Reclaim Australia is one brick in the wall

indonesia / philippines / australia | anti-fascism | opinion / analysis Thursday July 02, 2015 11:24 by MACG - Anarkismo PO Box 5108 Brunswick North VIC 3056, Australia

Let's knock the whole wall down

We must go a few steps further, therefore, than just engaging in anti-racist and antifascist organising. We must fight the ongoing displacement of Aboriginal people from their homelands in Western Australia. We must fight the mass incarceration and illegalisation of people seeking asylum in this country. We must confront all of these “single” issues. They are part of an entire against the working class and our communities, by the Government, capital and the State.

Reclaim Australia is one brick in the wall Let's knock the whole wall down

It looks like we are in for another round of Reclaim Australia's Islamophobic, racist and anti-Left mobilisations around Australia, particularly in Melbourne. Lately we have seen the racist, Fascist thugs raise their heads, ready to organise not only against Muslim communities, but also against anyone who opposes them.

We have seen the split from Reclaim Australia, the ugly United Patriots Front (UPF) trying to storm Richmond Town Hall believing that by doing so they could destroy the what they imagine to be the main organisers against their rally in Federation Square back in April. They thought they could destroy the Left and the antifascist movement. What they actually showed was a few dozen thugs wearing swastikas and other Nazi paraphernalia, failing to “give the Left a lesson”.

We believe that, in order to fight back and effectively kick out their new round of hate mobilisations ion 18 July, the whole antifascist movement must not follow the same faults that have been apparent on 4 April. There is an urgent need for a trade union and mass community mobilisation. We need the migrant communities’ participation in the counter-rallies and other activities planned for 18 July in Melbourne and for the next day in the rest of the country.

The counter-rally on 4 April was comprised mostly not only of white activists but also of mostly Anglo-Australian militants. With the important exception of activists from the Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR), and some non-white supporters of larger organised Left and Anarchist groups, the non-white and the migrant communities were simply absent. The same happened in the most recent counter-rally against United Patriots Front at Richmond Town Hall on 31 May.

This description of the weaknesses of the mobilisations so far is not meant to discredit the efforts of the organisers of these events. Every effort towards kicking the Fascists out and building of an effective antifascist movement is welcome. Rather, we say this to emphasise that the task in front of us is larger than the work we have done so far.

The task we face is to draw the mass of the working class into direct and active participation in the movement. On the one hand, the Muslim and Asian communities who are the immediate target of Reclaim Australia. On the other hand, the union movement, which is the Fascists' ultimate target. Without these two sectors, the anti-racist, antifascist mobilisation is likely to be seen as a war between fringe groups of our society to which few will pay attention. This orientation, however, does not mean we recognise the leaders of the Muslim communities or the union movement as having a veto on our activities.

Through our mobilisations we seek to halt the progress of the far Right. We must realise the far Right are only a symptom of the government push to criminalise Muslims, indigenous people, immigrants and people of colour. They label them as potential terrorists and thus enemies of some imagined “Australia”.

We must go a few steps further, therefore, than just engaging in anti-racist and antifascist organising. We must fight the ongoing displacement of Aboriginal people from their homelands in Western Australia. We must fight the mass incarceration and illegalisation of people seeking asylum in this country. We must confront all of these “single” issues. They are part of an entire attack against the working class and our communities, by the Government, capital and the State.

Capitalism generates racism and produces the potential for Fascist groups to emerge. To abolish racism and to eliminate the Fascist threat for good, we need a workers’ revolution to overthrow capitalism.

*This is the main article of the latest issue of “The Anvil”, newsletter of Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group (MACG). You can download the issue (and all the back issues) from here http://melbacg.wordpress.com/the-anvil/