spray], yelled for us to sit down and that they had a message to deliver (he also asked who was in charge!). They proceeded to deliver a message that amounted to threatening that the MARC space would be the first point of call if there was any more antifa [anti-fascist] activity in Melbourne. They pushed over two bookshelves and swept some zines off the table as they left… Nobody was hurt, and there was no damage done to the space, just some disorganised books. We were all a bit shaken, but looked after each other.
It is understood that the most vocal neo-Nazi was a man named Justin. Justin is in his mid- to late-30s, and has tattoos on his hands and neck. He is the Victorian organiser for ‘Blood & Honour’, and is also closely associated with the Hammerskins. It is also understood that Justin works at ‘Hold Fast Body Art’ tattoo studio in Burwood (13 Burwood Highway).
During the course of their intervention at MARC, Justin informed those present that his business had been graffitied, and demanded that ‘antifa’ cease all such activity, or that there would be violent repercussions for MARC and its users. It is understood that this was a reference to an alleged incident which took place on Monday, September 14, an account of which, ‘Anti-Fascists attack neo-Nazi’s business in Burwood’, was published anonymously on the Melbourne Indymedia website.
There is no independent confirmation of this incident, but given Justin’s subsequent behaviour, we understand it to be true.
In summary: on September 14, unknown parties graffitied a tattoo shop in Burwood with ‘anti-fascist’ slogans. Two weeks later, on September 28, four neo-Nazi skinheads, including an employee at the tattoo shop in question, attended the MARC in Northcote and assaulted a meeting of a group campaigning against sexual violence, threatening further violence upon the group, MARC, and its users, unless all ‘anti-fascist’ activity in Melbourne ceased immediately.
OUR RESPONSE
The Melbourne Anarchist Club remains committed to continuing to facilitate anarchist activity in Melbourne.
Thus the Melbourne Anarchist Resource Centre will continue to remain open to the public, and to be used by a variety of groups, including those campaigning for an end to sexual violence, for workers’ rights, and for environmental preservation;
as a venue for art, music and film;
as a source of information on contemporary struggles for justice, as well as historical inquiry;
and as a continuing resource for those, like the Melbourne Anarchist Club, who want to advance the cause of revolutionary, class-struggle anarchism.
In addition to reviewing, along with the various groups which make use of MARC, our security and safety procedures, the MAC is organising an Open Day for the general public.
The Open Day will take place on Saturday, November 28, and will include free food, entertainment, and a variety of other activities.
More details will be provided in coming weeks.
All are welcome.
¡No pasarán!
===
For more information and enquiries:
Melbourne Anarchist Club
P.O. Box 494
Brunswick
VIC 3056
AUSTRALIA [email protected]
http://mac.anarchobase.com/
John August, the President of the NSW Humanists, has issued a statement in response to an anti-fascist protest which took place at Humanist House in Chippendale. The protest took place on October 2, during the kourse of a meeting of a neo-Nazi group kalled ‘Klub Nation’ / ‘Klub Naziya’.
In his statement — which appears to be a personal, rather than official release endorsed by the Society — John expresses concern over the fact that during the course of the protest “some protesters went about striking Humanist House”, and claims that a local resident and member of the Society was “pushed and shoved”. He congratulates the police — including, presumably, the Public Order and Riot Squad — for their “commendable professionalism” in dealing with the 50–70 protesters. Finally, John notes that “police are contemplating charges of malicious damage”.
The Humanist Society of NSW encourages a rational approach to human problems, and respect for universal human rights free from discrimination based on race, class, disability, gender, age, nationality or sexual orientation.
We try to ensure that those groups using the venue are consistent with Humanist values. As we are a volunteer run group which is run on committee process, it can be difficult for the whole committee to be aware of the associations of particular groups. In any case, we have been planning to make a review of those hiring the hall, according to our own democratic committee process, which we will be following through on.
A group was previously banned from Humanist House because of alleged racist associations, but through committee process and the desire to be fair at the time, access was again allowed. This is a consequence of committee process and the difficulty in being aware of all facts at issue.
As humanists, we believe in freedom of expression, provided it does not involve any form of racial vilification or the vilification of any other minority group. Such vilification is prohibited by the anti-discrimination Act of 1977.
We also believe in the democratic right of peaceful assembly, the right to demonstrate and protest in a non-violent manner. It seems the protest of the 2nd October 2009 went beyond the bounds of peaceful protest, something which I found very surprising.
Some protesters went about striking Humanist House, and when one of our members of long standing, a local resident with a long history of involvement in progressive causes, tried to point this out to them, she was pushed and shoved; the evening’s events caused her considerable distress.
The attack on Humanist House was stopped by police, who showed commendable professionalism. Humanist House has seen some minor damage; it could well have been a lot worse if the police had not intervened; we certainly appreciate their efforts.
Without commenting on the meeting inside, I can only imagine the experience would have been traumatic for those attending it. I endorse the right of peaceful protest, but am very disappointed at the violence which erupted.
Some protesters covered their faces, while others conducted themselves in a civilised manner. We hope that this means that not all protesters would endorse the violence that erupted.
In fact, at this stage I have no idea of the exact identity of the protesters, or any group affiliations, though what they were trying to achieve may become clearer if I have the opportunity to view videos of the event and am able to further investigate.
The building did indeed suffer minor damage, and police are contemplating charges of malicious damage. We find ourselves in a very difficult position. Nevertheless, in interests of a peaceful resolution of the problem, I invite anyone concerned to contact me and discuss the matter.
John August
President
NSW Humanists
Ph : 0419 683 353
October 10, 2009
In July 2007, Jason Rafty posted the following message on Stormfront — a site which, to the best of my knowledge, is unlikely to be described as humanist:
KLUB NATION :- June meeting
Klub Nation is the only continuous meeting place for white Nationalists in Sydney since 2003. [W]e invite those interested in attending our meetings to reply with your expression of interest by private message. We currently have a central branch and a Hills District branch with a Greater Western branch to be initiated soon.
Klub Nation is sponsored by the PIF Inc ([P]ublic [I]nformation [F]orum) and in essence is a networking and social point for Nationalists. [W]e present a range of guest and in house speakers covering the full gamut of political-economy, and other subjects of relevance to the Nationalist milieu.
The conveners of Klub Nation seek to cast an image as a survivor’s Klub.
Urban survival against the predations of the NWO–Globalist over class is less about arms caches, compounds and tin food stock, but rather having the knowledge, network and social capital to assail and prevail over everything this insidious over class throws at us. NWO tyranny and enslavement is predicated on the atomization of Anglo-Celtic people. Any brotherhood or Klan based unity is like a silver bullet[.]
Klub Nation promotes the “viable Nationalist”: – one who isn’t crest fallen, physiologically addled, impecunious or effeminate. Remaining viable is the linchpin to survival. Like hell, we’re going to become the white trash of South East Asia.
So come along to the next meeting for a bit of good cheer and company of fellow Nationalists.
Klub Nation provides generous food and beverages. It is general etiquette and protocol that entry requires a donation
JBR [Jason Rafty]
Jason Rafty operates the Klub in konjunction with Daevid Palmer.
Palmer, along with David Innes and John Drew, was profiled in Zoo magazine (Issue 75, August 6, 2007, pp.40-44) in an article titled ‘The Most Dangerous Men in Australia’:
Palmer calls himself ‘Der Führer’ and his ambition is to rid Australia of multicultural ‘mongrels’ and Jews…
“Jews and other races are destroying our nation by interbreeding. It destroys our Australian Anglo-Saxon European base culture. We call it multi-mongrelism.
The KKK appeals to people because the hoods provide anonymity to our members who are lawyers, policemen, teachers and tradesmen. We integrated KKK members with the Australian Nazi Movement, which I formed, to make the National Socialist Defence of Australian People. The NSDAP is against non-European immigration…”
In the past, the Klub also served as a meeting point for members of the ‘White Pride Coalition of Australia’ (WPCA), a coalition of the Australian Nationalists Movement (ANM), World Church of the Creator (WCOTC), Imperial Klans of Australia (IKA), New Zealand National Front (NZNF) and National Socialist Party of Australia (NSPA). Visitors to the site are greeted with the following message: “Welcome, My White Comrades, to the White Pride Coalition Australia. Heil Hitler! Hail Woden! Sieg Heil! Stay White Comrades 88”.
There is little doubt that both the NSW Humanist Society and the WPCA agreed — in both theory and practice — that the WPCA had a right to peacefully assemble in its meeting rooms. However, I suspect that there may be some slight tension between the WPCA’s commitment to neo-Nazism, on the one hand, and the Society’s commitment to nice things like the rational appreciation of human rights, on the other.
Note that, an IHEU Board meeting in 1993 issued a statement condemning ‘Any kind of racism and nazism’, claiming that “Humanists wish to take part in an active, public and social-ethical combat against racism and neo-nazism in our societies”. I’m inclined to think that, as part of this effort, the IHEU did not mean to suggest that humanists should combat racism and neo-Nazism by hiring out their meeting rooms to neo-Nazis and racists — but I could be wrong.
Presumably the question will be subjected to a thorough committee process.
According to a sauce at the ‘Australian Broadcasting Corporation’, (Pauline Hanson’s) ‘One Nation Party’ (ONP) looks set to disappear, 12 years after it burst into national (and international) prominence (One Nation: from a bang to a whimper, Nicole Butler, October 11, 2009). “The Electoral Commission is again threatening to de-register the party, arguing it does not have the minimum 500 members or a serving representative in Parliament.” The current incarnation of ONP — which has undergone various combinations and permutations since its founding — was registered on June 2, 2004. (‘One Nation Queensland Division’ was deregistered on December 27, 2006; ‘One Nation Western Australia’ on December 27, 2006, and again on June 17, 2009. ‘Pauline Hanson’s One Nation’ was deregistered on February 8, 2005.)
This is good news for the ‘Australia First Party’ (AF), whose founder, Graeme Campbell, had the misfortune to launch it just as Pauline Hanson, David Ettridge and David Oldfield gave birth to the little party that could (and now can’t). Following his expulsion from the ALP, Campbell contested the seat of Kalgoorlie at the October 1998 Federal election as a member of Australia First: he came third, gaining 15,585 votes (22.79%). The seat was won by Liberal Party member Barry Haase (who remains the sitting member). In November 2001, Campbell stood for a seat in the Senate, on this occasion as a member of One Nation and as No.1 on their ticket. ONP gained a total of 77,757 votes (7.03%), but no seats.
The reasons for ONP’s demise are generally understood to revolve around the absorption by the HoWARd Government of some of its major policies; the absence of a coherent ideology; poor leadership; its outsider status as a new, minor political party; and political sabotage by the major parties.
Pauline Hanson
In her (in)famous maiden speech to the Federal Parliament, delivered on September 10, 1996 as the newly-elected Independent for the seat of Oxley in Queensland, Pauline Hanson presented herself as an ‘ordinary’ Australian, a member of a silent (or silenced) majority, whose needs and desires were being ignored by the political establishment.
Hanson voiced her opposition to ‘political correctness’; the ‘Aboriginal industry’ and the privileged status of Aborigines in Australian society; immigration (“I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians”); multiculturalism and the Family Law Act, and expressed concern over high levels of unemployment, a declining standard of living, and foreign ownership of Australian industry. She called for the abolition of ATSIC, foreign aid (“The government should cease all foreign aid immediately and apply the savings to generate employment here at home”) and multiculturalism (“Abolishing the policy of multiculturalism will save billions of dollars and allow those from ethnic backgrounds to join mainstream Australia, paving the way to a strong, united country”). On immigration, she stated that it “must be halted in the short-term so that our dole queues are not added to by, in many cases, unskilled migrants not fluent in the English language”, and also advocated the introduction of national service (military conscription for young adults).
ONP’s support peaked in 1998, when it received one million votes. Since then, it has been on a long, slow decline, punctuated by various schisms and minor scandals.
“We must have one people, one nation, one flag.”
The response of the HoWARd Government to ‘Hansonism’ was two-pronged. On the one hand, it sought to downplay its significance, while doing what it could to undermine Hanson’s support base — largely confined to rural and regional Queensland, and some urban centres, principally Brisbane (the state’s capital). On the other hand, while it engaged in some muted criticism of her policies, its own rhetoric reflected Hanson’s concerns, and the Government even adopted — directly, or indirectly — some of her key policies, notably the abolition of ATSIC, and the strengthening of Australia’s borders. In this respect, HoWARd was simply reinforcing ALP policy. In addition to ‘The Pacific Solution’ (excising territories and constructing prisons on outlying islands), it expanded the use of concentration camps for asylum seekers, camps introduced by the previous ALP Government in 1992, under then Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (turned corporate lobbyist), Gerry Hand:
I believe it is crucial that all persons who come to Australia without prior authorisation not be released into the community. Their release would undermine the Government’s strategy for determining their refugee claims or entry claims. Indeed, I believe it is vital to Australia that this be prevented as far as possible. The Government is determined that a clear signal be sent that migration to Australia may not be achieved by simply arriving in this country and expecting to be allowed into the community.
Thus, Hanson’s remark in September 1996 — “Of course, I will be called racist but, if I can invite whom I want into my home, then I should have the right to have a say in who comes into my country” — was echoed by HoWARd five years later, seeking to capitalise on public fears of being swamped by non-White refugees. “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come” was his boast in October 2001.
Old Skool Stylee
In many respects, ONP was an historical throwback, a return to old skool labourism and the policies progressively abandoned by Labor in its post-1960s incarnation, in particular those emerging from the party’s commitment to white nationalism: support for Australian industry, especially industrial manufacturing, combined with immigration restrictions on non-Whites. (On labourism, see : Transforming Labourism, Eurhythmania, September 26, 2009.) It was also a response, in part, to the ascendancy of ‘neo-liberalism’, enthusiastically embraced by the ALP under first Hawke and then Keating (1983–1996). Damien Cahill notes that “…it is unlikely that the rise of Hansonism as a political force — at the end of the survey period — would have been possible had it not been for the effects that neo-liberal restructuring was having upon many rural and working class communities. Interestingly, it was new class discourse that Hanson turned against the architects of neo-liberalism in order to mobilise opinion against ‘elites’.” (‘The radical neo-liberal movement as a hegemonic force in Australia, 1976-1996’, Damien C. Cahill, University of Wollongong, 2004 [PDF].)
Dr James Saleam and Australia First
In July 2009, AF declared that it had a sufficient number of members (525) to register with the Australian Electoral Commission as a political party. Three months later, on October 3, it declared that the relevant documents have been submitted to the AEC to allow it to initiate the formal process enabling its registration. (‘Australia First Party’ was deregistered on August 13, 2004.)
The leader of AF, Dr James Saleam, is not especially ‘charismatic’ and, unlike Hanson when she first reared her head as a Tory, Saleam’s political history is located on the extreme right, from openly neo-Nazi to merely fascist. He is also a convicted criminal, having been found guilty of fraud and violent crime. Thus in 1989… “he provided a shotgun to two boneheads who fired into the home of Eddie Funde, the African National Congress representative in Australia. Funde and his wife were inside and shotgun pellets narrowly missed their sleeping baby. Saleam was sentenced to 3½ years’ jail for his involvement”; he was also involved in an “insurance scam in which he falsely claimed [his] house had been robbed. He was jailed for two years for fraud” (see : Dr James Saleam & ‘The Audacity of Hate’ (‘The Audacity of Hate’, Greg Bearup, Good Weekend, September 26/27, 2009), September 26, 2009).
As an electoral candidate then, Saleam makes an unlikely vote-winner. That said, there are certainly a range of others able and willing to enter into a popularity contest with Labour, Tory and other parties, among them George Atkinson, Greg Bailey, Kevin Baldwin, Nathan Clarke, Terry Cooksley, Richard Hedditch, Ian McBryde, Alex Parker, Tony Pettitt, Jim Smith and Darrell Wallbridge, all of whom have stood in NSW. In Queensland, Peregrine John Beverley Jewell and Peter Schuback have also thrown their hats into the ring on behalf of AF.
Kameradschaft Down Under
On the one hand, AF has experienced little success in the electoral arena thus far, and even as a registered party, is unlikely to at any point in the near future. On the other hand, Saleam’s conception of the role of AF is to act as a catalyst for the formation of a genuine social movement, one capable of engaging in the forms of political and social action that has seen the German neo-Nazi ‘National Democratic Party’ (NPD) carve out a niche in various territories, especially economically-depressed parts of the former East Germany (see: The NPD in Germany (and Australia), August 27, 2009; Huzzah for the NPD! Huzzah for the Sydney Forum!, August 25, 2009). Thus: “The Australia First Party shall take advantage of the benefits of Federal registration and will certainly offer an electoral alternative and intervene in that process. However, the party became aware long ago that if it relied on electoral means alone, it would ultimately fail to build a mass movement and in the shorter term fail to defend Australian workers, farmers, small business and other working people directly against the globalist economic and political order. It was Australia First that advanced the idea of a broad approach, the “three tier method”: electoral activity, community action and cultural defence” (Statement: Australia First Has Applied For Registration As A Federal Party, October 3).
Welf Herfurth, a former member of the NPD who has resided in Sydney for the last 20 years — see : Who’s who in the “national anarchist” zoo? — is one of the key conduits for the transmission of the lessons to be drawn from the German experience to Australia. His analysis finds its most sustained expression in his writings and speechifying on the subject of Kameradschaft: see : www.newrightausnz.com/?p=27 and video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7734684144311567576. Note that Herfurth’s speech was presented at the 2007 Inverell Forum — an event Hanson was scheduled to speak at but cancelled on the basis that Herfurth and another Holocaust denialist, Richard Krege, were also scheduled to speak.
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
