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Tag Archives: fascism

Are Nazis running Victoria?

Currently the Neo Nazis who performed their Hitler salutes on Parliament House steps in Melbourne six weeks ago are effectively instructing Victoria Police which events the self-declared fascists will allow to take place in the state.

Premier Dan Andrews spoke out in horror on social media about the death threats made to councillors and others by the Neo Nazis. It is, however, the legal system and the police’s tolerance, at the very least, of these hateful figures that has led us to this point.

At the beginning of this year, the Neo Nazi making these threats avoided a jail term, instead being sentenced to 18-month community service after a disgraceful attack on a Black security guard outside Channel Nine in Melbourne. The attack was “brutal in its force, speed and repetition” on an unsuspecting victim. If the skin colour of the actors in this assault had been reversed, would the judge have left the assailant to walk free?

On the 18 March, the same man led a posse of threatening buffoons to join him in support of an English grifter’s anti-trans speech at Parliament House. The police kept the Nazis and the disinformation purveyors on the safe side of their activity, effectively protecting them while the fascists performed their Holocaust-linked signal. Meanwhile the small pro-trans justice crowd, emotional at this display of trans-exterminationism, were aggressively pushed around and teargassed by those same police.

These same far right figures infiltrated the conspiracy-world’s “freedom” rallies over the worst of the pandemic. The groups are loosely allied now in infiltrating this American campaign onto Victoria’s streets.

The new “crisis”?

A performance called a “rainbow story hour.” This is the grandchild of Dame Edna and the Panto Dame. Theatre has a heritage of “drag” performances as old and esteemed as the western tradition and beyond: Antigone and Juliet were both drag performances. A rainbow story hour is a glittery drag performance, where a child-friendly story is read at a ticketed event. It is no different to the clowns and fairies who perform for children too.

In America, however, the right has decided that these performances are the perfect event to turn into a grift and a culture war. It is an aspect of the war on trans existence that has brought into state congresses across America hundreds of bills aimed at persecuting a tiny, visible minority as the first step in erasing acceptance of LGBTQI+ rights. It is perpetrated by the same forces stripping reproductive rights and threatening to remove access to contraceptives and women’s right to no-fault divorce.

The attack on trans people is an unalloyed win for these groups in America. The evangelical/Pentecostal perversion of Christianity that has coopted the Republican Party is absolutely committed to “traditional” male and female roles. Complementarian marriage is the only choice: man will be masculine and dominant. Women will be feminine and submissive. Heterosexuality and breeding are compulsory. Any other action by anyone acts to prevent End Times and the return of Christ to rule for a Millennium. Climate change’s disasters tell them this event should be imminent if only humanity would be pure.

Their white supremacist colleagues are delighted to join the fight. They too loathe gender or sexual blurring as much as they hate “racial” blurring. The pink triangles that the Nazis affixed to the clothing of the homosexuals they sent to concentration camps are back in fashion as a symbol of resistance to this resurgence of fascist homophobia.

Over the last year there have been a number of events where rainbow story hours were targeted by militia and thugs and conspiracy theorists in America. The most dramatic vision emerged from Columbus Ohio last week, where a group dressed in red and black chanted, “There will be blood” outside one such event, while waving a swastika flag.

Donald Trump is using the attack on trans existence as a prominent part of his presidential campaign of retribution.

The attack on trans existence is America is very clearly the first wave of a campaign on LGBTQI+ existence. Acceptance of LGBTQI+ rights and existence is repeatedly targeted in the bills being introduced. There is talk of the death penalty for being gay.

The same nonsense talking point that led to so much violence in the past is being indiscriminately applied to LGBQTI+ people again now: they are wrongly accused of being a pedophile threat. One of the more unpleasant drongos attached to Australia’s conspiracy-right movement labelled Andrews a “groomer” as a result of his condemnation of the fascist threats to councillors.

The campaign coincides with attacks on women’s rights and on people of colour.

So Melbourne’s Neo Nazis are threatening the lives of people associated with LGBTQI+ events now. What will be the next form of event that these men – or their conspiracist associates – decide is intolerable?

Victoria Police have repeatedly “advised” councils that they cannot protect them from the Neo Nazi or conspiracist threat and that the event should be cancelled.

One Monash councillor fairly suggested the Neo Nazis’ actions could “reasonably be understood as terrorism.” Dan Andrews stated that “This Americanisation of our politics has no place here,” and nor do the bigots’ “hateful views.” The vast majority are in agreement, as the Coalition parties are finding.

That leaves Anthony Carbine, Victorian Police Minister, to work with his government colleagues and police leadership to decide how long the small group of Neo Nazis will be allowed to decide what Victorians can do. It won’t end with rainbow story hour.

 

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The characteristics of Fascism and how we might note its presence today

Is fascism creeping into Australia?

There are clearly no Fascist regimes in Australia, or any regime with even the slightest of Fascist agendas. We’re a luckier country than that.

Broadly speaking, Fascism is:

A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

This clearly does not exist in Australia.

But as this guest post by Paul Cannon disturbingly points out, the ‘rhetoric and behaviour’ of the current federal government (and state governments) could easily have us believe otherwise.


Does it matter if democracy shifts to the right? That depends on where you stand politically. But if the shift is extreme then I think it is of grave concern. And what concerns me even more is the tendency to ignore the shift.

If you don’t look closely you never really notice it or generally laugh it off.

The Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism by the author Lawrence Britt, originally published in Free Inquiry Magazine Vol. 23, No. 2, Spring, 2003 are worth noting in regard to current politics in the west These fourteen points are similar but not the same as those published by the author Umberto Eco in 1995, which are also worth reading.

Image from sodahead.com

Image from sodahead.com

Of course, immediately some of you have retreated, because every time the issue of Fascism comes up it is considered passé or too sensational (you can’t say that!) or irrelevant (don’t be ridiculous that was then) and therefore such a comparison to today should not be used. But I believe we hide our heads in the sand when we ignore the trend, even when it is a niche or even isolated elements showing up. Fascism wasn’t closed off in 1945, indeed it continued in Latin America, Spain and Portugal, and periodically in Italy long after the war. It shows up in mass movements across Europe like the British Defence Force, the National Front, and recently UKIP, to use England as just one example. In defining fascism one should avoid Hollywood movies as signifiers of what Fascism actually is and what it looks like. For Fascism to exist today, it cannot be as it was, we have to look for the essence in what is happening now and to ask – what clothes is it wearing?

I am not looking to review Fascism historically, or to dwell on the symptoms of historical Fascism but rather to look at the structure of Fascism and what might be happening now.

Fascism is not by definition totalitarian, it can use that form of governing, but it can be present in democracy. So let’s not be fooled by trying to say its nothing like 1920, or 1933 that is merely a smokescreen.

Fascism developed in Italy. The term Fascism derives from ‘fasces’ the Roman symbol of collectivism and power (a tied bundle of rods with a protruding axe). The Italians also had a description for the concept of Fascism, Benito Mussolini stated that Fascism was ‘estato corporativo’ which means the corporate state (a view also promoted by Othmar Spann in Austria). Fascism is a pretence or veneer of “socialism” or collectivism controlled by capitalism which is in partnership with government (much the same as National Socialism in Germany).

Lawrence Britt studied the National Socialist regime of Germany (Hitler), the Kingdom of Italy (Mussolini), Nationalist or Francoist Spain (Franco), the Military Government Junta of Chile (Pinochet) and other Latin American regimes (Argentina, Paraguay, El Salvador, Brazil), and New Order in Indonesia (Suharto). What Britt found was fourteen defining characteristics as follows:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism: Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the recognition of human rights: because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerationsof prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause: the people are rallied into a unifying Patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military: Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service is glamourised.

5. Rampant Sexism: the governments of fascist nations tend be almost exclusively male dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media: sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security: fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined: governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected: the industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labour Power is Suppressed: because the organising power of labour is the only real threat to a fascist government, labour unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts: fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment: under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption: fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections: sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

In relation to Australia we can immediately rule out 1 (although even here there is the false mantra that refugees are illegal) 11, 13, and 14. And with 4, 6, and 8 there are identifiable elements but not the whole.

But the rest 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, and 12, half, are certainly present in the current federal government rhetoric and behaviour. And if you add elements of 4, 6 and 8, there is a strong shift to the right with a sense of an essence of fascism pervading.

In the current federal government there is:
– a complete disdain for human rights (treatment of indigenous communities, gay people, people who need welfare support payments, disability pensioners, refugees);
– they have manipulated the population by identifying an enemy and scapegoats (“terrorists”, Muslims, refugees);
– the military is not supreme but it is being utilised for civilian purposes, therefore it has been elevated (customs and border control, the indigenous intervention); there is sexism (as demonstrated by Abbott, Pyne and Bernadi among others), and to add – Umberto Eco writes that fascism thrives on creating fear over difference;
– there is a sense of control by cronyism with media, and there is censorship in regard to the refugees coming by boat;
– there is an obsession (pathological) with national security;
– religion is not intertwined but members of the government use their religious affiliation as a bargaining point and they use religious rhetoric to push agendas (Bernadi on the traditional family – whatever that was or is);
– corporate power is definitely protected, even exclusively with environmental considerations, workers rights, and community needs overlooked;
– the corollary is that labour power is suppressed by legislative means;
– there is an unmitigated obsession with crime and punishment (this would be more true of State rather than Federal government but it is present in both).

Umberto Eco makes the point that the very first appeal of a fascist movement is the appeal against the intruders (find a scapegoat and you control a large portion of the voting public).

So is Australia Fascist, well no, not in the historical sense of 1920 or 1933, but there is an alarming trend towards fascist methodology (whether overtly or otherwise) and there is a trend towards corporate control, which is a move away from the rights of groups and individuals, and there is a disregard for our international treaty obligations. The government clearly uses manipulation of the population as to be judged by the government rhetoric that is parroted back on talk back radio by the public often couched in fear ( the refugees would be the clear issue here). There is a disdain for the environment too. And in the proposed education review there is a desire by the education minister to go back in time in terms of how we present contemporary history, labour history, indigenous history, international history (it was Herman Goerring who liked the phrase “when I hear the word culture I reach for my gun”).

The fourteen points demonstrate that what is at stake is freedom, language, history, culture, national identity, and human rights. Fascism is an attitude, albeit a political one, but one that pervades the way governments think and behave.

With seven of the fourteen points by Britt recognisable in current government action and rhetoric there should be more concern in the community about our identity as a nation and therefore our future as a nation. Umberto Eco puts it well when he says “Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plain clothes.”

Bibliography:
Giorgio Agamben. ‘Homo Sacer Sovereign Power and Bare Life’ California, Stanford, 1998
Giorgio Agamben. ‘State of Exception’ Chicago, Chicago Press, 2005
Hanna Arendt ‘The Origins Of Totalitarianism’ Florida, Harcourt, 1968
Umberto Eco. ‘Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt’ New York Review of Books, 1995, pp. 12 – 15.
Roger Griffin. ‘The Nature of Fascism’ Oxon, Routledge, 1993

This article was first published on Paul’s blog Parallax and reproduced with permission.