Pride & Prejudice
Mark White
madison
December 2009
It’s a cool September morning on the day of the AFL Grand Final, and in a function room of an inner-city Sydney [Petersham] RSL Club, a small crowd of men and women have gathered from around the country. A middle-aged man in a red T-shirt is addressing them. A sign behind him reads: “Is today’s economic system serving the people of a nation?” but that’s not what he’s talking about. He’s talking about Hitler and facing some hostile questioning.
I’m at day one of the Sydney Forum, an annual weekend gathering of Australia’s Neo-Fascist and nationalist groups. Look closely and you’ll be hard-pressed to find a single skinhead here. Instead, the crowd is mostly male, middle-aged and conservatively dressed — trousers, shirts and sensible haircuts. All, that is, except for a man in front of me wearing paint-spattered camouflage trousers and a T-shirt bearing the Eureka flag and the words “Aussie patriot”.
The event’s MC [Welf Herfurth] suddenly takes the microphone. “They [RSL club members] tried to remove us from [this] club … if you behave and don’t shout ‘Heil Hitler!’ this forum will go ahead. This forum is not for Hitlerites!”
There is a whole roster of speakers planned for the forum, including talks on 9/11, al-Qaeda and, later on, a speech by inky-haired former radio presenter Terrie-Anne Verney, who was sacked from a NSW community radio station after it was revealed she was the administrator on the racist Facebook group “Fuck Off We’re Full”.
The RSL club officials wanted to cancel after finding out who precisely had booked the room, but were advised by police to let the event go ahead. Outside, a small group of protesters have gathered, holding banners that read “Neo-Nazis” and are shouting at people as they enter the club. Despite the venue being kept a secret until 7am this morning, one of the protesters bought a ticket to find out where it would be.
I ask Jim Saleam, the event’s organiser and NSW director of the white-nationalist Australia First Party, why he is holding the event on the day of the final of the Aussie Rules football match. “It’s a free-speech weekend”, he says. “You’ve got to hold it some time.”
