Hope you don’t mind me writing, it’s just that there’s more than one thing I need to ask you. If you’re so anti-fashion, why not wear flares, instead of dressing down all the same. It’s just that looking like that I can express my dissatisfaction.
Dear Robin,
Let me explain, though you’d never see in a million years. Keep quoting Cabaret, Berlin, Burroughs, J.G. Ballard, Duchamp, Beauvoir, Kerouac, Kierkegaard, Michael Rennie. I don’t believe you really like Frank Sinatra.
Dear Robin,
You’re always so happy, how the hell do you get your inspiration? You’re like a dumb patriot. If you’re supposed to be so angry, why don’t you fight and let me benefit from your right? Don’t you know the only way to change things is to shoot men who arrange things?
Dear Robin,
I would explain but you’d never see in a million years. Well, you’ve made your rules, but we don’t know that game, perhaps I’d listen to your records but your logic’s far too lame and I’d only waste three valuable minutes of my life with your insincerity.
You see Robin, I’m just searching for the young soul rebels, and I can’t find them anywhere. Where have you hidden them?
…at a function to thank police involved in the APEC operation yesterday, Mr Howard expressed his complete support of all police actions. “I think the Commissioner has done a first class job. A decision was clearly taken – the right decision – that pre-emptive and forward action was better than retaliation and, Commissioner, it worked brilliantly, it really did.” The Premier, Morris Iemma, said police acted appropriately and declared “mission accomplished”. “It could not have happened without the extraordinary level of professionalism,” he said.
And in Wellington [correction: Tamakimakaurau (Auckland)], Aotearoa / New Zealand…
On Sunday September 9 @ 9.30am, two police officers arrived at A Space Inside social centre, on Symonds Street, and arrested one activist for alleged breach of bail conditions in relation to Saturday’s demonstration against the detention of Iranian asylum seekers in Mt Eden prison. When other activists came to his aid, the police sprayed several people in the eyes with pepper spray. According to witnesses, the police did not have a warrant. The arrested activist was beaten by police once he was taken outside the building and was then taken to a police station.
Well, it took a while — about six months or so — but I suppose it was really only a matter of time before Israeli police arrested some of the young neo-Nazis living and organising among the Russian diaspora in Petah Tikva, Israel. Typically, the group (allegedly) specialised in assaulting vulnerable individuals: foreigners, ‘gay’ people, religious Jews, and punks. Although — again, typically — attacks on the latter group are barely reported; this despite the fact that the punks in question come from the same background, but are anti-fascist, and are therefore probably in the best position to tackle the problem. Unlike say, Melbourne fashion punks. Quite the reverse, in fact. For example, on September 29, No Idea, Sewer Cider and The Worst will be scabbing on a boycott of local neo-Nazi venue The Birmy, on this occasion as part of the annual Melbourne punk pub crawl (to neo-Nazism). Coincidentally, at the same time as Moti Katz was writing about the Russian-Israeli punks in question — We’re not Nazis, we’re punk-anarchists, Ha’aretz, February 28, 2007 — other scabs (The Blurters, Charter 77, PBG and Slick 46) were also preparing to play The Birmy. Thus on the one hand, punks in Israel battle stereotypes that Russian immigrant youth are all violent racist thugs — and are assaulted by the thugs in question for their troubles; on the other hand, Melbourne punks support a venue which for many years has happily played host to violent racist thugs — and the thugs in question sit back and laugh.
The Interior Ministry said Sunday that it would consider revoking the citizenship of eight teens suspected of running a neo-Nazi cell in Petah Tikva, if they are convicted.
The suspects, aged 17 to 19, confessed to assaulting dozens of people, mainly foreign workers around Tel Aviv’s central bus station and Carmel market, causing many of them serious injury. The eight were arrested a month ago, and a gag order on the arrest was lifted Saturday.
According to police, the neo-Nazi cell comprised individuals who have distant ties to Judaism and nonetheless immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union under the Law of Return, which grants all Jews the right to immigrate.
…
Police have seized 5 kilograms of explosives, a pistol, and an M-16 assault rifle belonging to the group of neo-Nazi youths. Police believe the group intended to use the weapons against punk rockers in the city, with whom they often clash violently.
Six of the eight suspects have confessed to the charges against them, while two reported ringleaders of the group have professed their innocence. One of the reported leaders Eli Boanitov was quoted by police as saying, “I won’t ever give up, I was a Nazi and I will stay a Nazi, until we kill them all I will not rest.”
Police confirmed that the majority of the suspects were enrolled in Israeli public schools, and at least one was drafted into the army. Police suspect that the youth who was drafted fled the country after giving his army-issue M-16 to a member of the cell.
Police uncovered the cell a year ago, while investigating vandalism at the main synagogue in Petah Tikva, where neo-Nazis sprayed swastikas and Adolf Hitler’s name on walls and prayer books. Computers seized from two suspects arrested in that case led police to dozens of video files documenting brutal assaults on foreign workers.
…
Superintendent Revital Almog… said that the teens would deliberately select victims who they deemed too weak to complain. Most of them were foreign workers who the teenagers would attack, telling them that because they were not white, they would be harmed.
‘Victim of white supremacist abuse returns to join protest chorus’
Marika Dobbin Melbourne Times
October 18, 2006
A LOCAL woman who was intimidated and racially abused by a group of men last month will attend a protest against neo-Nazism outside a Fitzroy pub. A coalition of local groups is organising the “peace movement” in response to a neo-Nazi concert at the Birmingham Hotel on Saturday, September 23, held to commemorate the death of British white supremacist Ian Stuart. Blondien (not her real name) says she was walking alone to her car on Johnston Street the same night when she was surrounded by about seven men. She says the men screamed abuse at her, calling her a black c..t and forcing her to repeat the insults. “It’s disgusting that people would single out one person and you have to say stuff about your race to get out of it,” Blondien said…
One video shows some of the teens surrounding a young Russian heroin addict, who admits he is Jewish. Later they order him to get down on his knees and beg forgiveness from the Russian people for being Jewish and a junky. They beat him mercilessly, along with another man who comes to his aid.
The group was also reportedly planning to celebrate Hitler’s birthday at Yad Vashem.
Further:
Suspected neo-Nazis remanded; indictments expected Monday
Roni Singer-Heruti, Anshel Pfeffer and Yair Ettinger Ha’aretz
September 10, 2007
Eight young men suspected of neo-Nazi activities were remanded to custody for another three days by the Ramle Magistrate’s Court Sunday. They are expected to be indicted Monday in the Tel Aviv District Court.
The eight cannot actually be charged with neo-Nazi activities, because, paradoxically, such activities are not illegal under Israeli law. However, they will be charged with incitement to racism, causing grievous bodily harm and various other crimes.
Handcuffed and covering their faces, the eight arrived at the court Sunday to find a large crowd waiting, shouting abuse and spitting.
“It is not us in the photos,” shouted Arik Bunyatov, who is suspected of being the leader of the neo-Nazi cell, in response. “I am not a Nazi!”
The other suspects, however, have admitted to being involved in neo-Nazi activities, police investigators said. They are Iliya Bondenko, 21, from Petah Tikva; Alex Flich, 19, from Karnei Shomron; Kyril Bolenko, 18, from Holon; Vladimir Nizovadze, 18, from Bat Yam; and three minors aged 16 and 17 from Petah Tikva, whose identities are protected by law.
…
The police investigation into the alleged neo-Nazi cell began a year ago, following two incidents of vandalism against Petah Tikva synagogues. The investigation focused on two main suspects: Bunyatov and Bondenko. Police detectives found neo-Nazi materials on both their computers, and this expanded the probe into new directions.
“The materials we found were difficult to watch,” the head of the investigation, Superintendent Yigal Ben Shalom, said Sunday. The video clips found on the computers showed the suspects, along with other people dressed in typical [bonehead] clothes, in the process of assaulting their victims.
These videos led detectives working on the case to suspect that the gang had attacked dozens of people in the Tel Aviv area, mostly foreign workers and drug addicts. In one video, they are seen approaching a foreign worker as he is talking on a public telephone, punching him in the face and breaking a bottle over his head. Violently loud music accompanies each clip, and between segments, the suspects spliced swastikas and other Nazi symbols…
Ahmed Tibi, an Arab Israeli member of the Knesset, said that the case illustrated the absurdity of Israeli laws which give extensive rights to newcomers from Russia while denying them to Arab residents who had lived in the region for generations. ~ Israeli neo-Nazi ring caught after attacks on synagogues, Conal Urquhart in Jerusalem, The Guardian, September 10, 2007
Hmmm. All of which sounds strangely familiar. In Perth in 2005, a small gang of neo-Nazis called the White Devils also vandalised a synagaogue (in addition to a Chinese restaurant and a war widows’ retirement village), but stopped short of assaulting anyone. They also denied being neo-Nazis; most spectacularly, Ben Weerheym denied being a member of Jack Van Tongeren’s Australian Nationalists Movement, and it was this lie which was one of the factors which helped him — unlike his comrades — receive a non-custodial sentence. As for videos of racist violence supplemented by a soundtrack, local boy James Newman done that, taking video footage of the Cronulla pogrom and adding some God-awful tunes by Skrewdriver. Speaking of Skrewdriver…
On October 13, REAL! LIVE! neo-Nazis will be assembling in Melbourne to commemorate the death of its vocalist Ian Stuart Donaldson. Now, you might think that, with the recent apparent upsurge in anti-Semitic assaults in Melbourne, the appearance of a cluster of neo-Nazis at the APEC summit protest in Sydney, the upsurge in (long-standing) violent fascist movements in Germany and Russia (accompanied, in the latter case, by the filmed ritual beheading and shooting to death of two unlucky non-Slavs), the support of a number of local ‘punk’ bands for a neo-Nazi venue (which, like the group of unlucky boneheads were only planning on doing, was actually the venue for a party and a gig to celebrate Hitler’s birthday), the actual celebration of Hitler’s birthday in Wellington by a band from Newcastle (organised, incidentally, by the same networks that are organising the gig on October 13 in Melbourne, one of which, Blood & Honour, is banned in Germany and Spain), the extremely belated recognition in an article in The Age last week that neo-Nazis use music and events such as this gig to recruit followers, or even the fact that both Myspace and Youtube are crawling with neo-Nazis and neo-Nazi propaganda, or the fact that a local right-wing ‘skinhead’ band has a bona fide neo-Nazi playing drums… that all of this might elicit some further public scrutiny and perhaps even media attention.
After Sydney hosted the 2000 Olympics, a compelling case could be made for holding the games in the city every four years, such was the panache and energy which pulsated through its staging. After Apec, most Sydneysiders are saying “Never again”. One of them is Christopher Brown, the normally good-humoured head of TTF Australia, a powerful tourism and transport lobby group which had lent strong support to Sydney’s hosting of the 21 Pacific Rim leaders. Like many, he is incensed by what he regards as the needlessly aggressive and restrictive policing, which carried a heftier security price tag than the 16-day-long Olympics and led to the construction of the 5km (three mile) “great wall of Sydney”. “I’m so embarrassed and annoyed. Where was the sense of proportion? We replaced Olympic volunteers with riot squads,” he says. “Somebody in the security operation got very carried away with their own self-importance, and nobody in the state or federal government counterbalanced them. It was totally and utterly disproportionate.”
‘Iron fist’
Consider the experience of Greg McLeay, a 52-year-old accountant and father of three. On Friday, with his 11-year-old son looking on, he was arrested by the police in the central business district. Thrown in jail under special Apec powers which allowed the police to hold people without bail, he was strip-searched and forced to spend the night locked up with a drug addict. His offence? Crossing the road incorrectly during Apec near a cordoned-off area.
See also : Matthew Benns, Jailed for jaywalking, Sydney Morning Herald, September 8, 2007; Commissioner defends APEC arrest of 52yo dad, ABC NSW, September 9, 2007: “New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione has defended officers who arrested a 52-year-old man after he walked in front of an APEC motorcade on Friday. The Commissioner says accountant Greg McLeay was arrested after he allegedly assaulted a police officer.”
From demonstrations of its new high-powered water cannon to night-time exercises involving riot police, the New South Wales police were determined to show they were ready for large-scale protests with the possibility of turning violent. But had they war-gamed against the wrong kind of protests?
In court this week, when they successfully persuaded a judge to re-route the largest protest march of the week, they argued 20,000 demonstrators would turn up. In the end, though, only about 5,000 showed up, taking part in an overwhelmingly peaceful protest. Similarly, they had cleared hundreds of prison cells, in anticipation of filling them with protesters. In the end, there were 17 arrests. Two police officers were injured – one was hit by a dart.
At the tail-end of the protest on Saturday, many marchers and journalists were mystified by the appearance of riot squads, backed up with the ominous presence of the water cannon. As the Sun-Herald noted: “Police ruled Sydney’s streets with an iron fist.” But the paper’s headline “Police Rule” could just as easily have read “Overkill”. “They had geared up for so much trouble, it almost became a self-fulfilling prophecy,” says Christopher Brown.
Police under fire
For many Sydneysiders, comedians from the already popular The Chasers War on Everything have become folk heroes – they managed to breach the million-dollar security set-up with a few shiny black hire cars, some wrap-around sunglasses, a few fake passes, a colour printer and a handful of bonnet-mounted Canadian and Australian flags. Almost 5,000 New South Wales police officers, 1,500 defence personnel, 450 federal police, teams of sharp-shooters, patrol boats zipping across the harbour, Black Helicopters swooping above – all upstaged by 11 members of a TV comedy show.
This is not the first time in recent months that the Australian police have copped an enormous amount of flak. There was the fumbling handling of the Mohamed Haneef case, which involved an Indian doctor arrested and then released over the failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow. The Australian Federal Police were labelled the “Keystone Cops”, by no less a figure than the state premier of Queensland.
Similarly, this is not the first time that the authorities have been criticised for over-zealous policing. Ahead of the Ashes tour by the England cricket team, Morris Iemma wrote to the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair asking him to identify known hooligans travelling with the “Barmy Army”. Then there were the decisions to ban the Barmy Army’s trumpeter and ban Mexican waves – all of which seemed like the over-enforcement of the “Killjoy Act”.
After the Melbourne tour by the Arterial Bloc, another lying politician, Mick Armstrong of Socialist Alternative, wrote an open letter to the left, claiming that he knew of the culpability of not only English football hooligans but hooligans from Germany and Sweden for what he termed the ‘ultra-violence’ at the G20 protest last November. He asked the left to “offer no comfort to these crazies” and to help he and his revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat “do whatever we can to isolate them”. Mick also claimed that he was able to identify at least 20 anarchists from New Zealand / Aotearoa present at the protest by name.
Prime Minister John HoWARd, a proud Sydneysider himself, may pay a political price for Apec, even though many of the security arrangements were put in place by the Labor-controlled New South Wales state government. Trailing badly in the polls, he hoped the summit would boost him ahead of the upcoming federal election. With the signing of the Sydney Declaration, a rather vague statement on cutting greenhouse emissions, improving energy intensity and increasing forestation, John Howard has gained some much-needed green credentials – even if environmentalists [for example, Greenpeace] claim the statement is largely worthless because its targets are non-binding. But he has also done a very dangerous thing: hosted and been the figurehead of a summit which was deeply unpopular with the residents of Australia’s largest city, where his own increasingly marginal constituency resides.
“FITTINGLY, it was Collingwood skipper Nathan Buckley who kicked the sealer with only five minutes gone in the final term at the MCG last night to book the Magpies a place in the second semi-final against a depleted West Coast…”
“…The tone of last night’s match was set at the nine-minute mark of the first quarter, when Josh Fraser threw himself desperately at Barry as he embarked on one of his trademark runs out of defence, and caught him. The resultant free kick led to a goal for Cameron Cloke, the first of six in a row for the Magpies. Soon afterwards, Anthony Rocca similarly crushed the escaping Paul Bevan. From then on, Sydney’s hours in season 2007 were numbered…”
‘…”The boys put the ball in the spot where I could lead on to it, and take some marks,” said the modest veteran after the game. “We play really well, a great team effort. It’s going to be a big task next week (against West Coast in Perth) but it’s going to be on.” It’s another team the Magpies have troubled, if the Rocca barometer reading is as accurate as usual.’
“Sean Rusling might just be Collingwood’s ace in the hole for the AFL finals. The 20-year-old played a key role in Saturday night’s comprehensive 38-point victory over Sydney in the elimination final….”
I’ve just got off the bat phone to a drunken Agent Gerbil, who assures me that this time, the following footage of yesterday’s New Reich formation at the APEC rally and march is indeed genuine.
I’ve just got off the bat phone to a drunken Agent Gerbil, who assures me that the following footage of yesterday’s New Reich formation at the APEC rally and march is indeed genuine.
Following on from the earlier decision by three Justices of the NSW Supreme Court not to allow three (suspected) terrorists to walk along certain streets in Sydney comes this further blow for Truth, Justice and the American President’s Right-of-Way:
Police swoop on ‘wheelie bin boom box’
Sean Cusick ninemsn
September 8, 2007
As the APEC protest in the heart of Sydney wound down without major incident, one activist was receiving what he regarded to be more than his fair share of police attention. Chris Ward took a wheelie bin converted into a stereo to the march — and the contraption caught the attention of the gathered security forces. “I’ve been searched three times today for having a wheelie bin sound system,” Mr Ward said. “As you can see, there’s [nothing] in it but speakers, an amplifier and a battery.” Mr Ward says he was searched for half an hour on each occasion, and once extra police had to be called in after a crowd of activists surrounded the search team.
Police within the Sydney CBD have special APEC powers which allow them to detain and search anyone without cause. Dale Mills, a “Human Rights Monitor” present at the march, described the search as an overreaction. “In my opinion, that was just an illegal search,” Mr Mills said. “That’s the sort of aggressive attitude … that provokes problems at protests.”
Still, while the protest as a whole was characterised by the absence of any physical confrontations with police, converting Tinsel Town into Pig City has had the inevitable consequences: for others. At this stage, perhaps 17 or 18 individuals have been arrested by police, and charged with the usual assortment of infractions, none of which have, to this point — and despite the mountains of propaganda spewed forth by the police / state and ideological state apparatus — involved the rape and/or murder of large numbers of innocent civilians. (Unlike, say, the War on Terror™. In Iraq. Or Chechnya. Or by way of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Or…) Or as riot squad commander Steven Cullen told Sydney’s Supreme Court: “Police lines will come under attack”. As it happens, the closest this came to being true was the apparent use of a dart and an iron bar, by one protester, against one member of the rent-a-mob.
According to Evelyn Yamine in The Daily Terror (Rioter ‘threw dart at skull’, September 10, 2007), a 40 year-old named Gavin George Begbie “is facing 12 charges over the alleged attack on police officers in Sydney during Saturday’s demonstrations”; namely, he “threw a metal-tip dart into a police officer’s skull before attacking other officers with a metal pole”. Maybe Gavin thought the police officer in question was a member of The Village People?
There is a lot of intellectual waffle used in this tiresome campaign to try to get the average citizen to accept the idea that it is normal, even acceptable, for gays to marry and have children. I’m sure that most people would agree that there is in fact something very fundamentally wrong with this idea. If asked, I’m sure that they would say that on an intuitive level those who also harbour these ideas are bordering on mental disturbance.
~ Gavin Begbie, Byron Bay, The Northern Rivers Echo, December 21, 2006
No doubt more details of this offence will emerge as police proceed to feed the waiting chooks.
Note that Cullen claimed that the prospect of chaos on the streets of Sydney was what justified the police application to the courts — smugly agreed upon by the three liberal Justices — to prevent a number of citizens from attending today’s protests without being immediately arrested. Alex Bainbridge, spokesperson for the DSP’s Stop Bush coalition — obviously not a big music fan — is reported to have praised police for their conduct:
Mr Bainbridge said protest organisers did not take issue with the way police conducted themselves. “On the whole, we don’t have big problems, but we think the security operation which today they were a part of, has been exaggerated and overblown.”
On the other hand:
Mr Scipione said he was not aware of any issue with police failing to wear ID badges, as had been alleged by some protesters. No direction had been given for them not to wear ID, but it was something that would be looked into, Mr Scipione said.
Which is the standard li(n)e used by police, for whom this has become standard practice at any event at which they may decide to employ violence and to assault The People What Cause Unrest (AAP, Police show force at APEC, 17 arrests, Sydney Morning Herald, September 8, 2007).
Finally — and rather oddly — Miranda Devine, of all people, recounts the rather extraordinary “FORCIBLE arrest, handcuffing and jailing of a respectable, bespectacled, middle-aged accountant in a Hawaiian shirt” (Pumped-up cops are stepping over the thin blue line, Sydney Morning Herald, September 9, 2007) which is worth reading, especially for this line: ‘You can see police dragging Greg face-down onto the footpath. One is yelling: “Stop resisting! Stop resisting!”‘
Devine a critic of police brutality? Hardly. “Greg [the accountant/terrorist in question] and [his missus] Sophie are my friends of 14 years. My husband and I are godparents to their daughter, Isadora, 3.”
Ooops.
See also : Matthew Benns, Jailed for jaywalking, Sydney Morning Herald, September 9, 2007
Nazis. Neo-Nazis.
In an ironic twist (that will be completely lost on the hacks working for the state and corporate sector), the only mob threatening or — more precisely — playing on the spectre of violence, was a small group of fascists dressed as ‘anarchists’, who took advantage of the absolutely massive police state presence to carry banners reading ‘Australia, Free Nation or Sheep Station?’, ‘Globalisation is Genocide!’ and ‘Power to the People — Not Political Parties’ and to look — as the Very Reverend Monsignor Geoffrey Baron might say — like sfools.
Thus, in addition to attracting somewhere between 3 and 10,000 people to the rally and march organised by the leftist Stop Bush coalition, in Sydney this morning the APEC summit also attracted a small number (between 20 and 30) of neo-Nazis. The fascist mob was tightly formed, dressed in black, and their clothing was intended to disguise their faces. In other words, the fascists formed a small ‘black bloc’. On Stormfront, a poster writes that:
I was just sent this PM by someone who claims to have been at the APEC demo as part of the [New Right] contingent:
“[N]one of us were arrested. [T]he police surrounded us not because we were a threat, but to protect us from the sea of [M]arxist sewerage around us. We co-operated with police instruction[s] at all times and we left as they brought up the riot squad and the water cannon because the red scum were causing trouble further up in the march.
I tell you the truth, we hurt them more today just by being there [than] any amount of physical confrontation. It was like one of those old horror movies when somebody sprays a vampire with holy water[;] they were foaming and writhing because of us, because our cause is righteous.
At one point they started chanting about fascists or something, so we chanted back, calling them [N]azis[. T]his had them most confused[;] they stared us with a vacant, [slack-jawed] look and had to retreat and started chanting further away from us.
There were so many people we wanted to hit today, but everybody ignored their childish provocations[. W]ell done to those who attended and congratulations to the New Right for organising this ground-breaking step forward in Australian Nationalism.”
At the start of the march, police became concerned when a group of anarchists clashed with neo-Nazi protesters who had gathered at the back of the kilometre-long protest gathering in the heart of the city. Rows of police were ordered to surround the neo-Nazis and told to arrest anyone who acted violently.
In the Sydney Morning Herald, Danielle Teutsch and Daniel Dasey state (Protesters no match as police rule streets, September 9, 2007) “A group of about 20 black-garbed men were separated from the rally by police after protesters accused them of being neo-Nazis intent on provocation.”
So, hardly an unmitigated triumph — the neo-Nazis were soon sussed — but still a success as far as the New Reich / Notional-Anarchists are concerned. After all, they managed to use the platform provided by the protest to announce their existence to the world (as far as I’m aware, this is their first organised attendance at a public protest) and to escape unscathed, job done. Whether or not this ‘intervention’ will mean others begin to pay them any more attention is difficult to say. I suspect not. On the other hand, I think, especially given the near-total collapse of the Australia First Party, the group will quite possibly attract more support from existing elements of the far right, and come to constitute an early twenty-first century version of National Action, and to fill the same niche NA did in terms of constituting an extra-parliamentary radical right-wing organisation. The ‘left’ in Sydney, meanwhile, will most likely remain inactive and largely clueless, at least until such time as they believe themselves standing more to gain from confronting the neo-Nazis than they do to lose.
Business as usual, in other words.
See also : APEC protests: Richard’s observer’s report, Webdiary, September 8: “The Australian Police are tonight saying that they averted violence. Actually they attempted to create it. I think their ultimate aim was to clear a public park of happy celebrants of democracy before the Chinese convoy retired to the pub across the road from Hyde Park…” Listen to : The Zimmermen, ‘Don’t Go To Sydney’ (Au-go-go, ANDA 41, 1985).
INTERSTATE prostitutes were brought into Sydney to help service the 300 per cent spike in brothel business during APEC, the Adult Business Association (ABA) says. APEC-themed specials on offer at Sydney brothels included the Condi Combo, the UN Duo and the Presidential Platter. “It’s been going gangbusters,” NSW spokesman for the ABA Chris Seage told Fairfax newspapers. “Businesses that were banking on a 200 per cent increase in business have done better than that with it up by 300 per cent. “There have been secret service agents, trade envoys, but no Putins yet.” Mr Seage said suburban brothels were also getting extra work from locals deciding to stay closer to home during APEC.
Word on the streets of Sydney is that the New Reich (‘New Right’) has gathered together a mob and is distributing fascist propaganda under the guise of ‘national anarchism’. Under the watchful gaze of ex-NPD and ex-ONP member Welf Herfurth (a German businessman who relocated to Sydney in 1987), the group is present at the APEC summit demonstrations, where it is distributing (or attempting to distribute) anti-anarchist propaganda.
Cheeky!
More details later. In the meantime, a garbled account is available via:
APEC protesters confront police / Arrests, injuries during APEC march / Blah blah blah
Ean Higgins [and Dan Box and Godwin knows who else] The Australian
September 08, 2007
PROTESTERS at APEC gathered in pouring rain and police were bracing for expected violence by dissident groups today.
The protesters gathered outside Sydney’s Town Hall station this morning.
As they prepared to march, police formed a solid line three deep to block off George Street.
Behind them, four police buses blocked George, their wheels covered with steel grates.
Police started forming lines confronting the [Notional Anarchist] group.
A police officer told his men, “This is the trouble here, these are the ones who are violent.”
There were about 30 of the [Notional Anarchists], who described themselves as the New Right, all dressed in black hooded jackets. Some of the group wore dark sunglasses and all had bandanas around their faces…
The silly wankers didn’t take part in the march, apparently, preferring to scurry off home early. News reports also suggest that one of the wallies may have been arrested; then again, news reports also claimed Sydney would be on fire by this stage.
In other news, as predicted, in addition to luxury accommodation, meals, inner Sydney and a police state, the 21 heads of state have been given Driza-Bones and Akubras in which to have their $105,000 holiday snaps taken:
World leaders to receive Driza-Bones AAP
September 8, 2007
Sydney’s official APEC outfit has been revealed – tailor-made, knee-length Driza-Bone coats made of the original brown material and spiced up with a contrasting colour for each of the 21 world leaders.
The leaders are about to walk out on to the steps of the Opera House for their official photograph in the national costume, chosen by Prime Minister John Howard and his wife Janette.
The so-called “silly shirt” is the highlight of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ meeting, with host nations over the years choosing outfits from batik shirts to silk coats to wear in the official photograph.
Most pundits had expected Mr and Mrs Howard to choose a Driza-Bone – the iconic Australian stockman’s attire – for the outfit.
Each leader has been given a choice of contrast colours for their coat from the range of slate blue, mustard yellow, red ochre and eucalyptus green.
The jackets have the APEC logo embroidered on them and each leader will also be given an Akubra felt hat.
They dined on an entree of barramundi with endives, mushrooms, pearl of vegetables, yabbies and scallops, followed by roasted saddle of lamb with field mushrooms, kipfler potatoes, confit of tomato and thyme jus.
Lunch was to end with a selection of Australian fruit and cheese.
*Review from the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide 2007
Guillaume at Bennelong
18/20
Three-hat restaurant
Good Wine list
“Surrender to the world-class view, to an iconic masterpiece from a Danish legend and to legendary food from a French master. Guillaume Brahimi delivers a decadent, Dionysian experience that makes this site a modern wonder for reasons culinary as well as architectural. A recent make-over has made it all the more spectacular. Feasting under the Opera House’s cavernous concrete ribs can feel surreal and perhaps the food can be a little too rib-stickingly rich, but this is true fine-dining theatre. Roasted marron wrapped in proscuitto with risotto, veal jus and truffle is comfort food for kings. Kangaroo Island chicken breast is breathtakingly moist beneath a crisp skin, with duck foie gras ravioli. Whole books could be written about the huge wagyu beef rib eye for two, cooked on the bone and served with field mushrooms and merlot sauce – plus that wonderfully, wickedly rich Paris mash. Superb service under Craig Hemmings and sommelier Stuart Halliday high wires between expert and charming. Grand Marnier souffle with chocolate sorbet is a symphonic finale.”
The beginning of the end for the Government of Australian Tory Prime Minister John HoWARd was in April, when the multi-millionaire leader of the Opposition Kevin Rudd (Opposition being a purely formal expression in this case) received Rupert Murdoch’s blessing to become his new regional manager in Australia. Confirmation of the end, however, has come with United States’ CEO George W Bush’s description of HoWARd as his “battler buddy” (Big John is Bush’s ‘battler’ buddy, AAP/AP, Sydney Morning Herald, September 7, 2007); the shift from ‘deputy sheriff’ to this less formal term a reflection, perhaps, of the growing affection Bush has for his loyal Australian ‘mate’. Unfortunately, while the Australian public, after 11 years of largely uncontested rule, has little regard for HoWARd, it has even less for Bush. Thus according to a Galaxy Poll commissioned by the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, 52% of Australians believe George to be the worst US President in history.
Not content with being a grossly unpopular and massively expensive inconvenience, however, Bush has taken the opportunity of the, er, ‘APEC’ summit, to further confirm widespread speculation that, somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot. Thus according to The Times:
President Bush not only muddled the international meeting he was attending this week – he also thought he was on the other side of the world. Speaking in Sydney at the Asia Pacific Economic Council (Apec) summit of world leaders, Mr Bush thanked “Austrian” Prime Minister, John Howard, in front of a summit of business leaders, for being a gracious “Opec” host…
Toward the end of his speech Mr Bush turned towards the Australian Prime Minister and thanked him for being such a gracious host during the “Opec” summit. Almost immediately realising his mistake, Mr Bush corrected himself, saying: “I mean the Apec summit.” He then said: “I have been invited to the Opec summit next year. The Apec summit.” The stumble brought good-natured laughter from the audience of top business leaders from Asian and Pacific rim nations. But White House officials accompanying Mr Bush in Sydney later said that the President had not been invited to the summit of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) next year. And no it was not another gaffe, they said, he had been joking. As if that was not enough though, Mr Bush also botched the host country’s name, referring to Mr Howard’s visit to Iraq in 2006 as a thank you to “the Austrian troops there”…
Bush’s gaffes echo one rather embarrassing — for HoWARd — admission George made four years ago. In February 2003, Bush announced that Australian troops would be joining his ‘Coalition of the Killing’ in the commission of war crimes in Iraq. This was embarrassment — and how — for the battler buddy, as at that point HoWARd had failed to inform the Australian people of the President’s — which is to say the Deputy Sheriff’s — decision.
In the eastern state of Saxony in Germany, according to a recent poll, the social democratic SPD is even less popular than the neo-Nazi NPD (Spiegel Online, September 7, 2007). While supposedly ‘shocking’ news, it should be read keeping in mind that Saxony has long been a stronghold for the far right, and in acknowledgement of the embrace of neo-liberal ideology by the SPD. In fact, a similar situation could easily (re-)emerge in Australia, especially after the ALP demonstrates its own similarity to the Tories after it wins office at the next Federal election.
Speaking of Australia — and neo-Nazism — Andrew McCathie, writing in The Age, claims that “GERMANY’S neo-Nazi movement has discovered a new and powerful instrument to communicate its vicious and violent message: music” (Neo-Nazis use music to spread vicious message, September 8, 2007). McCathie further claims that “Despite being banned in Germany, music from neo-Nazi groups such as Landser (Foot Soldier), Race War, Power and Honour pump out often shoddily produced CDs”.
A few points:
First, the German far right has been using music as propaganda, and as a means to recruit alienated white male youths as foot soldiers, for decades. In fact, one of the world’s leading racist, right-wing labels, Rock-O-Rama, was (re-)established in Germany by German fascist businessman Herbert Egoldt over 20 years ago. When that label was forced to fold in 1994, Hebert helped to establish another label in Belgium, Pure Impact, which continues to distribute racist and fascist musical product throughout Europe and the world. Secondly, while the production and distribution of overtly neo-Nazi music in Germany is under a formal ban, the largest market for US-based producers and distributors of same is Germany, and has been since a major crackdown in the mid-’90s. So, nothing really all that newsworthy in this sense. Finally, while Landser is indeed a well-known neo-Nazi not-so-pop group, I think by ‘Power and Honour’ McCathie actually means to refer to ‘Blood & Honour’, the international neo-Nazi network…
More to the point, while B&H is banned in Germany (and Spain), in Australia, it’s been organising semi-annual gatherings for well over a decade. In 2006, for example, B&H organised a gig to commemorate the death of B&H founder Ian Stuart Donaldson at a Fitzroy pub, The Birmingham Hotel. On the night of the gig, a local woman was assaulted by some of those in attendance. This year, the gig is scheduled to take place just five weeks from now, on Saturday, October 13. Performing at the gig will be an as-yet undisclosed act from either Europe or possibly North America, but also, and most interestingly, a local, Melbourne band called Fortress (led by Scott McGuinness) and another, seminal neo-Nazi rock band called Quick & the Dead. “Interestingly” because within fascist circles at least, Fortress has been extremely popular, especially in Germany, and played many times to thousands of adoring boneheads. Further, the band has announced that this will be their final show. The prospect of a performance by the Quick & the Dead, on the other hand, is interesting because it was the first neo-Nazi skinhead (bonehead) band to form in (Perth) Australia back in the early 1980s; secondly, because one of its members, Murray Holmes, also played with Skrewdriver — without doubt the most infamous neo-Nazi rock ‘n’ roll band of all time, and in many ways the group responsible for kick-starting the movement as a whole.
Unfortunately, to this point, the only corporate/state media coverage the issue has received in Australia of late has been confined to a handful of articles in The Melbourne Times (also a Fairfax publication) regarding last year’s ISD gig. The inroads that fascist, neo-Nazi, and racist ideology is making into the local punk subculture — whether in Melbourne, Sydney or Perth — has subsequently been completely ignored, and a number of attempts to gather opposition to this development met with either hostility or only token, and largely covert, expressions of support. Thus The Birmy continues to host ‘punk’ bands, local ‘punk’ distros continue to sell neo-Nazi music, and even local ‘skinhead’ bands — most prominently, Bulldog Spirit — continue to contain neo-Nazi members. (And the problem of neo-Nazi infiltration into local punk and skinhead subcultures is also mirrored in the local heavy metal milieu, where a very similar, and profoundly conservative, political ethic dominates.)
You wouldn’t read about it.
You can, however, read about the ways in which boneheads are happy to return the favour if their activities are tolerated, and/or, as in this case, prove to be useful to the state.
Skinhead Russia
Anton Grishin Moscow News
September 6, 2007
Few things can shock society today. One of them was a video recently posted on the Internet that appears to show the execution of two men. The three-minute clip, posted by a LiveJournal.com user, signed “antigipsyone,” on August 12, shows a Dagestani (from the North Caucasus) and a Tajik (from Central Asia) kneeling on the ground with their arms and legs tied up. A swastika is displayed in the background. “We were arrested by Russian national socialists,” they say in voices trembling with fear, after which one of them is beheaded and the other is shot in the back of the head.
Police investigators are currently examining whether the video showed a real or staged execution. Preliminary examination suggested that it was probably staged. Whatever the case, the video highlighted the neo-Nazi threat in Russia.
A Strange Legacy
Russia’s skinhead movement appeared in the early 1990s, amidst that era’s social and economic turmoil. As often happens, a subculture that comes from the West changes beyond recognition in Russia, and that was true for the skinheads.
The past year saw a record number of crimes that law enforcement agencies blamed on skinheads. An attack on an environmental camp in southeast Siberia, which left one person dead and seven injured, and that grisly video both occurred in the past two months alone. But during the year there [have been] other murders, pogroms, raids, and provocations. The authorities and society as a whole are confronted with the question of how to stop a force that is gaining momentum all the time.
In the 1970s, both neo-Nazi and anti-Nazi organizations in the UK and the United States looked on skinheads as potential cannon fodder. Youth culture, unencumbered by any bans and ready to follow any shiny new idea, started developing along several lines. The Neo-Nazis came to be known as boneheads, while those skinheads who identified with the original 1960s skinhead subculture divided into anti-Nazis and anarchists.
The anti-Nazi movement became known as SHARP (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice). The anarchist movement developed into RASH (Red and Anarchist Skinheads), a left-wing anti-racist, anti-fascist skinhead group.
Well… sorta…
The history of the early skinhead movements shows that boneheads in particular became victims of political games. Exploiting youth culture’s responsiveness to new ideas for political purposes is a common practice. And only fascists were able to unite a critical mass of skinheads under a single flag.
Today, proactive, assertive anti-Nazi propaganda in Europe and North America has had a positive effect: fascism as an ideology failed to acquire a following large enough to cause yet another social crisis.
Skinheads a la Russe
The breakup of the Soviet Union and the subsequent crisis created a generally negative psychological environment for many people but also an ideological vacuum that emerged with the collapse of the Communist ideal, which could be considered a national idea. Since nature abhors a vacuum, it was filled with trendy borrowings from the West. Young men with shaved heads appeared in Moscow together with the first democrats. In 1992, they numbered in the dozens.
Yet by 1994, there were already thousands of skinheads. The reason was not just the social crisis but also the position of the ruling establishment, which showed that violence is a legitimate option in any dispute. The start of the military campaign in Chechnya strengthened the nationalist mood among teenagers. An external enemy was found, and many thousands of school-age people were ready to follow the “Russia for Russians!” slogan.
Ignorance and resentment, as well as the scaling down of anti-Nazi propaganda, were major factors that contributed to the evolution of the “Russian skinhead.” This type had nothing to do with traditional skinheads or SHARPs or [RASHes]. The majority of Russian skinheads became boneheads – extremely nationalist skinheads, advocating violence and racial intolerance.
As in the UK, neo-Nazis needed a social group from which to recruit new members. Aggressive soccer fans were an ideal recruiting ground. First, many were already accustomed to violence. Second, educational levels among them are generally very low. Many soccer hooligans eventually [came] to embrace neo-Nazi ideas.
Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies categorically refused to treat crimes committed by boneheads as ethnically motivated, or hate crimes. The opposing force – the Russian answer to SHARPs and RASHes, which rallied under Antifa banner – was so small that it wasn’t a threat. [In Europe, especially in the UK, militant anti-fascism advocates the use of violence against fascists. Within the anti-fascist movement, the term militant anti-fascism is often used in contrast to liberal anti-fascism; fascists often use violence and depend on a physical presence in the streets, and militant anti-fascists believe that an equal counterweight is essential to stop fascism, and that fascism should be tackled by communities rather than by the state. – Ed.]
When boneheads became aware of their strength, they launched large-scale actions. That included raids on outdoor food and clothes markets, street riots in downtown Moscow during a Russia-Japan soccer match, and an ongoing wave of violence and murders.
Antifa vs. Boneheads
Until recently, the government’s efforts against the neo-Nazis produced almost no result. Putting a few dozen people behind bars is not effective. Meanwhile, representatives of the world’s major racist and neo-Nazi movements, parties and groups, such [as the] Ku Klux Klan and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (a Nazi party) were freely coming to Russia to share their experience with local youth movements. The only organization that is officially outlawed in Russia is the Russian National Unity, which disappeared years ago.
The current stage of the struggle is linked with the implementation of the Law on Countering Extremis[m]. The case of Maxim “Tesak” (“Hatchet”) Martsinkevich, the leader of Format 18, a bonehead group, appears to demonstrate that Nazi slogans may not be chanted in public. Tesak was charged with inciting ethnic hatred and threatening to commit violence during a debate organized by democratic youth groups at a Moscow club in February. Martsinkevich arrived with about 20 followers, made Nazi salutes, and threatened “to slaughter the liberals.” A Moscow court convicted three of his associates in June for the murder of a member of an anti-fascist organization.
The dual murder video footage shows that it is also against the law to spread materials fomenting ethnic hatred.
But does the realization of the extent of the problem come too late? How did Tesak’s arrest affect the boneheads? They regard him as a hero who suffered for the truth. As for the grisly video, quite a few people saw the brutal murder as a positive step in the struggle against illegal immigration.
Meanwhile, Format 18’s Web site, which featured much illegal material, was shut down through the efforts of the Antifa movement, not the authorities. But the anti-fascist movement is still regarded as unpredictable and uncontrollable, and therefore, the authorities refuse to notice it or use it in fighting neo-Nazism.
[In fact, it represses it.]
Even worse is that often it is hard to tell a bonehead from an anti-Nazi. The only distinguishing features of Antifa skinheads are an image of a Trojan warrior’s helmet on the jacket and red boot laces[?]. As for the boneheads, they use white laces and WP (White Power) and 88 (Heil Hitler) patches. It can be difficult to see these distinctive marks, especially from a bureaucrat’s armchair.
It is noteworthy that neo-Nazis in Russia are not declaring their political ambitions or attempting to put themselves on the map. Perhaps they realize that their time has not come yet. They will not have to wait very long, however, unless new, effective anti-fascism laws are adopted.
Here is yet another dark touch to an already grim picture: according to Oleg Yelnikov, the head of the Interior Ministry press service, his agency does not have reliable data on the number of skinheads in Russia. Unofficially, however, at the start of 2007, there were believed to be at least 100,000 skinheads in the RF.
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?"
