Storming the streets
Christopher Bantick
February 27, 2008
WHEN the city square used to be on the corner of Collins and Swanston streets, a group of anti-immigration protesters in Hitler’s storm trooper uniforms were holding forth.
Suddenly, two elderly men, their coat tails flying, ran across Collins St and tried to rip the swastika armbands from the protesters.
The resultant scuffle ended up with one old man receiving a cut head and the protesters scattering after an angry crowd gathered.
The swastika and the intimidating dog returned to Melbourne’s streets on Friday night in an anti-independence rally over Kosovo separating from Serbia. The irony was inescapable.
Seventy-five years ago, Hitler came to power and his swastika-wearing bovver boys crushed dissent. The swastika is a symbol of terror and totalitarianism.
Therefore, it is difficult to see how the Serb protesters can appropriate the swastika and expect public support.
To understand the convoluted logic of the Serbs who took to Melbourne’s streets is a challenge.
An Australian flag and placard covered in swastikas was confiscated by police. To besmirch an Australian flag with swastikas is not only an act of breathtaking ignorance, but inflammatory.
I wonder what my late father, a World War II veteran, would have thought. He fought under the Australian flag. He watched his mates die under the Australian flag. He would have been outraged that the Australian flag was desecrated with symbols of hate.
Melbourne is a city with an international reputation for its racial harmony, and was ranked third in a UN report last year as the most desirable country in which to live.
Peter Schneemann, from Switzerland’s Berne University, was in Melbourne last month for the 32nd International Committee of the History of Art Congress.
He praised the city’s “extremely open and tolerant culture”.
As a mark of this democracy and tolerance, Serbian demonstrators are free to march and chant in Melbourne’s streets.
But what they are protesting about bears closer examination.
At its heart, this protest was about nationalism and the Serbian refusal to accept Australia’s recognition of the now independent Kosovo.
What do we make of the veiled threat contained in the words of Father Milan Milutinovic of Melbourne’s Serbian Orthodox Church?
He asked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to reverse Australia’s decision to recognise Kosovo independence from Serbia.
“Countries, unfortunately including Australia, have recognised Kosovo unilaterally as a sovereign state,” said the cleric. “This is something we cannot accept and we are here to protest what’s going on.”
But, while such nationalistic claims directed at the Australian Government are cause for unease, Father Milutinovic was partly correct when he added: “I don’t know what connection Australia really has to Kosovo — it’s a European problem.”
Kosovo’s independence is accepted by the United Nations Security Council and the council universally condemned Nazi-like violence in Belgrade.
But there’s the rub. European ethnically derived hate has no place on Melbourne’s streets, and I’m with Father Milutinovic when he says: “It’s a European problem.”
But not when Serbian bullying is crystallised in the mark of a swastika.
It is a symbol that destroys whatever cause the Serbs may declare.
Christopher Bantick is a Melbourne writer and social commentator
AN OFFENSIVE “apology” to the Aboriginal population which caused outrage nearly eight years ago is being distributed online through a flood of emails.
Email in-boxes - including those of media outlets - have been hit by the message entitled the “Australian Apology to the Aborigines/Aboriginal Population”, causing a backlash on message boards across the internet…
And this just in from the Department of Jackie Kelly Eat Your Heart Out:
Lib endorses racist ‘apology’ email The Sunday Mail
Glenn Milne
February 17, 2008
BRENDAN Nelson has been embarrassed by a racist version of an “apology” to the Stolen Generations being circulated by prominent Liberals who don’t believe the Opposition Leader should have supported last week’s historic gesture.
The mock apology accuses Aborigines of being cannibals and ungrateful for the assistance they have received from white governments…
The document is being circulated via email in Sydney by prominent Liberal and businessman Ian Goode. Mr Goode, a former builder, is well known in Cronulla, the southern Sydney suburb that was the scene of ugly race riots in December 2005.
Mr Goode was quoted at the time for blaming the riots on Lebanese Muslims.
While Mr Goode yesterday denied being the author of the racist “apology” - which is headed “the APOLOGY Kevin Rudd should be giving to the Aboriginals!!” - he endorsed its sentiments at the top of his email with the words: “Not politically correct, but close to the point.”
Senior Liberal sources confirmed yesterday that Mr Goode was active in the party and had been chosen as a pre-selector in the recent controversial pre-selection for the Cronulla-based federal seat of Cook, though he was unable to take his place in that process.
Mr Goode also heads up the Cronulla Nippers Club - the biggest youth surf organisation in Australia.
It seems Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generation has really allowed the vicious underbelly of rank racism that permeates Australian culture and politics to overflow like an enormous bath full of mixed metaphors. Continuing to lead the charge is millionaire blabbermouth Alan Jones.
WHETHER you call them the ignored majority or the ignorant few, it took only a mouse click and a quick flick of the radio dial to discover that many Australians did not welcome Kevin Rudd’s apology yesterday.
The words “We are sorry” from the Prime Minister sent talkback switchboards and internet servers into meltdown, as thousands rang or clicked in to register their disagreement and in some cases disgust at the new direction their leaders had taken. Calls and commentary on the Sydney radio stations 2GB and 2UE led the charge, with callers describing the morning’s events as “political correctness gone mad” and asking why it was an apology for “them and not us”.
“I’m disgusted … he [Rudd] makes out that we’ve done nothing but destroy this country,” one caller to Alan Jones said…
Also unconvinced of the merits of a Government apology is Andrew Nut. I mean, Bolt. Bolt says pretty much what you’d expect him to say, and thus provides Ben Pobjie with some excellent material to work with: Andrew Bolt, Please Forgive Us, New Matilda, February 15, 2008:
The Herald Sun’s esteemed opinion columnist, Andrew Bolt, is upset. Very, very upset. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s apology to Indigenous Australians seems to have set something off in the poor fellow. He’s so apoplectic with rage he’s started making sheep noises. And I have to say, I feel a little bad for him. He just seems so furious, so desolate at the way the country’s going. And the fact is, we’re to blame. You and me, and our fellow left-wing, do-gooder, bleeding-heart PC Australians. We’ve given poor old Andrew heartburn. And at a time like this, I think it’s only appropriate that I offer, on behalf of the nation, an apology to Mr Bolt.
Meanwhile, in Sydney, Dr James Saleam is enjoying another of his brief moments in the spotlight, on this occasion as a result of his losing an upcoming election for local council in September.
THE Australia First Party will run an “energetic” campaign in a bid to win a seat on Sutherland Shire Council at the local government elections in September.
Party spokesman Jim Saleam said the party was planning to contest at least one ward and was now choosing candidates.
The party entered candidates in the 2004 local government contests at Coffs Harbour [Darrell Wallbridge, 124 votes], Marrickville [South, James Saleam, 42 votes], Newcastle [2, Stuart McBeth, Robert McBeth and Jarrod Riches; 534 votes total] and Sutherland [D, Syd Cratchley, 289 votes].
“We didn’t actually campaign in Marrickville. I simply put my name down there as a provocation,” Dr Saleam said.
“We ran a candidate in Sutherland’s B ward and didn’t pull a massive amount of the vote.”
Dr Saleam said this year’s campaign would be as “extensive” as the party could reasonably make it.
“We will be confronting the multicultural policies of the council,” he said.
Dr Saleam said the country’s most pressing concern was population control and every effort should be made to cap Australia’s population, including cutting immigration.
He said people who came to Australia from other countries often left again and they should not be “replaced”, which would allow some room for Australia’s birth rate without increasing the total population.
Dr Saleam said that by joining local government, the Australia First Party could “use every power and technique available” at that level to mount an obstructionist campaign against the higher levels of government.
“We perceive this as almost a political guerilla war,” he said. “The desalination plant is linked to Morris Iemma’s target of 6 million people in Sydney by 2040. That would make the shire virtually unliveable.”
Mayor David Redmond dismissed the party’s ambitions.
“It appears to me they are very much a single-issue party,” he said. “The matters that come before council on a daily basis are pretty broad. A councillor should be able to speak and deal with any member of the community.”
As noted at the beginning of this post, one of the other responses to the apology to Australia’s indigenous peoples — aside from the gathering in Canberra — has been the circulation of a really funny text, one providing an alternative perspective on Australian history and relations between the indigenous and non-indigenous populations. Below are a few extracts and a few brief responses to them.
AUSTRALIAN APOLOGY TO THE ABORIGINAL POPULATION
1)“We apologise for giving you doctors and free medical care, which allows you to survive and multiply so that you can demand apologies.”
By almost any standard measure, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population experiences grievous disadvantage in the area of health. Or as the Office of Aboriginal Health puts it: “Aboriginal people experience much poorer health and die at a much younger age than non-Aboriginal Australians. For almost every health status indicator where information is available, the Aboriginal level is worse than that among non-Aboriginal Australians (ABS & AIHW, 2003).” According to the Victorian Government, “Indigenous people have a shorter life expectancy - around 18 to 19 years less than non-indigenous people. The average life span is 57 years for an Aboriginal male and 62 years for an Aboriginal female”; and again, “Aboriginal people have higher rates of ill health than any other group in Australia.”
2)“We apologise for helping you to read and teaching you the English language and thus we opened up to you the entire European civilisation, thought and enterprise.”
There are more than 200 Australian Indigenous languages. Less than 20 languages are strong, and even these are endangered: the others have been destroyed, live in the memories of the elderly, or are being revived by their communities.
3)“We feel that we must apologise for building hundreds of homes for you, which you have vandalised and destroyed.”
Uh-huh. Well, that’s what the anonymous author of some racist spam maintains. On the other hand, today, the ABC reports on the release of a new study by a public health professional with 25 years experience in the field of Aboriginal health (Indigenous housing grossly inadequate: report, Lindy Kerin).
As the Prime Minister prepares for a road trip to Indigenous communities, possibly with Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson, a report on Aboriginal housing reveals the extent of the challenge facing his new bipartisan commission. The report, which was published today in Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, exposes serious inadequacies in Indigenous housing in the Northern Territory and four states. Dr Paul Torzillo from the Nganampa Health Council in central Australia says more than 4,000 houses in 132 Indigenous communities were surveyed. He says most were grossly inadequate in infrastructure, nutrition, safety and hygiene. “In only a third of these houses could you actually wash a child reliably each day,” Dr Torzillo said. “In only around 10 to 11 per cent of these houses did you have basic electrical safety. In less than 10 per cent of these houses could you actually store, prepare and cook a meal. So what these findings, what this study shows is that when you go and test the ability of these houses to provide the basic hardware that people need to live a healthy lifestyle, look after themselves and their families, then the houses perform extraordinarily badly.”
Of course, not having read the report, I’m unsure if it recommends Governments intervene to stop ungrateful blacks from destroying their own housing, but if it did, I think it would be newsworthy, don’t you?
4)“We apologise for giving you law and order which has helped prevent you from slaughtering one another and using the unfortunate for food purposes.”
We’re through the looking glass here. Yes: invasion, expropriation and attempted genocide is in reality the ushering in of a new, more civilised era for the violent blacks. Never mind that the history of the West is in large part a history of war, empire and genocide (as well as a not-coincidental history of technological progress and domination of non-human nature); forget that, as a result of the massive expansion in the forces of capitalist industrialism, the long-term survival of the species has been thrown into question; no, just remember — Australia’s indigenous peoples were in the habit of killing and eating one another, and Whitey stopped it.
And so on and so on. The text continues to make a series of unsupported and increasingly bizarre assertions regarding the enormous boon loss of sovereignty has been for indigenous peoples, from the provision of food, clothing and transport (”We apologise for giving you free travel anywhere, whenever”) to “allowing taxpayers’ money [to be] paid towards [your] daughters’ wedding[s]” of “$8,000.00 each”.
“It is clear that the Aboriginal industry is keen to belittle white settlement in Australia as a psychological weapon in making demands for such concessions as native title, and “land rights”. Pauline Hanson is condemned because she refuses to be intimidated by such propaganda” claimed Alexander Downer’s mates in the the Australian League of Rights (On Target, Vol.33, No.17, May 9, 1997).
Fuck ‘em. Here’s an Aussie rock classic:
On a somewhat-related note, searching for a poem of his about re-learning Gaelic, I just stumbled upon online recordings of Jas H. Duke’s poetry. Jas was a Melbourne anarchist and poet, whom I discovered almost exactly around the time he died, in 1992. Jas wrote a few poems about Australia and colonialism for the ‘Bicentenary’ in 1988, one favourite of mine being ‘Happy Birthday Australia’.
You can keep your Opera House and your MCG
You can keep your company home it don’t mean nothing to me
We’re not trying to take away your suburban backyard
We won’t be spearing any sheep down on your farm
My life is different to yours
What are you worried for
You got the money, you got the lot
You got it all but you still don’t stop…
:::::: APPENDIX ::::::
Carl D. Thompson (’Wodensvolk’) — Queensland-based raging neo-Nazi, soliloquist and one of Stormfront Down Under’s favourite netizens — has some awesome raps about the womenfolk. On the subject of white chicks engaging in forbidden lurve (akamiscegenation), check this shit:
This happens because between the ages of about 15 and 25 women are terminally stupid, regardless of what their IQ score may be.
They generally make the worst reproductive choices possible because they are attracted to the ‘bad boys’, as a result of Jewish programming.
About the age of 25 some of them grow a brain, but by then they generally have a miscegenated mongrel or otherwise undesirable rug rat and no decent white man will touch them.
I can remember that girls who made fun of me when they were teenagers, or scorned me when they were about 20, just about kicked my door in to get to me by the time that they turned 30 and had grown a brain.
I can remember one girl/woman in particular who turned up on my doorstep (literally) with a rug rat she had to a Pacific islander.
She was a stunner, playmate of the month material. She apologised for the way that she had treated me and pleaded for me to give her another chance.
I told her in very clear terms that ‘once you go black we don’t want you back’ and left her there with her miscegenated bastard.
Now I am watching my own daughter go through this phase.
At least she has been thoroughly educated on the matter of race, so there is no danger of that problem . . . but every boyfriend she has had has been a loser who has been a waste of oxygen.
She has an IQ of 152, but functions at the level of an idiot when it comes to choosing male company.
Another meathead called SouthWesterner adds:
Have you got a daughter? Coz that[’]s what they[’]re here for.
The zionist-occupied-governments of all the White countries love to bring blacks into our countries for the purpose of race-mixing and therefore the destruction of the White race. Don[’]t pay attention to the reasons (excuses) they are here, just understand that the alternative agenda is to misceginate [sic] the White Race.
The real haters are the jews. They’ve hated Whites for over a thousand years.
While the National Front have long claimed that they stand for law and order, FDB finds it somewhat poignant that a long term member (and former NF Youth Representative) Brendon Rimmer has just been convicted for assaulting an Asian youth; yet another conviction to go alongside his conviction last year for drunk driving.
A Taupo man on home detention for attacking an Asian teenager allegedly spent his time at home posting white supremacist statements online and making light of his sentence.
Brendon Rimmer was sentenced to six months’ home detention in Taupo District Court this month and ordered to pay $350 reparation after pleading guilty to three charges of common assault.
The charges relate to an incident in Napier in July when Rimmer approached a group of four teenagers - aged between 15 and 17 - and verbally abused them before assaulting some of them.
Police told the court that Rimmer asked “why are you hanging around with this chink”? He then asked an Asian teenager what he was doing in “my country” before saying “why are you here? Get out of my country”.
Update: According to Black & Co., “Stormfront is
down for maintenance. Check back later. Or tune in to live Stormfront
Radio. Dr. [sic] David Duke & Don Black on now, talking, among
other things, about the attacks on Stormfront today.” So, some kinda
DDOS I guess… making those responsible as bad as — if not worse –
than Hitler (according to some local punks). What about the children?
Nutty followers of the 14 Words elsewhere write: “Stormfront… has been under cyber attack for the past few days. Apparently free speech by racially-realistic whites is such a threat to the myth of egalitarianism and multiculturalism that the proponents of this hoax feel the need to illegally attack a bulletin board.”
How odd.
The world’s leading White supremacist website now appears to have discovered God: http://www.stormfront.org leading to “Kinsman Redeemer Ministeries”. Well, kinda…
Greetings in the wonderful and mighty name of Jesus Christ.
This Internet outreach is dedicated to the vision of establishing a Christian foundation for the good news of the gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in the United States. The so called churches in this country, as elsewhere in the world, are corrupted with the trappings of jewish fables and false doctrines detrimental to the true Israel people of scripture; that is, the Anglo Saxon, Celtic, Scandinavian, Germanic and kindred peoples that comprise the twelve tribes, to whom the Holy Bible is exclusively about.
Um… right.
According to the SPLC, Kinsman Redeemer is one of several dozen organisations describing themselves as propagating “Christian Identity”:
The Christian Identity religion asserts that whites, not Jews, are the true Israelites favored by God in the Bible. In most of its forms, Identity theology depicts Jews as biologically descended from Satan, while non-whites are seen as soulless “mud people” created with the other Biblical “beasts of the field.” Christian Identity has its roots in a 19th-century English fad called British Israelism, which asserted that European whites were descended from the ten “lost tribes” of Israel and were thus related to Jews, who were descended from the other two Hebrew tribes mentioned in the Bible. But British Israelism, which was initially friendly to Jews, was adopted and transformed in the 20th century into a rabidly anti-Semitic creed by a number of racist preachers in the United States.
For decades, Identity has been one of the most important ideologies for the white supremacist movement. In its hardest line form, it asserts that Christ will not return to earth until the globe is swept clean of Jews and other “Satanic” [in]fluences. In recent years, deep doctrinal disputes, the lack of a central church structure, and a shift among white supremacists towards agnosticism and racist variations of neo-Paganism have weakened the Identity movement and reduced the number of its adherents.
On the one hand, the material advertising the event (see above) — as well as a banner linking the site to the Starlight Foundation homepage — has disappeared from the Bulldog Spirit myspace page; on the other hand, it remains on that of The Beefeaters, and the Foundation itself has not, as far as I’m aware, made any kind of public statement regarding the event. Certainly, it was well-publicised that a gig raising funds for the Starlight Foundation was to take place, and there’s been no hint that it wasn’t properly authorised. The circumstances surrounding the gig are slightly unusual, however, as normally those seeking to raise funds for charitable institutions such as Starlight obtain authorisation for such activities; thus, either permission was not given, or it was later withdrawn. The unauthorised use of charitable logos to raise funds is unlawful under the Fundraising Appeals Act, and it’s difficult — in fact, virtually impossible — to believe that the Foundation would place itself in such a position merely in order to help rehabilitate the image of a pub that for the last ten years has hosted neo-Nazi events. Certainly, the disgusting pigs whom the proprietor has in the past allowed use of the venue to raise funds and to promote neo-Nazi ideology would much rather see children who in their opinion have the wrong skin colour either deported or, in the manner of their political ancestors, exterminated.
Which fact brings me to the point: what’s all the fuss about anyways? At the risk of being accused of wearing a black armband, perhaps an historical detour would be appropriate at this juncture. (Please note that sensitive young conservatives who happen to be fans of punk and ska music may like to exit the room at this point.)
Children were especially vulnerable in the era of the Holocaust. The Nazis advocated killing children of “unwanted” or “dangerous” groups in accordance with their ideological views, either as part of the “racial struggle” or as a measure of preventative security. The Germans and their collaborators killed children both for these ideological reasons and in retaliation for real or alleged partisan attacks.
The Germans and their collaborators killed as many as 1.5 million children, including over a million Jewish children and tens of thousands of Romani (Gypsy) children, German children with physical and mental disabilities living in institutions, Polish children, and children residing in the occupied Soviet Union. The chances for survival for Jewish and some non-Jewish adolescents (13-18 years old) were greater, as they could be deployed at forced labor.
The fate of Jewish and non-Jewish children can be categorized in the following way: 1) children killed when they arrived in killing centers; 2) children killed immediately after birth or in institutions; 3) children born in ghettos and camps who survived because prisoners hid them; 4) children, usually over age 12, who were used as laborers and as subjects of medical experiments; and 5) those children killed during reprisal operations or so-called anti-partisan operations.
In the ghettos, Jewish children died from starvation and exposure as well as lack of adequate clothing and shelter. The German authorities were indifferent to this mass death because they considered most of the younger ghetto children to be unproductive and hence “useless eaters.” Because children were generally too young to be deployed at forced labor, German authorities generally selected them, along with the elderly, ill, and disabled, for the first deportations to killing centers, or as the first victims led to mass graves to be shot.
Upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau and other killing centers, the camp authorities sent the majority of children directly to the gas chambers. SS and police forces in German-occupied Poland and the occupied Soviet Union shot thousands of children at the edge of mass graves. Sometimes the selection of children to fill the first transports to the killing centers or to provide the first victims of shooting operations resulted from the agonizing and controversial decisions of Jewish council (Judenrat) chairmen. The decision by the Judenrat in Lodz in September 1942 to deport children to the Chelmno killing center was an example of the tragic choices made by adults when faced with German demands. Janusz Korczak, director of an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto, however, refused to abandon the children under his care when they were selected for deportation. He accompanied them on the transport to the Treblinka killing center and into the gas chambers, sharing their fate.
Non-Jewish children from certain targeted groups were not spared. Examples include Romani (Gypsy) children killed in Auschwitz concentration camp; 5,000 to 7,000 children killed as victims of the “euthanasia” program; children murdered in reprisals, including most of the children of Lidice; and children in villages in the occupied Soviet Union who were killed with their parents.
The German authorities also incarcerated a number of children in concentration camps and transit camps. SS physicians and medical researchers used a number of children, including twins, in concentration camps for medical experiments that often resulted in the deaths of the children. Concentration camp authorities deployed adolescents, particularly Jewish adolescents, at forced labor in the concentration camps, where many died because of conditions. The German authorities held other children under appalling conditions in transit camps, such as the case of Anne Frank and her sister in Bergen-Belsen, and non-Jewish orphaned children whose parents the German military and police units had killed in so-called anti-partisan operations. Some of these orphans were held temporarily in the Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp and other detention camps.
In their “search to retrieve ‘Aryan blood,’” SS race experts ordered hundreds of children in occupied Poland and the occupied Soviet Union to be kidnapped and transferred to the Reich to be adopted by racially suitable German families. Although the basis for these decisions was “race-scientific,” often blond hair, blue eyes, or fair skin was sufficient to merit the “opportunity” to be “Germanized.” On the other hand, female Poles and Soviet civilians who had been deported to Germany for forced labor and who had had sexual relations with a German man — often under duress — resulting in pregnancy were forced to have abortions or to bear their children under conditions that would ensure the infant’s death, if the “race experts” determined that the child would have insufficient German blood.
In spite of their acute vulnerability, many children discovered ways to survive. Children smuggled food and medicines into the ghettos, after smuggling personal possessions to trade for them out of the ghettos. Children in youth movements later participated in underground resistance activities. Many children escaped with parents or other relatives — and sometimes on their own — to family camps run by Jewish partisans.
Between 1938 and 1940, the Kindertransport (Children’s Transport) was the informal name of a rescue effort which brought thousands of refugee Jewish children (without their parents) to safety in Great Britain from Nazi Germany and German-occupied territories. Some non-Jews hid Jewish children and sometimes, as in the case of Anne Frank, hid other family members as well. In France, almost the entire Protestant population of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, as well as many Catholic priests, nuns, and lay Catholics, hid Jewish children in the town from 1942 to 1944. In Italy and Belgium, many children survived in hiding.
After the surrender of Nazi Germany, ending World War II, refugees and displaced persons searched throughout Europe for missing children. Thousands of orphaned children were in displaced persons camps. Many surviving Jewish children fled eastern Europe as part of the mass exodus (Brihah) to the western zones of occupied Germany, en route to the Yishuv (the Jewish settlement in Palestine). Through Youth Aliyah (Youth Immigration), thousands migrated to the Yishuv, and then to the state of Israel after its establishment in 1948.
The photo below is of some of the Nazi concentration camp guards at Auschwitz, one of several such photos unearthed only last year:
In which context, it may be worth recalling the reaction of a local teenage fascist (and self-proclaimed ‘national anarchist’) at the time of their discovery, as recorded (and since deleted) on the white supremacist website Stormfront:
Today, 05:35 AM
NoCrusties
Australian Nationalist
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 460
Re: New photos of Nazis having fun in the sun
They are celebrating the girls graduation from Jewish strangulation school?
Haha, jokes, haha!
Regards
NoCrusties.
This is the reaction of a local Melbourne teenager to genocide; a teenager belonging to a Sydney-based political formation run by a German-born neo-Nazi militant named Welf Herfurth, a man on record as denying the Holocaust, and a man also present — alongside other luminaries from the local neo-Nazi and ’skinhead’ milieus — at the 2006 ISD memorial gig…
Of course, on the other hand, according to Jack of The Beefeaters, The Birmy — until recently the venue for both the ISD memorial gigs and numerous other gatherings and fund-raising initiatives by local neo-Nazis — is “the only venue in Melbourne that truly supports local bands, offer[s] free practice space and refuses to take any percentage of the door charge from gigs”. (By the same token, it should also be remembered that, by all accounts, Hitler was quite fond of Blondi, a German Shepherd — a breed renowned for their loyalty and obedience.) Common sense suggests that a boycott of The Birmy, and any attempt to promote it, is therefore equivalent to the activities of the Nazi regime itself. In fact, if one compares the activities of contemporary neo-Nazis such as the Hammerskins with the publication of material relaying to a boycott of a pub which has hosted their activities for the better part of a decade, the similarity between the two becomes even clearer.
Well, that’s apparently the argument of apologists for The Birmy anyway. The Hammerskins, on the other hand, aren’t noted for their sensitivity to criticism.
Doin’ It For The Kids : Hammerskins Style!
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Named for the stirring use of hammers as fascist symbols in the film The Wall (1982), it remains unknown if the bright spark who thought of the name Hammerskins was a fan of Pink Floyd’s earlier, psychedelic rock; certainly, Bob Geldof’s role as “A troubled rock star [who] descends into madness in the midst of his physical and social isolation from everyone” appears to be reflected in his eventual belief that charity solves poverty. In any case, established in 1987, it wasn’t very long before the Hammerskins came to national prominence in their natural home, the United States, when, a year later, five members of the original ‘Confederate’ Hammerskins in Dallas — Christopher Greer, 23, John Jordan, 17, Michael Lawrence, 20, Sean Tarrant, 18 and Daniel Wood, 18 — “chased and attacked minorities who attempted to enter Robert E. Lee Park in downtown Dallas. The five were apparently inspired by a racist rally they attended in Tulsa that June where Tom Metzger, leader of White Aryan Resistance (WAR) spoke. When they were arrested, the defendants had baseball bats and broken pieces of concrete, which they apparently intended to use to recreate the Kristallnacht to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the attacks on Jewish stores and homes that took place on November 9, 1938 in Nazi Germany”. The five were sentenced for the crime in April, 1990.
Since that time, Hammerskins have engaged in many violent assaults, up to and including murder. Thus according to the ADL:
…The Confederate Hammerskins of Dallas were both the first Hammerskin group and the first to come to public attention… During [the] summer [of 1988] and into the fall, the Hammerskins vandalized a synagogue and a Jewish community center by shooting out windows, smashing doors and spray painting anti-Semitic slogans and swastikas. Michael Lawrence also committed violent crimes with skinheads Christopher Jones, Daniel Roush and Forrest Hyde in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the following year. The Tulsa group firebombed a minority-owned nightclub and assaulted its nonwhite patrons.
In June 1991, Arlington, Texas, was the site of further violence by Hammerskins. Three 16-year-old members of the Confederate Hammerskins murdered an African American, Donald Thomas, while he sat on the back of a truck with two white friends. Joshua Hendry claimed that after he, William Roberts and Christopher Brosky drank about two cases of beer, Roberts said that he wanted to “do a drive-by” and “shoot a black person.” According to Hendry, after he and Brosky agreed, Roberts readied a sawed-off shotgun. Hendry later testified that when the three passed Thomas, Brosky yelled “shoot him!” and Roberts pulled the trigger.
Also in 1991, Jimmy “Soda Pop” Miller, an Arizona Hammerskin, firebombed a residence he mistakenly thought was occupied by rival skinheads. Miller also defaced a synagogue. Though he was sentenced to more than five years for these crimes, he was released after serving only two years in prison. That same year, in Birmingham, Alabama, Hammerskin Louis Oddo and his colleague Adam Galleon murdered a 50-year-old black homeless man on Christmas Eve. Oddo and Galleon killed the man, Douglas Garrett, by hitting him with a baseball bat and kicking him with their heavy boots. Oddo and Galleon were subsequently convicted of murder.
Less than two years later, in the summer and fall of 1993, members of the New Dawn Hammerskins defaced two synagogues, harassed black patrons of a local bookstore and assaulted two black girls in Brockton and Randolph, Massachusetts. In July 1994, these Hammerskins were charged with conspiring to intimidate and interfere with the rights of black and Jewish citizens. The leader of the group, Brian Joseph Clayton, was also the only adult among the defendants. He pled guilty to the charges and received 46 months in prison.
The next major incident of Hammerskin-related violence took place on March 17, 1999, in an open field near Temecula, California. Six Western Hammerskins (Travis Miskam, Daniel Butler, Alan Yantis, Gregory McDaniel, Jesse Douglas and Jason McCully) allegedly attacked a 23-year-old African American, Randy Bowen. They apparently chose to attack him simply because he was black, approaching him without provocation at an unplanned youth gathering. Miskam reportedly hit Bowen over the head with a beer bottle, and when Bowen asked him why, Miskam allegedly replied, “We don’t like niggers here; I don’t like niggers.” According to legal documents, as Bowen tried to flee, the Hammerskins chased him, shouting “Die, nigger,” “Get that nigger,” “Kill that nigger,” and “We’re going to get you, nigger.” Between them, the Hammerskins carried a bottle, a screwdriver, a folding knife and a razor knife. They cut and stabbed Bowen on his head and back before he escaped to a stranger’s home. Witnesses indicated that after attacking Bowen, the Hammerskins started goose-stepping, giving Nazi salutes and singing German songs.
On August 16, 1999, a grand jury indicted the four adult Hammerskins involved in the attack (Miskam, Butler, Yantis and McDaniel) on charges of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder with enhancements for gang affiliation and commission of a hate crime. In March 2001, as Miskam, Yantis and Douglas awaited trial, Butler, McDaniel and McCully pled guilty to assault with a deadly weapon and committing a hate crime. In addition, lawyers representing Bowen filed a civil suit that aims to force all six Hammerskins involved in the attack, their families, and the Hammerskin Nation to pay Bowen general and punitive damages. The suit alleges that the Hammerskins are a “street gang,” as defined by the California Penal Code, and describes the group as encouraging its members, including the defendants, “to commit acts of violence and intimidation against African-Americans to promote their white supremacist goals.”
But the fun doesn’t stop there. No, the Hammerskins are a persistent bunch, and when they’re not organising gigs at The Birmy, or, like Douglas Schott and his band Blood Red Eagle (or Damian Ovchynik and his band Bail Up!) travelling interstate and overseas to perform at other Hammerskins’ gigs, they remain busy trying to kill kikes, niggers and race traitors.
SEMINOLE COUNTY, FL — Three days before Hammerfest 2007 kicks off, three members of the Confederate Hammerskins (CHS) will be standing before a judge for their role in the botched home invasion of a local antifa on Sep. 1.
Coby Wayne Stonecypher, 35, of Christmas, [Florida], Gary Allen Armstrong, 28, of Casselbery, FL and Johnathan Wayne Singleton, 26, of Ocoee, FL will be at the Criminal Justice Center on Oct. 2 at 1:30PM in Sanford, FL before Judge Debra S. Nelson. The three have either posted bail or were released pending trial. They have all been ordered not to go near the house where they attempted to stage an early evening attack on a well-known antifascist activist that Stonecypher [has] had a grudge against for years. The three ended up getting soundly beaten by that antifa and two others, and they were arrested as they tried to flee.
CHS has a long history in the state of Florida and over the years have engaged in a number of violent acts in the state. They were reportedly responsible for shooting out the window of the Jacksonville, FL club ‘Thee Imperial’ to prevent them from having a anti-racist show on Dec. 16, and earlier this year, CHS members Tom Martin, 23, and John Rock, 35, were arrested by the FBI after an informant wore a wire to a meeting and agreed to help them rob a drug dealer in Casselberry, FL. They [?] have also [been] made… into virtual punching bags for antifa and underground music scenesters alike in the state. The most notable incident [occurred] when Forrest Fog[a]rty, the lead singer of the white power band Attack and current Army active duty who has done tours in Iraq, was beaten and cut badly by attendees of a show by the Buffalo, NY band Snapcase, which is known for being decidedly anti-racist. Coby Stonecypher has been noted by those familiar with him as the right-hand man of CHS’s leader Ritchie Myers, and has served time in jail on a hate crime charge in 1999 stemming from an assault charge for allegedly threatening a black man in connection with a neo-Nazi gathering at a hotel in Plant City, FL.
Ironically, the Hammerskin court date is also the same day that National Vanguard founder Kevin Alfred Strom will be in court in Virginia facing child porn charges.
Strom eventually eventually plead guilty to one charge of possessing child pornography.
That story comes courtesy of DLJ / One People’s Project. See also Hate-crime case award will be hard to collect, experts say, Sean Nelson, The Press-Enterprise, August 24, 2007:
A man described as a recruiter for a white supremacist group and the parents and sisters of two men convicted of beating and slashing Randy Wordell Bowen, who is black, were ordered to pay damages…
Some men charged and sentenced in the Bowen case were admitted members of Western Hammerskins, a regional branch of an international white-supremacy group. Roth said he filed the suit to stop Western Hammerskins from operating in the Murrieta area.
Tim Hales, commander of the Murrieta-Temecula Regional Gang Task Force, said the prosecution and civil lawsuits against members and their families likely contributed to the declining visibility of Hammerskins.
Riverside County prosecutors called the attack on Bowen one of the worst racially motivated crimes in county history.
Bowen was struck in the head with a bottle and chased by a group of people — many of whom shouted racial slurs and Nazi slogans — during a 1999 bonfire party in the Temecula Valley Wine Country, prosecutors said at the time. He was then beaten and slashed across the back with a straight razor, prosecutors said.
In 2001 and 2002, six men charged in the beating were sentenced to prison terms ranging from four to 20 years.
The convicted men and three others involved in the attack but not criminally charged were subsequently sued in civil court and ordered by a judge to pay Bowen about $4.8 million in damages, Roth said.
Ring Dang Doo!
I don’t think it takes a genius to work out that maybe the Hammerskins are a bunch of psychotic racists. Further, that they’re probably not a group of people worth supporting. But Gary Birmy doesn’t think so, and the same could be said of Blood & Honour, the other neo-Nazi organisation his pub has played host to.
Response
As noted, there has been no official response by Starlight to the gig, or the use by its organisers of the Starlight logo. There have been a small number of other responses however. Darrin Hodges (aka the Anglo-Australian National Community Council — described by MediaWatch as a “White supremacist” organisation) is among a small number of local racists and other critics who’ve attempted, perhaps inevitably, to distort the very plain message of the FDB! press release (issued on Monday February 4) in relation to the gig. (More recently, Hodges gained some small degree of notoriety by campaigning against the construction of an Islamic school in Camden to service members of what he describes as that “despicable religion of filth”.) Thus according to Darrin:
Thursday, February 07, 2008
“Anti-racist” group FightDemBack! smear Starlight Foundation children’s charity as “nazis”
The fightdemback! group - a self-proclaimed “anti-racist” group - have taken to smearing the Starlight Foundation (a charity organisation to help very ill children and their families) by claiming the charity endorses Nazism. FDB! is an extremist leftwing organisation who spend their time persecuting anyone they see as their political enemies[.] [T]o attack a children’s charity in this manner is disgusting and vile…
They are fully prepared to destroy a charity dedicated to helping children with cancer simply to further their own political goals. Andrew (owner of the “slackbastard” blog), Cam Smith and associate [Mathew Henderson-Hau] are clearly sick and twisted individuals if they think they can use seriously ill children as a political football - their condemnation is deserved.
On the other hand, according to the Reverend Jack Petty:
Reverend Jack Petty Says:
February 9, 2008 at 5:44 am
Good on you mate!
It[’]s great to see someone put in so much effort to keep money from dying kids. Presenting false info[r]mation and slander is one thing but this really is a new low, even for a sad cunt like you.
Chunga of The Worst:
You really sunk to an all time low haven’t you Andy? Going out of your way to stop people who are trying to do a good thing… is not cool.
It seems your beliefs are that anyone who doesn’t conform to your same beliefs is apparently a nazi or nazi sympathiser or a wanker. You wouldn’t know a thing about anarchy if the definition was tattooed on your fucking face. And you deserve a bat to the head for changing that Starlight flyer you pathetic cunt!
andysadeadmanwalking:
you’re going to die you fuckwit! you must have a boring life that you sit here all day writing bullshit that isnt true… good life fuckhead! die already…
The standard response on the part of local racists and apologists for The Birmy, in other words, has been engendered. Lies, threats of violence, and slander. As for The Birmy itself, word on the street is that it may be sold. Let’s hope that the new proprietors, unlike its current owners, understand that neo-Nazis really aren’t welcome in Marvellous Melbourne.
The Acting Minister for Consumer Affairs, Andre Haermeyer, today reminded Victorian individuals, businesses and community groups fundraising for victims of Asia’s tsunami tragedy about their legal requirements.
“The community response to this disaster has been overwhelming, and I commend all those who have organised events and other activities to raise money for the relief effort,” Mr Haermeyer said.
“However, all organisations or individuals who raise money in Victoria must abide by fundraising laws…
Mr Haermeyer said the Fundraising Appeal Act required all people raising funds for appeals, including businesses, to be registered, meet account and record keeping requirements and comply with proper collections methods, such as wearing identification and using secure collection containers.
The penalty for unregistered fundraising in Victoria is a $24,000 fine for a corporation and a $12,000 fine, or one-year jail term, or both, for an individual…
Also, collectors raising money for registered fundraisers must be authorised by the registered fundraiser to raise money on their behalf…
An Australian member of one of the KKK’s umpteen franchises decided (February 1, 2008) to upload a video on to YouTube giving his opinion on the recent decision by the KRudd Government to issue a formal apology to the thousands of indigenous peoples who
constitute the Stolen Generations.
KKK’s vile response to apology
Peter Michael The Courier-Mail
February 7, 2008
TOWNSVILLE police are investigating a Ku Klux Klan video that appeared on the internet featuring a burning cross and a white-hooded man making racist comments in response to the national “Sorry” motion.
Aboriginal activists, police, and race discrimination experts yesterday condemned the “vile” and “frightening” film posted six days ago on video-sharing website YouTube.
North Queensland Regional Crime Co-ordinator Det-Insp Warren Webber said officers would investigate the video. But he denied any significant KKK activity in Townsville.
“I don’t think racism is confined to Townsville,” Det-Insp Webber said.
“And I don’t think there is any magic wand to eliminate racist behaviour.”
The 30-year-old Townsville man who posted the footage, when contacted by The Courier-Mail yesterday, said Australian Aborigines did not deserve an apology.
“Why say sorry? If we did not come here they would still live in caves and be throwing spears. And they want us to say sorry for what?,” he emailed.
Under the username of Bennypip, he posted the video on February 1 in response to the proposal by the Federal Government to say “sorry” next Wednesday.
From: bennypip Date: February 01, 2008, 03:33 AM Subject: Australia says sorry Body: no way go and screw your self monkeys
He refused to accept the racist attack was wrong.
Local Federal MP Peter Lindsay urged federal police to “hunt down this person” and charge him with racial vilification.
“Australians just don’t tolerate this kind of behaviour in our country. We won’t put up with it,” Mr Lindsay said.
He said he hoped there was no link to the large military community in the north Queensland city.
“Previously these sorts of things in Townsville have been associated with the Defence Force and I hope that is not happening again,” he said.
Aboriginal activist Gracelyn Smallwood said Townsville was well-known as “the nation’s KKK capital” and a “hotbed of racial discontent”.
“We can’t get too wound up, and hopefully all those people, both black and white, standing side-by-side prepared to say sorry will not be
overshadowed by this sort of red-neck, bigoted behaviour,” Ms Smallwood said.
Queensland Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Susan Booth said she was shocked by the footage.
“The KKK is the symbol of hate. I don’t understand the appeal the KKK has for these sorts of people, but this is very serious,” she said.
Understandably perhaps, authorities have announced a police investigation into the video (Police probe Townsville KKK internet video, ABC, February 7, 2008: “North Queensland police are investigating a racist internet video describing Aborigines as in-breds…”). And since it was brought to the attention of the corporate media, the video has been pulled. Which is somewhat curious, as there’s actually an abundance of racist videos on YouTube. For example,
href="http://slackbastard.anarchobase.com/?p=978">a local bonehead named Jesse has a channel ‘genocidal88′ (88 = HH = Heil Hitler) on YouTube which contains a number of videos
celebrating neo-Nazism and the Holocaust, including two crude cartoons which depict the murder of a Jew. Jesse himself is a member of local
neo-Nazi groups Blood & Honour and the Southern Cross Hammerskins, which last came to the attention of the mass media when the groups organised a gig at the Melbourne Croatia Social Club. Prior to that, the groups used The Birmingham Hotel in Fitzroy as a venue; this weekend, one of Jesse’s former band mates is performing at a benefit gig at The Birmingham, on this occasion in aid of the Starlight Children’s Foundation!
Chances are our amateur filmmaker is a member of Stormfront Down Under (SFDU). SFDU last made the news in early January, when discussions on it by racists to march on the Cenotaph in Sydney for Australia Day were unveiled by Joe Hildebrand: “Much of the activity has been co-ordinated through the neo-Nazi website Stormfront, whose Australian arm is sic] moderated by 18-year-old Newcastle resident Rhys McLean [below]. Mr McLean said he was aware of the plans but said it was a matter for the individual organisers, not the website”.
The SFDU forum is populated by a diverse range of fascist and racist cranks — from members of the KKK to outright neo-Nazis, members of the Australia First Party (such as Dr James Saleam) and Australian Protectionist Party
to Jim Perren (formerly of the White Pride Coalition of Australia); Patrick O’Sullivan of the ‘Creativity Movement’ to men such as Carl D.
Thompson.
On February 5, 2008, in a thread on the subject “What the **** is wrong with Abos?”, Carl writes:
There is one answer that covers all questions about the Australian Aborigines: they are retards.
The average IQ of the Aborigine is in the same range as the African Negro, which gives them an average in the 60s. Someone is considered to
be a retard at 75, so the average Aborigine is 10 to 15 IQ points below the level of a retard.
Do not forget that the way that statistics work about 40 per cent of Aborigines do not even make average.
If you look at the self-appointed Aboriginal leaders out there, every one of them has white genetic material in them.
Racially-pure Aborigines are not intellectually capable of anything more than digging up and eating grubs.
On January 13, 2008, a Victorian racist, using the pseudonym ‘revcore’, writes on a thread titled “Aboriginals and pushing white guilt about
Europeans stealing ‘their’ land”: “If whites didn’t civilise this land of ours, Australia would still be a land full of violent monkeys”.
Another forum member, a woman using the pseudonym ‘ladyfuro’, writes in a thread titled ‘SORRY’ (January 1, 2008):
Abos…gratefull? [sic] At every turn they sue us for the menial [sic] of acts.
They demand their sacred land back…then sell it to developers. They are an ungrateful, alcoholic, hate filled useless race of people…
After they killed an innocent white man over Christmas…he had the hide to play beach cricket with his family! The charges are assault and
assault causing bodily harm…No love lost here…
Oh…and NOT SORRY
There are numerous other examples of racist sentiment being expressed by SFDU members, especially with regards Australia’s indigenous peoples,
and of the most vulgar nature. So appalling is some of it that the Forum’s Administrators actually remove it from public display. It’s also
the case that many SFDU members are involved in ‘real life’ activism, from membership in one of the small number of fringe political parties
– such as Australia First and the Australian Protectionist Party — to the KKK, Blood & Honour, the Hammerskins and moribund groups such as the
ANM/ANWU, Patriotic Youth League and White Pride Coalition of Australia.
A profile of three current and former members of SFDU — Dävid Palmer, David Innes and John Drew — is available here. As for ‘bennypip’, it’s quite possible that he’s one of the handful of members
of the White Legion Knights of the KKK.
On a final note, the KKK has raised its pointy head in Townsville before, most recently last July. Note that: “Townsville Police Crime Co-ordinator Detective Inspector Warren Webber said he had never heard of the group and at this stage was not making any investigations. Townsville Mayor Tony Mooney and Thuringowa Mayor Les Tyrell both refused to comment on the rumoured branch.”
One of the accused in the dock, Christopher Allan McKenzie, hurled abuse at the judge as he was remanded in custody for six days.
He called the judge a name and grumbled, “I didn’t consent to nothing.”
The shaven-headed 30-year-old had already delivered a Nazi salute to people being cleared from the courtroom, who had stood and begun mouthing threats to the pair in the dock as soon as they came into the room.
Christopher McKenzie and his brother Daniel Robert McKenzie, 25, both of Sydenham, were jointly charged with discharging a firearm at Wendy May Stewart yesterday with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
They entered no plea and were remanded in custody to February 13 after police opposed them being granted bail.
Both were listed on the charge sheets as unemployed, but duty solicitor Steve Hembrow said Christopher McKenzie did have a job, and his brother was in poor health and had doctor’s appointments.
He said the charges were denied and asked that the judge allow a bail application to be re-argued once the pair had a lawyer and he had considered the police allegations.
“The display of the defendants in the dock has not impressed me about their future behaviour,” said Judge Neave.
There was another incident of shouting and threats inside the Court House doors an hour later. Police and court security staff separated the groups and settled it down.
Before the appearance, police alleged that shots were fired from a passing car in Hampshire Street, Aranui, yesterday, while children were playing nearby.
Several people were arrested later in the day by the Armed Offenders Squad at a house in Linwood.
The Melbourne Leader has a great video interview with our mate the very Reverend Patrick O’Sullivan on their website. Old Party Trick holds his own about as well as he holds his liquor. Check it.
On thin white ice
Maria Bervanakis
30Jan08
A WHITE supremacist group continues to operate in Melbourne’s inner-city, despite apparent breaches of the Racial and Religious Tolerance Act.
The Creativity Movement promotes itself as “the most Anti-Christian Church in the World'’ and its supporters post stickers across town reading, “White Power! White People Awake, Save the White Race.'’
The group’s Australian leader, Patrick O’Sullivan who refers to himself as a Reverend argues it is their right to do so.
“We have a right to congregate our religion; if people don’t like it, tough luck,'’ he said. “There is nothing wrong with promoting the white race. Nobody is forcing no one to join it, so I am not apologetic.'’
Mr O’Sullivan refused to provide details on the group’s headquarters, saying only that it met at different venues in the inner-city and had a Collingwood PO box.
He would not disclose how many members the group has.
“We do not give out numbers. It’s open to a degree, but we just don’t give out numbers,'’ he said.
Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission chief executive Dr Helen Szoke said the commission could act against the group only if it received a complaint. Nobody has made a complaint to the commission to date.
“The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act has been passed to actually deal with inciting hatred. I can’t comment specifically about the Creativity Movement, but as a general rule displaying racist or anti-religious comments or behaviour that can be considered of inciting hatred is the sort of behaviour actually captured by the legislation,'’ she said.
The legislation allows the commission to pursue the removal of prejudice material and seek compensation on behalf of complaintants.
Yarra Council pursued the group under the state’s bill-posting laws after receiving a complaint about the group’s racist stickers in a Clifton Hill park (Leader, October 31, 2007).
Mayor Judy Morton said the group received a warning this time, but the council would take the group to the commission if it received more complaints.
“We do not support groups or individuals that are intolerant of other cultures and religions,'’ Ms Morton said. “If there are any reoccurrences of this group’s material appearing in public places, council would be interested in lodging a formal complaint with the commission.
“I encourage residents to do the same if they are offended by the action of any group.'’
The Racial and Religious Tolerance Act states a person must not, on the ground of the race, class or religion of another person “engage in conduct that incites hatred against, serious contempt for, or revulsion or severe ridicule of, that other person or class of persons.
Rise of far right risks fuelling racist fire
Annabel Stafford
February 2, 2008
The gathering in the backyard-cum-carport in Sydney’s south resembles a clandestine party organised by blokes who find it hard to get a girlfriend.
Despite the baking hot afternoon sun, many wear black T-shirts, boots and leather vests. A rack in the corner of the yard is selling other T-shirts. Their messages: Speak English or Die and Skippy’s Rule OK.
A thrash metal band has set up in the carport and party-goers slam their heads in time with the drums. “Prepare for war,” the singer yells, “leave our shores.” This is Australia Day, Australia First style.
There are only about 25 people here and that includes the members of two metal bands that have come to perform. And not everyone admits to being a member of Australia First. Still, the party claims its way of thinking is spreading in Sydney.
That night, according to spokesman Jim Saleam, the bands would play at a private Australia Day function in the Sutherland Shire - site of the 2005 Cronulla riots - at which the party would try to recruit young supporters ahead of its planned bid for seats on several NSW councils and registration as a federal political party.
The press archives are littered with similar claims of rising influence from Australia First and its predecessor, National Action - notorious for its involvement in a series of violent incidents. And there have been previous and unsuccessful election bids.
But the Cronulla riots, racist activity surrounding plans to build an Islamic school in the Sydney suburb of Camden, and the fake leaflet affair - involving the husband of former Liberal MP Jackie Kelly - apparently designed to capitalise on anti-Islamic fears in the electorate of Lindsay, have some worried that this time Australia First could be right.
Mr Saleam describes Australia First as nationalist, anti-immigration, anti-trade and anti-multiculturalism.
After a few Australia Day drinks, the membership begins to expand on these themes.
Terry [Cooksley], a 69-year-old from the Sydney suburb of Mount Druitt, admits he likes to see people like himself when he walks down the street, which he says is “only natural” given our bodily germs form “a defence system against foreigners”.
Terry’s theory on cross-cultural marriage is similarly original: we only marry outside our racial group in a sub-conscious attempt to punish our mothers or fathers.
Mike, “about 54″, from Bexley, says he backs an end to migration because “people from the Third World don’t know how to live in a civilised world”. They mug people on their way to the corner shop, Mike says, confiding that he has “been confronted about three or four times by people of Middle Eastern appearance” because “I like to wear military dress”. He is, incidentally, also wearing a T-shirt declaring No Camel Jockey races on the Beach. It has a picture of a man on a camel and a line through it.
Mike admits he was not actually assaulted, but says that’s what his assailants “wanted to do” after he informed them of his previous service in the military. Actually, he was in the reserves for a time back in the 1970s and “I come from a military family that I’m very proud of”.
“Fantasy” is how Bruce Baird, the former federal MP for the electorate which covers the Sutherland Shire, describes Australia First’s belief in its growing influence. “I think (the idea) that they’re making any progress at all is illusory.”
Mr Baird says the racism that came to a head at Cronulla “has been defused and addressed” and that Australia First’s chances of winning a seat on the Sutherland Shire council are zilch.
Michael Kennedy, a former detective and now lecturer in police studies at the University of Western Sydney, is not so sure.
Parties like Australia First will always “appeal to a certain percentage of the community”, he says, but now there was a “growing base of people” in NSW who were susceptible to nationalist ideas because of disillusionment with the state’s mainstream political parties and the crumbling health and transport systems.
Australia First could well win a seat on a council, Mr Kennedy says, but the party’s real danger lies in its ability to “fuel the racist fire”.
In any case, Mr Saleam says his party views elections as “only part . . . of what we do”. It is also interested in “inculcating attitudes and extending . . . the idea of cultural defence” and in more confrontationist politics of the type employed by National Action before its demise.
But, he says, “you need to be much more careful of confrontation now because of the nature of the laws”. Mr Saleam was in jail in the early ’90s for being an accessory to a gun attack on the residence of an African National Congress representative.
“If you use confrontation, you have to use it in a much more precise and scientific way otherwise you’ll simply be arrested,” he says - and then tries to usher The Age out of the party, so that he can brief the band members and others heading down to Cronulla on how to avoid arrest that night.
Which might not be necessary. Lead singer of the band Machete, known as Ryan, doesn’t appear to be planning much in the way of “cultural defence”: “We heard there was a gig going on, we had nothing better to do so we come up here and just figured, what the hell, let’s . . . play some metal.”
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