Over the last year, we have infiltrated the very heart of the UK far-right, from which we have gained access to some of the most important alt-right figures in the world. The information we gleaned is spread across this report and the whole story is also told in detail. This unprecedented access allows us to understand the alt-right like never before and allows us to expose their often extreme and sometimes dangerous world. This report includes bizarre and even funny details about the esoteric and extreme UK movement, never before seen photos of leading American alt-right figures such as Greg Johnson, and exposes claims by Jason Jorjani from AltRight Corp that he had links to the Trump administration.
4.30pm, Thursday, April 23, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
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On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah, we speak to academic and writerAnastasia Kanjere about critical race theory (CRT), whiteness studies, and the contemporary Australian far right. Anastasia presented a paper titled ‘Fascists in and out of uniform: making sense of street fascism in the broader context of white supremacy’ at the Histories of Fascism And Anti-Fascism in Australasia Symposium in Adelaide in December last year; fingers crossed it’ll be published at some point. See also : A “Policing Point of View”: On The Borders of the Polity, XBorder, July 29, 2015.
*For those wanting to explore some of the issues and texts referred to in the interview, on the origins of CRT Anastasia recommends: James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name (1961); Derrick Bell, Faces At The Bottom Of The Well (1992); Angela Davis, If They Come in the Morning (1971); Richard Dyer, White (1997); Toni Morrison, Playing In The Dark (1992). On Noel ‘Race Traitor’ Ignatiev, see : Our Symposium on the Life and Work of Noel Ignatiev, Insurgent Notes, March 16, 2020. See also : Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association.
4.30pm, Thursday, April 16, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
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After almost 25 years of service, the Black Star PA Collective has dissolved.
The Black Star PA Collective (BSC) has recently announced that they’re winding-up as a collective. For 24 years, BSC provided audio for the activist and underground music communities of Melbourne. To compile a definitive list would be impossible, but some of the events they provided sound production for included the Friends of the Earth annual ball and Such is Life punk festival, fundraisers for the Goongerah Environment Centre (GECO), and numerous gigs at the Pink Palace, Black Goat and other DIY venues.
BSC also provided sound for many rallies and protest actions, both big and small. These included S11 (the protests in Melbourne in September 2000 against the ruling-class summit known as the World Economic Forum), May Days, refugee solidarity events (including the infamous ‘Woomera Breakout’), the enormous anti-war rally of February 2003, anti-racist and anti-fascist protests, and numerous other events organised by local anarchist and socialist groups.
BSC’s remaining equipment is being sold and the proceeds donated to various worthy causes around town. A portion is also being donated to the Solidarity Sound System Collective, ensuring that the good vibes and righteous anger BSC helped fuel over many years carries on into the future …
A sincere and heartfelt thank you to BSC for all its efforts over the years — you rock!
April 4, 2015, was the first in a series of rallies held in towns and cities across Australia in 2015 in order to voice opposition to Islam (alternatively: to engage in xenophobic protest to demand the criminalisation of Muslim life). The rallies attracted thousands of participants, from neo-Nazi goons to Ordinary Mum & Dad™ bigots, counter-protests, considerable media attention and much public discussion. Speakers included Queensland LNP MP George Christensen and One Nation’s Pauline Hanson, and were the most significant right-wing street mobilisation for some years. Further national rallies took place in July and November, 2015. These later protest rallies were jointly organised with and promoted by Reclaim’s mutant offspring, the ‘United Patriots Front’ (UPF). For those of you coming in late, the UPF was a coalition of neo-Nazis and Christian fundamentalists which — after emerging in April/May of 2015 as the political vanguard of Reclaim — folded two years later (at precisely the moment Facebook withdrew its sponsorship).
While there were a number of different ah … ‘personalities’ … associated with Reclaim, the most prominent was Cooma council worker Shermon Burgess, the self-proclaimed ‘Great Aussie Patriot’. Having previously spent several years agitating against Muslims with the ‘Australian Defence League’ (AKA his good chum Ralph Cerminara), Reclaim was Shermon’s moment to really shine. Using social media, the previously obscure Burgess was able to establish a relatively large following in his role as Australia’s Biggest Patriot, publishing hundreds of video selfies over the next few years, and becoming increasingly cranky, paranoid and upset. Despite once denouncing ‘nazis’, in 2020 Burgess has now fully embraced Hitler’s legacy and, after being expelled from Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, been reduced to espousing Aryan supremacy to teenage boys on TikTok.
So much for Shermon and (anti-)social media. In terms of ‘traditional’ (legacy) media, Alex Cullen fronted an investigation into Reclaim Australia for the (now-defunct) current affairs television show Sunday in October 2015, in which the NSW-based ‘Catherine Brennan’ (Liz Shepherd), Wanda Marsh, and John Oliver were presented as its founders.
Marsh and Shepherd did largely conform to stereotype: in South Australia, Marsh ran on behalf of the anti-Muslim micro-party ‘Australian Liberty Alliance’ for a seat in the Australian Senate in 2016 (with negligible results), while Shepherd was a key organiser of the final, January 2017, Reclaim rally in Sydney. Oliver, however, was a special case, as I’d noted three months earlier:
In other news, the ‘Patriots Defence League of Australia’ has been deregistered in the state of Queensland, where it had fraudulently claimed to be an organisation dedicated to upholding the rights of women.
I don’t like the PDLA very much as one of its nominal Presidents, John Oliver of Newcastle, once opined that (after a man named Robert Godino had been nominated by local meatheads as the author of my blog): “Time to go on a good old fashion hunt I reckon. Drag this piece of shit out of his house by his nuts and cut the fuckers off and sew them to his forehead. Dog prick.”
John is obviously not. a. fan. but this and other such statements — “F*** his fb page, lets find this c*** and beat him to a pulp” — as well as John’s decision to publicly declare that he had established a fund in order to obtain my d0x so that my testicles could be removed and sown to my forehead and/or I could be beaten to a pulp (etc. — there’s lots more) doesn’t really seem to be in keeping with the group’s alleged commitment to ah, feminism.
Fortunately, despite Oliver’s phantasy, I retain possession of my testicles, and the feminist fight against male violence continues without his valuable support. (Oliver also got sprung bringing a gun to town for the July 2015 Reclaim Australia rally in Melbourne.)
As for its origins, just prior to the emergence of Reclaim, in December 2014 I wrote an article for New Matilda which noted that, in the immediate aftermath of the Lindt cafe siege, the far-right had not (yet) capitalised upon the incident. This suggests that, when confined to marginal cranks like Cerminara, the Australia First Party or its now-deceased Sydney-based rival the Party of Freedom and/or neo-Nazi skinhead groups like Squadron 88, the appeal of street mobilisations targeting Muslims is limited. Fortunately for them, however, rabid sections of the tabloid media had already primed Ordinary Mums & Dads™ to take action, and social media giants Facebook and Youtube provided a brilliant tool for the rapid dissemination of anti-Muslim & racist propaganda. Further, Reclaim allowed for and in fact encouraged a range of determined radical-right activists to assume leadership positions. To highlight this fact, in late 2015 I wrote an article for The Guardian, titled ‘The UPF and Reclaim Australia aren’t ‘concerned parents’ or a bad joke’ (‘Don’t get sucked in by the hijinks of far-right activists: active neo-Nazis are welcome and hold leadership positions in a movement gaining in appeal’).
The fun in July prompted the UPF to redirect its energies away from Melbourne to the Victorian town of Bendigo, where they organised a protest for the following month against the construction of a mosque. In fact, having constituted itself as the vanguard of Reclaim, the UPF soon left Reclaim behind, and while Reclaim continued to pump out racist, xenophobic and just plain batshit propaganda on Facebook for years, events in meatspace were rare. A rally in Perth in June 2016 and another in Sydney in January 2017 were seemingly the only events organised by Reclaim after 2015. That said, it should be noted that Reclaim was the product of and gave helped give birth to a range of more obscure and temporary political formations, including but not limited to the short-lived ‘Soldiers of Odin’, various groups intent on reclaiming or restoring Australia, the ‘True Blue Crew’ and so on and so forth.
United Patriots Front
In addition to Burgess, the main figures in the UPF — Blair Cottrell, Neil Erikson, Kris0 Richardson, Tom Sewell and Chris Shortis in Melbourne; Scott Moerland in Brisbane; Kevin Coombes and Dennis Huts in Perth — have avoided serious legal entanglements, and while the UPF has been supplanted by its successor organisation The Lads Society, it’s arguable that the organisation found its apotheosis in mass murderer Brenton Tarrant. Of which, Graham Macklin (‘The Christchurch Attacks: Livestream Terror in the Viral Video Age’, CTC Sentinel, July 2019, Vol.12, No.6) writes:
Tarrant wore many of his influences almost literally on his sleeve, and certainly on his weapons. He was, however, rather more circumspect when it came to discussing those closer to home, not least perhaps because they clashed with the account of his political awakening that he wished to present in his manifesto. Tarrant had been especially enthusiastic about two extreme-right Australian groups, the United Patriots Front (UFP) and the True Blue Crew (TBC), and in particular UFP leader Blair Cottrell who helped establish the group in May 2015 following a split within the larger anti-Muslim organization Reclaim Australia. Cottrell, who had convictions for property damage, aggravated burglary, arson, possessing a controlled weapon, failing to comply with court orders, and trafficking in testosterone, had not always been straightforwardly anti-Muslim in his political outlook. Under a photograph of Adolf Hitler on social media, he had once commented, “There should be a picture of this man in every classroom and every school, and his book should be issued to every student annually.” Tarrant donated money to the UPF, too, though Cottrell fervently denied knowing him. “And you won’t find any evidence to the contrary,” he told journalists.
UFP social media was transnational in its inspiration, engaging in a “reflexive mimicry” of European and U.S. far-right politicians, which highlighted the group’s subjective positioning and interaction with a broader field of virulent anti-Muslim politicking, far-right ideas, and eschatological narratives, particularly those espoused by the Identitarians.
Facebook deleted the UPF page in May 2017 at which point it had over 120,000 supporters. A subsequent investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in the aftermath of the Christchurch shootings retrieved the metadata, enabling it to reconstruct and verify the erased messages, thereby revealing Tarrant to have been an active user of the UFP and TBC pages. He made some 30 comments over a 10-month period from as early as April 2016. “Knocked it out the park tonight Blair,” Tarrant enthused after watching Cottrell on television. “Your retorts had me smiling, nodding, cheering and often laughing. Never believed we would have a true leader of the nationalist movement in Australia, and especially not so early in the game.” After viewing a live stream of Cottrell and a colleague celebrating the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency in November 2016, Tarrant gushed, “Simply one of the most important events in modern history. Globalists and Marxists on suicide watch, patriots and nationalists triumphant— looking forward to Emperor Blair Cottrell coming soon.” While clearly viewing Cottrell as the ‘great white hope,’ Tarrant’s posts were also supportive of UFP violence. “Communists will get what communists get, I would love to be there holding one end of the rope when you gets yours traitor,” he commented following a clash between the UFP and anti-fascists in Coburg, Melbourne, in 2016.
Tarrant clearly identified with the UPF, posting a menacing Facebook message to a Melbourne man who had criticized the group in August 2016. “The UPF is the leading ethno-nationalist group within Australia … When you speak against the UPF you speak against my right to a home for my people and my culture. This marks you,” Tarrant told the man. He concluded by advising him to “chose your words carefully” and “think of who you insult” before stating, “If you are a nationalist I hope you one day see the light and if you are a Marxist I hope you one day meet the rope.” The recipient reported the threat to the police the following month but did not make a formal statement, telling ABC that police advised him simply to block the threat maker on social media.
Tarrant last commented on the UFP page in January 2017, expressing support for Cottrell’s impending court appearance. Cottrell and two other former UFP members were at the time on trial after staging and filming a mock beheading video outside Bendigo’s council offices in October 2015 to protest the construction of a mosque, a sign of what they argued was the increasing “Islamization of Australia.” A judge subsequently found Cottrell and the two other UFP activists guilty of inciting hatred, contempt, and ridicule of Muslims. Cottrell is currently appealing his conviction.[*] Tarrant was not the only violently inclined figure to have gravitated toward the UFP. In 2016, another activist, Phillip Galea, became the first far-right figure in Australia ever to be charged with a terrorism-related offense after police recovered a bomb-making manual, a proscribed chemical (361 grams of mercury), and a prohibited weapon as well as evidence that he had reconnoitred anarchist and left-wing properties, during a search of his house the previous year.
Tarrant’s contacts with anti-Muslim groups in his native Australia did not end there. Lads Society president Tom Sewell, a former UFP activist, stated after the Christchurch attack that he had previously tried to recruit Tarrant online to join a project to create a “parallel society” for whites only. Within hours of the attack, Sewell had written on Facebook “this is not a false flag … take my word for it” and that Tarrant “had been in the scene for a while.” Although they had never met, Sewell said that he had approached Tarrant online about possible membership of his society, though Tarrant had declined citing his imminent relocation to New Zealand as the reason. Furthermore, Sewell claimed to have inferred from Tarrant’s comments contemporaneously that Tarrant “didn’t believe there was a peaceful solution to European people being genocided.”
There’s a lot more that could be said about Tarrant, the UPF and of course The Lads, and no doubt — some day — it will be. In the meantime, see : Right-wing terrorism on the rise in Australia (Drew Rooke, The Saturday Paper, March 21, 2020), and bear in mind that mainstream reportage typically trails behind anti-fascist researchers. Finally, if the racist cloud that was Reclaim had a silver lining, it was to prompt the always-outrageous Briggs and Trials (AKA A B Original) to release the album ‘Reclaim Australia’:
PS. Among the UPF leadership, Scott Moerland was the person most closely associated with Reclaim Australia. An ah, very passionate man, ‘Potty Mouth’ was also driven by his religion. A Christian Soldier, Moerland was a candidate for Danny Nalliah’s (now deregistered) Rise Up Australia Party in the federal seat of seat of Oxley in 2013. As such, Moerland was a useful bridge-builder between the fringe evangelical and Pentecostal communities and the White supremacist and ultra-nationalist milieu that constituted the core of the UPF. In 2019, Moerland again attempted to wrest control of Oxley from the United Nations and Agenda 21, only this time on behalf of Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party. Moerland’s hopes of contributing to a Final Solution to The Muslim Problem from a parliamentary seat (instead of, say, from behind a keyboard) were dashed however, as just 1.63% of the electorate rallied to the cause. (As for Anning, he fled to the United States following his party’s collapse, and has since been declared financially as well as morally bankrupt.)
As for the rest of the UPF:
On a personal level, Blair Cottrell probably gained the most from his involvement in the UPF, with the puny ranks of his supporters in Nationalist Alternative supplemented by a liquorice all-sorts of reactionaries and racists by way of this far more prominent if much more short-lived groupuscule. That said, the decision by first Facebook and then Twitter (if not YouTube) to remove him from their platforms has meant he’s now had to resort to Twitter-for-nazis, Telegram, and other, more obscure channels of online communication to keep his fanboys happy. Losing his appeal against a criminal conviction for being-a-racist-dickhead-very-much-in-public was not unexpected, but did at least confirm John Bolton’s status as ‘Most Likeable’ barrister for the far-right. Currently, the budding fuehrer from Frankston is apparently busy fenceposting, shitposting, and trying to keep his Lads onside.
Along with Burgess and Cottrell, Neil Erikson was the most energetically self-promoting of the UPF, and in doing so traded under many names, including but not limited to Cooks Convicts, Patriot Blue, Nationalist Uprising, Australian Settlers Rebellion, Aussie Patriot Army, Ban Islam Party, European Australian Civil Rights League, Generation Identity Australia, Nationalist Republican Guard, Neil Erikson Media, NRG Media, OzConspiracy, Pauline Hanson’s Guardian Angels, Reclaim Australia, United Patriots Front, United Patriots Front — Originals and more besides. And while he’s lead a charmed life with regards the law so far, the attention his 2020 Invasion Day stunt provided him (and that delighted reactionary parliamentarians like Craig Kelly and commentators such as Miranda Devine) was short-lived, and he’s still to face charges of disrupting three religious services (with mentions on April 21). Regarded by some within the patriotik milieu as a police stooge, there’s no reason to believe Erikson won’t Carry One LARPing until he cannot.
I dunno what Kris0 Richardson is up to these days. Designated ‘Prime Organiser and Head of Operations’ by his fascist lvl boss, Richardson was also described as being involved in Australian politics since 2010, from Sydney but now based in Melbourne, as having been described by other members as ‘ruthlessly efficient’ and entrusted with all major communications and tasks involving equipment and resources; Cottrell gave him a scratch behind the ears and even a medal for his efforts on behalf of his superior. In August 2016 I noted that Richardson established something called the ‘United Australian Front’: The UAF was established in late 2014, ie, prior to the emergence of both Reclaim Australia and the UPF. While men wearing UAF merch made their debut at the anti-leftist rally in Richmond in May, 2015, it is now known as Order 15/UAF, and is open about its commitment to white nationalist and fascist doctrines. One variant of ‘Order 15’ was later linked to another YUGE fan of Cottrell: the Christchurch killer.
Tom Sewell has flowered in the last five years, developing from a mere sidekick into a genuwine leader of men (AKA ‘The Lads Society’). Despite having experienced a few hiccups along the way (in Cheltenham and then Ashfield), Sewell’s latest groupuscule is actively organising from a new space in Melbourne’s south-east, and gaining political experience through the allied ‘National Socialist Network’. While initially a very enthusiastic promoter of and investor in the UPF, Chris Shortis later wandered into the white nationalist ‘Australia First’ party, where as far as I know he remains. Finally, while Kevin Coombes is still presumably busy lifting heavy things and throwing his considerable weight around, Dennis Huts periodically does what he can to stop communisms from exploding in Perth. (On joining the UPF, Huts stated: For most of my adult life I have felt a deep sense of disillusionment with Australian culture’s continual slide into Marxist oblivion. When I found the UPF and their passion for restoring that which we have lost I knew I had to be a part of it. The UPF platform speaks directly to the nation’s heart and shakes the foundations of the establishment to its core. Everyday I wake up excited about the inroads we’re making. Most recently, Huts has taken to throwing meat at vegans. Take that, Engels!)
On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah, we speak to Jason Wilson, a journalist and columnist with The Guardian. We discuss the response of the right in the US to the Coronavirus (COVID-19). Jason has written several articles for Teh Grauniad on the subject over the last few weeks:
Jason was also our guest back in January, when we discussed neo-Nazi terrorists ‘The Base’. In March, Benjamin Wallace published a profile of the founder of The Base for New York Magazine, ‘The Prep-School Nazi’: Before he was Norman Spear, hate group founder and possible Russian asset Rinaldo Nazzaro was just another Jersey boy.
***Note that a longer version of our interview with Jason will be available by way of the podcast.***
4.30pm, Thursday, April 9, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
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On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah, we speak to Antti Rautiainen, an anarchist living in Finland, about the recent trials and tribulations of anarchists and anti-fascists belonging to a group Russian authorities have dubbed ‘The Network’. (I made reference to the ongoing case in this post from February.) We also talk to Antti about anti-fascism in Russia, Putin’s role in Russian politics, the Russian far-right’s international linkages, the impact of the Ukrainian conflict, and more besides.
4.30pm, Thursday, April 2, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
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FILE PHOTO: Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro wears a protective mask during a news conference, amid coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Brasilia, Brazil March 20, 2020. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah, we speak to Dr Steph Reist, an aspiring freelance writer on the Black diaspora in Latin America, one armed with a PhD in Latin American Studies from Duke and an interest in black feminism, decolonization and socialism. Among other places, Reist has written on politics in Brazil for Jacobin.
See also : Secret Brazil Archive : A massive trove of previously undisclosed materials provides unprecedented insight into the operations of the anti-corruption task force that transformed Brazilian politics and gained worldwide attention.
4.30pm, Thursday, March 26, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
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Last week, just a day prior to the one-year anniversary of the Christchurch massacre (March 15, 2019), Joshua Lucas, a 21yo man from the NSW South Coast, was arrested by NSW’s Joint Counter-Terrorism Taskforce (JCTT) and charged with planning a terrorist act. ‘It will be alleged the man was attempting and planning to purchase or acquire military equipment, including firearms and items capable of making improvised explosive devices’, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Scott Lee stated. ‘Officers from the JCTT will also allege Mr Lucas expressed support for extreme right-wing ideology’; further, “What we know is this person had anti-government sentiment, he was anti-Semitic, he has neo-Nazi interests and he has anti-Indigenous interests”, NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Walton said. See also : Man charged after allegedly planning rightwing terrorism attack on NSW south coast, AAP/The Guardian, March 16, 2020 (‘Police say 21-year-old with neo-Nazi interests from Sanctuary Point was allegedly planning to disrupt an electrical substation and source material to construct an explosive device’). A week later, following further investigations, Joshua’s 23yo brother Benjamin was also charged: ‘Police will allege the brothers were involved in early planning for a terrorist act and were trying to obtain military equipment, including firearms, and other items capable of making improvised explosive devices.’
According to media reportage, police acted after becoming aware of online statements by Joshua in February, though whether or not he was a Person of Interest prior to this date is of course unknown. My own expectation is that Joshua was indeed vocal online, and almost certainly connected to a wider network of neo-Nazis and White supremacists. In which context, police have stated that investigations are ongoing, so it would appear possible that the brothers’ associates will also receive a knock on the door. Finally, if the allegation that the brothers were planning to disrupt an electrical substation is correct, this is redolent of the political strategy pursued by so-called ‘accelerationists’ belonging to neo-Nazi terror groupuscules Atomwaffen, The Base and related organisations.
On yeah: fascist pin-up boy and former Senator Fraser ‘Final Solution’ Anning was declared bankrupt on March 16, Exactly One Year After He Was Egged.
Aotearoa/New Zealand
Last week on Yeah Nah Pasaran!, we spoke to ‘Roy’ of the group Paparoa, the anti-fascist research group which formed in the aftermath of the Christchurch massacre. As detailed in the relevant post, members of Action Zealandia (AZ: the successor organisation to the Dominion Movement) have been in the news recently, especially by way of former New Zealand soldier Max Newsome. And while some regard the prospect of another massacre as a really bad thing, Twitter is more than happy to allow AZ to promote itself on their platform. Further, bellingcat has recently revealed that on a Telegram channel, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi who idolises the Christchurch killer shared a terror threat to the Al Noor Mosque from Action Zealandia member Sam Brittenden. See : Revealed: The Ukrainian Man Who Runs A Neo-Nazi Terrorist Telegram Channel, Michael Colborne, March 18, 2020:
Even by the low standards of Telegram, an online messaging service that is sometimes described as “a safe haven for pro-terror Nazis”, the Ukrainian-language Telegram channel devoted to praising the Christchurch shooter is an ugly spectacle.
The channel, which we will not name as to not promote it, is full of vicious racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and neo-Nazism, as well as open calls for violence and murder. It continues to sell bound translations of the Christchurch shooter’s hateful manifesto, as we first revealed in an investigation in August 2019. Perhaps sensing a new business/recruitment opportunity, the channel now also sells and distributes Russian-language translations, having sold only Ukrainian translations previously. The channel continues to share the shooter’s live-streamed video of the attacks and promote praise of said shooter, as well as other far-right terrorists …
Germany
Police in Germany have recently (March 19) conducted raids on neo-Nazis involved in the Reichsbürger movement:
German police have raided premises nationwide linked to an anti-Semitic far-right movement called Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Reich). Neo-Nazi propaganda and firearms were seized in the raids, in 10 of Germany’s 16 states. The targeted group, “United German Peoples and Tribes”, is part of Reichsbürger, whose members reject the German state as a legal entity. The interior ministry said racism “even in times of crisis” would be combated.
This follows on from the banning of and arrests of members of ‘Combat 18’ in January, a mass shooting in Hanau and raids upon and the arrest of members of a right-wing terror cell which dubbed itself ‘Der harte Kern’ (‘The Hard Core’) in February. Curiously, ‘the group was also reported to have international links: members had contact with the far-right Soldiers of Odin, another extremist group founded in Finland five years ago’; the Melbourne franchise of the Soldiers was notably compared to the Guardian Angels (!) by ‘The Age’ in 2016.
See also : Can German Activists Stop the Neo-Nazi Resurgence?, Josephine Huetlin, The Daily Beast, February 18, 2020 (‘How do you hold the fascists [at] bay? Germans are protesting—and coming up with some novel strategies’).
United Kingdom
A few days ago, ‘Miss Hitler’ and three others were convicted of belonging to banned neo-Nazi group National Action (NA):
A “Miss Hitler” contest entrant and her ex-partner have been convicted of being members of the banned far-right terrorist group National Action. Alice Cutter, 23, and Mark Jones, 25, were found guilty of being members of the neo-Nazi organisation after a retrial at Birmingham Crown Court. Garry Jack, 24, and 19-year-old Connor Scothern were also found guilty of being members of the group. All four will be sentenced at a later date. National Action, founded in 2013, was outlawed under anti-terror legislation three years later after it celebrated the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox.
NA was one of the groups which formed on now-defunct site Iron March; its Australian equivalent, Antipodean Resistance, has dissolved, largely into The Lads Society and the newly-formed National Socialist Network.
On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah, we adopt a slightly different approach when talking to ‘Roy’ of Paparoa in Aotearoa/New Zealand:
PAPAROA refers to an area spread with cloaks to mark a special place of honour. This website was launched on 31st March 2019, primarily as a response to the horrific terrorist attacks on the Alnoor and Linwood Mosques in Christchurch. As-Salaam-Alaikum.
Note that:
• ‘Roy’ is actually voiced by Karina;
• The interview takes place on the one-year anniversary of the Christchurch massacre, which Paparoa marked by issuing the following statement:
نحن نحبكم جميعاً ونعانيكم ونعبر عن تضامننا معكم ونقدم لكم كل احترامنا وتقديرنا
It is twelve months now since the Christchurch murders. On 15th March 2020, Aotearoa/NZ took stock. We wish we had listened to the Islamic community when they reported so many attacks and so much abuse. We wish we had admitted to ourselves that Islamophobia is a problem in this country. We wish we had actively sought to identify the threats, and to name and monitor the groups and individuals who were making them. We wish we had been there for you!
Aue, Aue, taukiri e!
Tokatoka na te hau raro o nehera,
Ka hoki mau mahara mai,
Haere tonu nei te tangi hotuhotu,
Mo koutou o te haahii Ihirama,
kua haere ki tua o te aarei,
Ki te mutunga kore o tou Atua
Many cynics believed that people would soon move on. They would go back to what they were doing before the event, and leave the memory behind them. How wrong they were! A new generation of researchers and activists has sprung up. Organisations like Paparoa have committed themselves to monitoring the extreme right, and are exposing those within it who represent a threat to public safety. The media have made it part of their core business to follow the far right. The orientation of the police and security services has shifted. Neo nazi identitarians from Action Zealandia have been exposed, with more to come, and vast amounts of information is being reported daily, from community level to those who can investigate it, share it and act upon it.
The team at Paparoa joins so many others across the country to promise you — all those in minority communities who have felt the burden of racist attacks and abuse — we will not move on. We will not leave this behind us. On the contrary, this issue is now squarely in front of us. If we can do anything to help and protect you, its yours.
4.30pm, Thursday, March 19, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
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On this week’s episode of Yeah Nah, we talk to Megan Squire, a Research Fellow at the Center for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR) and data scientist at Elon University in North Carolina:
How are extremist groups organizing online? Who are the key players and what do they believe? Which groups are growing and which are shrinking? Why are some online communities more toxic than others?
I collect, store, and analyze data – mostly from social media, but other sources as well – so we can understand how extremist and niche online communities work.
On Alt-Tech, see : Can Alt-Tech Help the Far Right Build an Alternate Internet?, Megan Squire, Fair Observer, July 23, 2019 (‘As extremists are increasingly facing bans from online platforms, they look to alt-tech to circumvent restrictions’).
4.30pm, Thursday, March 12, 2020 /// 3CR /// 855AM / streaming live on the 3CR website
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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?"
