- One of the great attractions of patriotism — it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous. — Aldous Huxley
Christine Hawkins and Chris Gemmell-Smith, organisers of ‘The Great Australian Bikini March’, have updated their site with the following announcement, dated December 5:
Breaking News — Bikini March Becomes Bikini Atoll
Organisers of The Great Australian Bikini March have been forced to cancel the event due to irresponsible journalism.
During the month of the campaign, most media were respectful, reported the facts, focused on the issue[,] and agreed that publishing personal details about organisers was unnecessary.
However, during the last few days there [has] been a… smear campaign in an attempt to sensationalise or discredit us. Despite… all [our] efforts to refer misinformed journalists and ‘independent’ media to the facts via our website they continued to knowingly misrepresent the intention and details of the March. Some stated they wanted us to stop the March.
Apparently some in the media are intent that [‘The Great Australian Bikini March’] should not be allowed to proceed.
Some people are very powerful. It would appear that free speech in a ‘tolerant’ society is not tolerated.
The level of hostility against us even included [reached the level of?] verbal abuse and threats to publish our personal details. This culminated in one media outlet doing so and [thereby] placing a family at risk.
[‘The Great Australian Bikini March’] organisers reiterate that the response from the general public was overwhelmingly supportive. Aussies from all backgrounds[,] including many migrants from many different countries[,] expressed support for the views expressed [on] our website. [Some] migrants stated that they had left countries because of extremism and did not want to see it get a foothold in Australia. They feared to express… their views alone and welcomed the chance to unite to do so.
Even the one Muslim that disagreed with the March… stated that he was against [Hilali’s] statements. He did so politely and respectfully and was answered in a like fashion [by] the organisers. We only wish the media had acted [similarly].
Immediately after one ‘shock jock’ misrepresented and defamed us, his news desk followed with a statement that we were marching against the hijab. Some Muslim people were confused… and distressed by this misinformation and we received about 4 phone calls [as a result]. One of these [callers] was very emotionally volatile. We had to then inform them that this [was] not our intent[,] but the damage had already been done.
What was to have been a peaceful, moderate, legal, non-violent, council- and police-approved protest has now been gagged by threats and extreme intimidatory tactics.
A big thank you to the members of the Victoria Police and Council staff who were respectful and professional and responded well to our offers to fully co-operate… with them.
[‘The Great Australian Bikini March’] organisers have been informed that we have now [been] credited in the media with a supposed march at Lakemba this weekend [December 9/10, 2006]. In spite of numerous conversations with Sydney print media last week [stating] that we had nothing to do with any event in Sydney, it appears that they went ahead and published it anyway.
What do our supporters do now?
We are as disappointed as you are at having to make the decision to cancel the March but when [family’s] lives are placed at risk, there is no alternative.
We would encourage you to keep your protests legal, non-violent and avail yourself of all democratic avenues.
* Make this an election issue.
* Contact your local Members of Parliament. Contact Telstra for State Liberal or Labor Party Headquarters’ phone number. Ask them for your local representative in Federal Parliament.
* Hold rogue media accountable for their actions through letters to the newspapers.
* Keep caring about what happens to your country.
Ben Weerheym’s Bikini Line
I first became aware of ‘The Great Australian Bikini March’ via the blog of Perth-based convicted neo-Nazi criminal Ben Weerheym, and my first blog entry on the subject is dated November 14. (Ben Weerheym’s promotion of the event had commenced on the previous day, November 13.) His blog entry on the subject, titled ‘Bikini Babes, No Hijabs – Saturday Dec 9, 2006’, named Hawkins and Smith as the organisers, and included their mobile telephone numbers as contacts for the March. At the time, quoting the organisers (from the first of two websites dedicated to promoting the event — the first created on November 7, then closed on November 21; the second created on November 22), Weerheym wrote:
Following recent comments by the top Muslim cleric in Australia, mufti Sheik al-Hilali and Melbourne’s Sheik Omran, outraged Australian women and their male supporters will reassert Australian values by taking to the streets in a bikini march on their [m]osques on Saturday [December] 9, 2006.
Colourful beach wear is the suggested clothing [for] the day, in keeping with [our] message. Bikinis are encouraged[,] but any swimwear, summer skirts, tops [and] shorts or sarongs are also appropriate. The use of any clothing or banners bearing the Australian flag is highly recommended.
This event is proudly sponsored by True Blue Productions — a 100% Aussie-owned venture.
Subsequent investigation revealed that True Blue was owned by the “100% Aussie”, Chris Gemmell-Smith.
A subsequent blog entry by Weerheym, dated November 20, included a disclaimer, distancing himself from the organisers… and the organisers from him (at their apparent insistence). It also revealed further details of the March, including a time, an assembly point — Clifton Park — and a destination — the Islamic Information and Support Centre (the site of this Saturday’s community BBQ ‘against racism and sexual assault’).
Commenting on his blog, Hawkins complained that Weerheym was ‘hijacking’ the March. Weerheym responded by stating that he was ‘only trying to help get her message out there’: ‘out there’ meaning way out there. In fact, Weerheym took the opportunity to spam neo-Nazi sites such as Stormfront and neo-Nazi organisations such as the (US-based) National Alliance to promote the March.
Notwithstanding his own criminal record in the service of neo-Nazism, given the forums in which Weerheym chose to promote the event (“in conjunction” with his imaginary friends in his non-existent ‘Alliance’), Hawkins’ reaction is not surprising. For example, in response to Weerheym’s ‘promotional activity’, one pseudonymous Stormfront user (‘Ben Hall’) wrote: “Australian women should feel able to walk the streets of our nation without the fear of being assaulted or raped by some knuckle-dragging raghead or… mudman”. Another, Carl D. Thompson (‘Wodensvolk’), describes Muslims simply as ‘scum’. Weerheym also stated, in response to Hawkins’ expressing concern over his promotion of the event, that “If multi-culturalists and red traitors think that [the March] is “racist” then that’s their problem, we call a spade a spade and don’t artfully dodge the REAL issues at hand like the [Jewish-]controlled media does”.
Weerheym’s hatred for and suspicion of the ‘Jewish-controlled media’ appears to date from his membership of the neo-Nazi White Devils gang, and his subsequent criminal conviction, along with four of his fellow gang members, for a series of racially-motivated crimes in 2004: crimes including the spraying of a swastika on the entrance to a war widows’ retirement village in suburban Perth.
While each of his neo-Nazi comrades received custodial sentences, Weerheym received a suspended sentence, and it was shortly thereafter that he began his career as a net-Nazi; an occupation which has been keeping him busy ever since, Weerheym regularly vilifying not only Muslims and Jews, but Asians, blacks (“Negroes”), gays (“faggots”), lesbians, and all the other, usual targets of the far right’s ire. Weerheym was fortunate not to be sent to jail for his part in the vandalism of Chinese restaurants, synagogues, and the like, his non-custodial sentence partly a result of his lesser role in the gang’s vandalism spree, but also attributable to the successful denial of his membership in the ANM.
An article by Paige Taylor (The Australian, August 7, 2004) provides a useful recapitulation of this history:
A student who avoided jail over Perth’s latest race-hate crimes concealed his involvement with a terrorist group and is a white supremacist who has urged violence against Asians.
The state Director of Public Prosecutions will consider appealing the suspended jail sentence given to Benjamin Weerheym, 27, on Thursday in light of information from The Weekend Australian about his involvement with the Australian Nationalists Movement.
Weerheym, an IT student and part-time disc-jockey from the southern suburb of Como, admitted he was the driver for his two co-accused in the July 16 and 17 [2004] graffiti attacks.
Before he was sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence this week, Weerheym’s lawyer, Michael Tudori, told the Perth Magistrates Court Weerheym was not interested in the ANM and had not wanted to take part in the graffiti.
However The Weekend Australian has learned that for almost two years Weerheym has been promoting the ANM and urging violent attacks against ethnic groups on a white supremacist website called Stormfront.org.
Under the pseudonym Thor Hammered, Weerheym has posted more than 800 messages, ranting against Asians, Jews and Muslims. He has urged others to blow up a Perth nightclub owned by Asians.
“The more the white youth of Australia stand up and show them their true feelings towards the invaders THE BETTER!!” he wrote in March [2003].
Weerheym also wrote: “After a recent trip east by the key members of the ANM/ANWU [Australian Nationalist Workers Union], it has become apparent we are the most effective, organised, active and above all premier nationalist/pro-white organisation in Australia.”
When Weerheym was confronted about his pseudonym — which was tracked to his email address and his telephone number — he refused to answer any questions about it or his involvement with the ANM.
He instead issued an apology [sic] for his involvement in the graffiti attacks.
“I take seriously my political and social ideals but the methods of expression that were undertaken were most definitely not positive or a viable option,” he said.
DPP Robert Cock said Weerheym may have misled the court.
“If we establish that he had misled the court in his submission we would be very enthusiastic to get the matter back before the court to be corrected,” he said…
Weerheym was not jailed because he was deemed to have played a much lesser role as the driver.
The ANM campaign has been escalating since three restaurants were firebombed in February.
Police uncovered an ANM plot to harm West Australian attorney general Jim McGinty last month while investigating the racist graffiti attacks.
Ethnic Communities Council president Suresh Rajan said Weerheym’s sentence was woefully inadequate, especially because it appeared he acted with intent.
“I don’t think I’ve seen such hate being expressed by people in quite a long time, it is really quite frightening,” he said.
In the event, the DPP did not launch an appeal. The following year, 2006, it also declined to prosecute Weerheym for racial vilification, instead opting to unsuccessfully target an Aboriginal teenager for the same alleged crime.
With friends like Weerheym, who needs enemies?
Did I just hear that Hawkins was threatened? Isn’t this intolerance?
Andy, isn’t this enough to tell you that a vast number of Muslims are intolerant, and are fairly anti-multi-cultural?
Hawkins claims she was threatened. She doesn’t strike me as a particularly credible person.
Mick,
From my reading of @ndy’s post, the threat to Hawkins was in no way attributed to Islamic peoples.
Her statement reads
“The level of hostility against us even included [reached the level of?] verbal abuse and threats to publish our personal details. This culminated in one media outlet doing so and [thereby] placing a family at risk.”
This doesn’t seem to be attributed to any particular people at all.
But wait there’s more… she then writes
“Even the one Muslim that disagreed with the March… stated that he was against [Hilali’s] statements. He did so politely and respectfully and was answered in a like fashion [by] the organisers. We only wish the media had acted [similarly].”
And more – when she writes of the ‘four’… whats that – four… Muslim people who called, only one was ’emotionally volatile’.
To suggest that this means “a vast number of Muslims are intolerant” from this post is ridiculous. In fact, it seems that the “vast number of Muslims” were extremely tolerant.
Hi Mick,
Um, briefly: ‘no’.
Cheers,
@ndy.
Sleet,
I am pretty sure that some Muslims are tolerant, and have respect for others — however, this statement doesn’t [absolve] the whole community!
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,20877022-5001021,00.html
Now, why would the Islamic community have any concern over the lifestyle that this woman has chosen? If the sight of a woman not wearing traditional attire, and drinking an alcoholic beverage, offends the Muslim community to the point of making threats towards people’s lives, then how can this be classed as tolerance — or is it just the ideology of a minor, fundamentalist sect?
“If the sight of a woman not wearing traditional attire, and drinking an alcoholic beverage, offends the Muslim community to the point of making threats towards people’s lives, then how can this be classed as tolerance”
I’m confused. Are you having trouble reading the article you linked to or are you deliberately misrepresenting what it says?
According to you, the Muslim community has been offended to the point of making threats towards people’s lives.
According to reality, there have been a few dozen posts on an Islamic webforum criticizing her for what she wore and for drinking champagne. And unless “Her matching nails, eye shadow and top . . . were not . . . how Islam would like to portray a Muslim female to the wider community” is secret Muslim code for, “Hey, let’s kill her” then, once again, you are completely off-the-wall wrong in your claims.
yeah, HAH! laughing all the way, at tools like you Andrew. A nonce, what a nonce you are!
I laugh so hard at you I pass out. I actually used to be concerned about red scum bag arseholes like you writing smears against me but getting to know you, I have found that you are not much more than a harmless and hapless idiot only to be used as a source of tragicomedy.
I now take solice in the fact that anyone with a bit of sense who reads your musings will come to this conclusion also.
Respect to Paige Taylor for that article, she keeps to the facts (unlike other “journalists”) she is a good chick.
Go you good thing ‘drew!
Have fun taking ‘solice’, Boofhead: yr a liar, a loser, and a bad speller to boot. Go tag a war widows’ retirement village with a swastika, you ‘patriot’ you.
Kisses,
@ndy.
Hahaha! [Y]ou still know how to crack a guy up don’t you Andrew?
Sorry, never have done a “tag” on “a war widows’ retirement village with a swastika” – that’s just what [sexy] red scumbag arseholes just like you like to assert regardless of it not containing any factual basis.
Come on buddy, making fun of ones typing mistakes? Grasp at those straws!
HA!
OK. So yr a liar as well as an idiot.
And a useless (not-)get-away-driver.
I am shocked.
Shocked and stunned.
(That’s ‘having’, not ‘containing’. And that’s ‘one’s’, not ‘ones’.)
Toodle-pip,
@ndy.
Would you prefer we make fun of you for being a neo-Nazi with Jewish heritage? Maybe we should have a go because you’re an unemployable drug-fucked loser, Ben?
I mean, really, which aspect of your pathetic life do you want us to make fun of? Help us out here!
Slackbastard
Im not sure i understand your argument.
What has Ben Weerheym got to do with the rally?
Isnt this a Hawkins/Gemmill-Smith production?
Dear Pommygranatebastard,
Um… what’s yr understanding of my argument?
What Ben Weerheym has to do with the rally I believe is outlined above: can you be more specific?
As for Hawkins and Gemmell-Smith: Gemmell-Smith’s name was dropped after his ownership of True Blue — the March ‘sponsor’ — was revealed, leaving Hawkins holding the bag. Which, being full of hot potatoes, she dropped. In summary, I think that their desire to flog ‘Aussie’ sweatshop products (manufactured in Honduras and imported from the USA) was trumped by their desire not to be subjected to (further) public ridicule.
How’s the Test going?
@ndy.
@ndy
So Ben Weerheym is a nasty racist who wanted to infiltrate the rally with his charming mates. All rallies are infiltrated by undesirables. So what?
Gemmell-Smith’s ownership of True Blue is interesting and a little deceptive but hardly criminal.
pommygranatebastard. Necessary?
Pommy,
Apologies. Yr a beautiful appleseed, not a bastard. Or would dirty old bugger be more appropriate? (“This story has much further to run and should allow me to feature plenty more scantily-clad ‘uncovered meats’.” Speaking of which… who is that bikini-clad woman?)
“So what”?
Hmmm, well. There’s a number of issues. One is the meaning and significance of the March. Another is the motivations of the organisers. And another is the meaning and significance attached to the involvement of neo-Nazis like Weerheym. So…
First, from my perspective, even in the absence of the so-called ‘infiltration’ of fascist elements, the March is bonkers, for reasons which I’ve already enunciated on my blog.
Secondly, I think that the motivations of the organisers are (or rather were) two-fold: one, to express their (his ‘n’ hers) alarm at the comments made by Hilali, and those made by Omran in support of his colleague — this alarm, I think, fed into broader concerns over Islamic teachings on gender relations. Two, an ill-advised attempt to engage in some guerilla-advertising.
Finally, as for the involvement of Weerheym: living in Perth, there was bugger-all chance of boofhead appearing in Melbourne on the 9th. But his spamming of the event drew the attn of many other local fascists and racists, some of whom, such as Luke Connors, live in Melbourne, and some of whom, such as Luke Connors, would possibly attend. (Him, and also the scum who attended The Birmy gig in September — the scum responsible for monstering a (black) woman.)
This is a problem, for a number of reasons. One is that I’m an anarchist, and as such I oppose fascism. Another is that I live in Melbourne, and thus fascist organising in Melbourne is my primary concern. The location of the March, Brunswick, is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, largely working class suburb, with a long history of anarchist activism. Further, this is not the first time that reactionary elements have attempted to organise ITA; each one has been repulsed; and each one will be in future.
As such, the msg is pretty simple: stay the fuck outta Brunswick.
Cheers, beers, and here’s to a reclaimed Ashes,
@ndy.
Hahaha[.] Campbell Smith calling ME a \”drug fucked loser\”? Meanwhile his own words about his own drug-taking degenerate behaviour are… right here:
http://cam.bluexo.net/blog/123
(Chances are Cam\’s [sexy] buddy @ndy won\’t post the URL.)
You are a [big sexy hunk of manhood] through and through Campbell[.] [Y]ou [talk] like a [big sexy hunk of manhood] hiding behind your computer screen[,] but given the chance of confrontation in real life, you would wail for [Beautiful Zionist Grrls, Hot Jewish Babes, and Sexy Israeli Chicks] and run as fast as you could. Hence why you go so much out of your way to not have your picture taken [by criminal psychotics like Weerheym]!
http://www.israel-celebrity-source.com/gallery/index.php
You[,] alongside your [sexy] buddy Andrew Moran[,] are nothing but [objects of loving obsession] to me[,] and this is exactly why you are sources [of such screamingly good] entertainment for all who read [you:] you are being [enjoyed] left, right and centre – eat it up.
[Thanks Ben! Merry Crassmas to you too!]
Yeah, Ben, I’m calling you a drug fucked loser.
Let’s do the math, shall we.
Me: Smoked pot occasionally as a teenager, am now a young media professional. Once wrote a blog article saying drugs are bad which is used by morons as proof that I love drugs.
You: Was a reasonably fun person, if not terribly bright, (reportedly) with no racist hang-ups… until you hit the speed too hard and went off the rails. You still abuse your anti-psych meds and you can barely fill out your centrelink forms on your own.
Hahaha. Funny stuff. Not.
It might surprise you, but I’ve gone into bat for you a number of times when others were in favour of messing things up for you further. The reason: I pity you.
That’s an incredibly compassionate position for me to take considering that you’ve threatened to kill my family and friends. If I were you, I’d be more appreciative.
Ha ha. You think you know me, but you don\’t[,] and whoever you got your negative stories about me from are obviously my enemies[,] so I would not expect much more from them.
If you don\’t want me to bite, then use your brain and shut the hell up and don\’t aggr[a]vate me. If I am such a \”criminal psychotic\” (as [sexy] Andrew Moran asserts) wouldn\’t it be possible that I could jump on a plane to track you down for insulting me so much?
You are as your profile says: a [sexy] gutless git, end of story.
The media community is rather closely-knit you know.
Oh,
LOOK EVERYONE, BIG BAD NAZI WEERHEYM THREATENS TO KILL PEOPLE!!!
Don\’t make me laugh.
I forgot to say, way to go with trying to take the higher [moral?] ground…
Well, if people want to connive and mess things up for me further (as you say)[,] then that means I wouldn\’t have much to lose[.] [P]eople do out-of-the-ordinary things to others when that happens… so they would only be negatively [a]ffecting themselves.
Your attempt at taking the [moral?] high ground was most probably a wise move[?!?].
Believe me – the threats you’ve made against my friends and family are no laughing matter.
Everything we know about you comes from your friends.
Boofhead HAS friends?!?
In this case, friends = associates who bear Ben no specific ill will.
They are in increasingly short supply.
Everything we know about you comes from your friends…
No friend of mine would speak of me in such a manner[.] [A]s I said, they would be my enemy.
If I am wrong, tell these mysterious friends to call me or tell me next time we catch up just what they think of me then – I don\’t see it [happening] mate[.] [W]hy? Because they either don\’t exist or are OLD and vague [acquaintances] from a bygone era.
You don\’t know shit[:] where I have been working or what I have been doing [or] who I have been associating with[.] [N]or do you know of my plans[.] [S]o quit making out like you know buddy, you do not intimidate me in the slightest[.] [Y]ou are more [like an] annoying mosquito that needs to be swatted.
Your previous contacts from Cottesloe are no more because I do not visit that house as they have moved away, nor do I associate with the relatives of the people who lived there.
Also, no drug hoovering coward [from] the Perth rave scene has spoken to, let alone had cont[a]ct with me[,] for around five years[,] so all they have to offer is malicious garbage.
I know where you got your played out and tired garbage from [sexy]. Unfortunately for you the well has run dry on that side of things.
I stay away from those jerks and the only people I associate with are fellow [racists/fascists], family[,] and close, old friends who would rather inform me that arseholes like you have been fishing for information about me than give you the time of day[,] so quit talking out of your [sexy] rear Campbell.
PS. Isn\’t the title media professional redundant? Hahaha[?]
Mick Reyfield wrote:
‘I am pretty sure that some Muslims are tolerant, and have respect for others — however, this statement doesn’t [absolve] the whole community!’
Nor does it implicate the whole community either. What a useless and simple argument.
If Muslims are capable of hate and you reject that, then shouldn’t you actually be rejecting hate? I only ever seem to hear of you people rejecting hate when it’s non-white people who have been hating something. Or does that mean you’d actually have to hate yourself, and maybe that’s a paradox you’d rather not throw yourself into?
Or to take it that next step further – maybe this all began because you hated yourself from the outset? You’re in a tough situation.
I don’t think you can argue against Muslim anti-multi-culturalism by being anti-multi-culturalist – unless you have a profound fondness for punching yourself in your own face.
At least go to 5 minutes worth of trouble trying to conceal the most basic of racism, if not for anything else but some entertainment. Otherwise, fuck off. Thanks.
Ben, you see a drug hoovering coward every time you look in the mirror.
People you know would confront you directly, but you have a reputation for irrationality and violence.
Finally, the term “drug fucked nazi loser” is also redundant, yet it remains the most accurate way to describe you. I guess I have a thing for redundant terms.
[Ben, you\’re boring. Go away.]
I was crapping on about the bonehead bikini march and realised I don’t know if it’s going ahead on Invasion Day or not – so I name dropped slackbastard & Fight Dem Back for more information. I suspect no one knows whats going to happen, but am I right in thinking there’ll be some kind of response if it does?
If there is I am so on that boat.
http://insultadarity.blogspot.com/2007/01/countdown-to-invasion-day.html
[Ha, cross promotion – also impeccable grammar and spelling – I dare you, I fucking dare you @ndy to find a mistake! If there is, it’s only because English first my language not or, because grammar is a hierarchy or, something.]
“I suspect no one knows whats going to happen…”
w h a t APOSTROPHE s
ha!
…which I choose to interpret as: “Yes Sparx, I would be delighted to inform you if the bonehead’s bikini rally happens and what kind of response is organised to stop it, so that you can inform the delightful people who read your blog, many of whom will also be on that boat, or, like whatever .”
that[‘]s bonehead[‘]s right? right?
grrrrr
For those who have read this article, do yourself a favour and find out what kind of person is responsible for it at the following links:
www . avoiceofdissent.blogspot.com/2007/05/communists-anarchist-criminals-and.html
www . whitelawtowers.blogspot.com
These sites details [sic] the often deviant, criminal and [hypocritical] nature of these people.
You don\’t want to be ignorant of the facts do you?
you wouldn’t want to be desperate for readers, would you?
My blog:
http://mickreysden.blogspot.com/
I challenge anyone to debate my topics!