We, the people - in the local style
Update: “Under the Beach the Barbed Wire”
People of whiteness have their seaside rally pogrom.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Five thousand singing Waltzing Matilda as they go on a racist rampage that has few parallels, bar the anti-Chinese riots in the 1800s. I can’t sleep. But I can’t write much either. Shaking with rage. And sobbing. But no matter the amount of times I’ve written about this stuff, about its official and/or polite (civil) versions, I can’t seem to shift from rage.
Fuck the polite blogsphere conversations about populism. What’s at stake here? Zizek? Fear of being ostracised, inauthentic, too ‘intellectual’ if one does not declare ones’ allegiance to ‘the people’? Academics feeling anxious about being in ivory towers and so wanting to be seen to venerate ‘the people’? The SWP’s rationalisations, as dutifully echoed through Lenin’s Tomb, of their coalition-building exercise with, frankly, racist outfits? Some wierd mirror-image of US imperialism that plays itself out as an exoticisation of third world nationalism? Or is it just about having civil conversations in which nothing is put at stake so much as performed?
Right now, all I have is anger.
My god. Genuienly nauseating.
What’s with the ‘Aussies fight back” poster? Who put that out? That’s fucked up and dangerous.
Nate [December 12, 2005 @ 7:56 am]
Never mind. I read the news stories. Fascist fucks. Is there much anti-fa in AU?
Nate [December 12, 2005 @ 7:58 am]
the street next to mine was obliterated. all the cars in maroubra were fucked up! people at maroubra bay were beaten, one stabbed. my gf won’t go the the beach today because blokes are strutting the carpark that fringes it. maroubra bays declaring war by phones and on emails. these blokes mean it, they are shaking with rage, ‘one of their own’ has been stabbed. the bra boys can be MEAN mofos, trust me. been on receiving end. for the last 5 years there has been skirmishes between different ethnic crew. one man and baby seriously bashed by car load of ‘middle eastern scum’. local’s word not mine. retaliation was the terrorising of a family at south maroubra.
now many ‘locals’, like the bra boys, claim they have sufficient reason to police the suburb with direct vigilante force. this is frightening . the tension has finally erupted
maroubra road looked fucking crazy. seriously, cars are demolished, blood on street, doors and windows shattered. people crying and yelling everywhere.
civil conversation? no-one listening at the moment sOmetimes. howling down anyone who disagrees. m8 shaking me by throat when i disagreed about loading a carload of blokes to find em. shit here is exploding.
it’s on, and there is nothing we can do to be honest. they are all pissed off to the max! old lady and other families up road telling the boys to ‘go get em’. people are going to get really hurt.
seems things are going to run their course. all they have is anger.
i am not in a rage, but profoundly sad. i fear things are now only going to get worse.
C [December 12, 2005 @ 10:27 am]
australia first were making the posters. are now in maroubra spouting shit. fuck.
C [December 12, 2005 @ 10:28 am]
I find the animal metaphors used in the articles somewhat disturbing: quarry, prey, slithering and reference to a chant of “run you little rabbit” or somesuch (those of “middle eastern appearance”) and hunters, pack, etc (those of, uh, “australian appearance”). The denial/affirmation of racism in the same thought is something else.
Craig [December 12, 2005 @ 10:28 am]
Via the Associated Press: “Race Riots Break Out on Aussie Beach”
Craig [December 12, 2005 @ 10:32 am]
Nate, there’s very little organised anti-fascist stuff in Australia because for a long time there’s been very little in the way of organised fascists. The only group I know of is the lame liberal racket Fight Dem Back. There is some information on their website:
http://www.fightdemback.com/
I’ll probably be accused of being a paranoid conspiracy theorist but it seems like the cops let this happen (and yes I realise the problem in calling for the cops to stop this stuff). From the TV footage it seemed like there were very few cops whereas in August when a few thousand of us lamely protested the Forbes Global CEO shindig at the Sydney Opera House there were hundreds of the funstoppers with all their gear.
The last two summers in Sydney have seen small but impressive riots after people were killed fleeing from the cops. I’ve no doubt the state prefers racist pogroms to mass attacks on the cops.
cheers
Pete
Pete [December 12, 2005 @ 11:04 am]
Craig, yes. Twinned denials and affirmations of racism is the local idiom.
Re: the lifesavers who were beaten up - ‘lifesavers’ are local volunteers, local skegs or surfers in other words. They tried to stop some guys playing football (soccer) on the beach, “visitors” as they’re referred to in the article you linked to. In this instance, the guys didn’t do what they usually are expected to do (which is move along and cede space like grateful migrants) - this is what passes for civility here - and the ‘lifesavers’ (who are probably more accurately called the biopolitical patrol) came off second best.
Sydney’s local beaches are ringed and ‘owned’ by white folk, everyone else has to travel some distance to “visit”. Cricket and Australian Rules football is standard, can occupy all the space that it likes in this country - a product of the pact between the English and the Irish to occupy this country against everyone else.
(via)
Today, the weather has been (literally) very hot, oppressively so. Right now, I can see it out the window. There’s a storm rolling in. From the south.
s0metim3s [December 12, 2005 @ 12:56 pm]
Pete, you’re not being conspiratorial at all. The cops in fact did let it happen - up to a point, then when it got to be just totally insanely out of control, they cracked down heavily. No surprise, since the level of violence looked far worse than the Redfern thing, and the violence was all directed against defenseless people, rather than armed piggery.Usually, when people circulate fliers advocating vaguely threatening actions like surrounding a building, the police turn up in huge numbers and the press throws a wet blanket on it. This time, the police did very little except tell people to behave themselves, while the media and politicians poured petrol. Once the lynching started and the yobs started doing crazy shit like attacking ambulances, then they cracked down.
Then now we have to listen to these fuckhead media scum talking about how the yobs don’t know how to handle the proper subtleties of race relations. You see, racism must be left for the professionals.
The media is now full of people saying ‘oh, yes, but last week some arab looking men committed a crime, so the pogrom is ok, or at least, there is a profound issue of social disintegration here”. Fucking scum. I don’t care about the fascist rabble, but the SMH I want burned.
Howard was on the radio just then saying that Australians are not racist. Iemma (the NSW premier) said that the behaviour was unacceptable and racist, but so was the fact lifeguards were bashed last week. Some Liberal backbench fucknuckle just said that this was all revenge for 9/11, Bali, Gallipoli, his difficulties throught the mirror phase and the lack of blue smarties.
Ghost of the Machine [December 12, 2005 @ 2:14 pm]
Pete, you don’t sound paranoid at all. Obviously I don’t know the situation here, and I fell out of anti-fa circles quite a while ago, but the dynamics you and other describe sounds a lot like what I’ve heard from different parts of the US re: cops and fascists, (and cops who were armband wearers themselves in a nonmetaphorical sense). Last I knew, most US anti-fa were dedicated to stopping overt and deliberately/formally organized fascists, which doesn’t seem to be the same thing as what’s going on with this stuff. And the next place people I knew went from there, the Race Traitor kind of thing, seems inadequate as well to something like this. But then, really, everything does. It’s sickening. Words fail me and I find myself wishing for things that could only be counterproductive. I imagine you all have to feel even more strongly, as I’m on the other side of the planet.
take care,
Nate
Nate [December 12, 2005 @ 3:26 pm]
I don’t understand what you’re saying? What “racist outfits” does the SWP build coalitions with, and where do I provide rationalisations with this on my site?
I’m truly baffled.
lenin [December 12, 2005 @ 5:31 pm]
So sorry, old chap. I wasn’t aware that the SWP’s opportunism was a secret. And much as I would like to hang out and chew the fat, other things seem more important to me right now than googling the SWP or pointing out the continuities between your blog and the SWP’s line of the day.
s0metim3s [December 12, 2005 @ 6:37 pm]
Last week saw what was probably the largest legislative assault on the working class in Australian history. The industrial relations reforms, terror laws, welfare to work and voluntary student unionism (well the last one isn’t a big deal). And the only anger on the streets was a fucking lynch mob. The state must be pissing itself laughing at what it’s gotten away with.
Pete
Pete [December 12, 2005 @ 8:22 pm]
Angela, I know of your disdain for the SWP, but the charge that we are allying with racist outfits is opprobrious and you really ought to put up or shut up.
It’s just that Chabert referred me to this nugget of disinformation, and I thought I’d ask what you thought you meant by it. As I have been met by nothing more elevated than an ill-conceived attempt at condescension, I’ll leave you to it.
Cheers!
lenin [December 12, 2005 @ 10:01 pm]
I find it depressing that your initial comments about the violent manifestation of white racism against Arabs and Muslims are to
conflate this with a socialist organization that has been working alongside Muslim organizations—a conflating gesture that is explicitly in line with xenophobic websites like Harry’s Place, where terms like Islamofascism are used. With your magical spectroscope ‘populism’ you observe two phenomena, a wilding spree of white supremacy in Australia, and organizational fellowship between a socialist and Muslim organization in Britain, and reveal a fantastic connection invisible to the human eye. Yet what is this connection between anti-muslim violence and a muslim organization? The lens itself ‘populism’.
then denigrate any bloggers who would challenge the usefulness of a term ‘populism’ which tends to allow for just such a gesture as on your part.
Despite some wonderful posts you have written from time to time, I find this screed, perhaps especially because it comes as you are most angry, deeply repugnant.
I’m not repulsed for you going after the SWP in a post about the violent attacks on, I imagine they’re all too used to it. That you would want to criticize the MAB on certain policies is perhaps an excellent idea. BUT, that you would see in the wilding attack upon Muslims the same thing, is deeply disgusting.
Faced with an affront, you lash out at an organization that would have certain affinities with a Muslim organization, this gesture, I think, is much easier to conflate with the racist actions at Cronulla.
hollowentry [December 13, 2005 @ 6:39 am]
Kim Beazley, the leader of the Labor opposition, has come out to say that the behaviour of the nazis was not racist, it was “simply criminal behaviour”.
(…)
At any rate, what would you counsel doing, Angela? There is an NUS organizing meeting about this tonight, I’ll take any suggestion you have along.
If not the NUS, then what? Now is the time for suggestions. Later, when we have the break down of ‘what went wrong with the response to the Cronulla pogrom’, I will hold you to account for every criticism you dish out post facto.
Ghost of the Machine [December 13, 2005 @ 10:06 am]
Disinformation, my arse. Your pretense of puzzlement, cyberLenin, is as performative as your indignation.
I think people have resorted to defending populism for all manner of reasons. In the case of Lenin’s Tomb, as the second post makes apparent, this is so as to be able to defend the SWP’s alliance with the MAB against criticism, that populism is a form of “proto-communism”, etc. But they have tried this same defense on before, not least in AU, and so as to defend sharing an “anti-globalisation” platform with the National Civic Council (old-school catholic fascists).
Which is to say that the SWP has a longer history of defending their opportunistic manoeuvres on the grounds of populism than any debate over such that’s occured in the blogsphere.
But the specific agendas of LT and the SWP interest me less than pointing out that there are a confluence of agendas and affective maps at work in the blogsphere, such as academic anxiety that folds up any critical capacities at the charge of ‘liberal intellectual’ or the rendering of dodgy shit as a ‘pragmatic engagement in politics’.
In any case, ‘hollowentry’, you can froth and splutter as much as you like. But the problem of racism - and its apparently affable redefinition as populism, which is racism any way you want to cut it, actually - is by no means confined to those who have the power and arms to wield it. The complete lack of symmetry demands solidarity, but it does not oblige silence. I’m not white enough (or male or straight enough) to be persuaded on the grounds of guilt or whatever that this silence in the name of a ‘community’ or unity is virtuous. On the contrary, in these moments of anger, I have to catch myself from yelling ‘bash the shit out of those fucking skips’. [ ’skip = aussie = anglo-celt’ for those not from AU ]
s0metim3s [December 13, 2005 @ 10:08 am]
Howard has been doing this too, T. I read his remarks - which I was going to post on in a bit - as a message to the nazi fucks that they should leave the control of ‘the Lebs’ to the state.
(I should also have added that it was let slip last night that as the police set up roadblocks to stop retaliations - which became the enforcement of ‘move on’ orders against any otherly-complexioned groups of young people - they nevertheless let the Bra Boys go through the roadblocks because, as the report said, “there were not enough police”. In other words, the Bra Boys were deputised. And I so love this automated gang-isation of wog and leb kids - as if anyone would want to go out in groups smaller than three! Like they did at Cronulla so they could get bashed by the larger group of aussies, who are not a gang, you know, but the people.)
My only suggestion viz responses is that there has to be an insistence that this was racism as well as showing that this apparently neutral recourse to ‘the law’ is also racist.
I’m not one to suggest rallies, but perhaps on this occassion, what and who has a presence in the streets and in public spaces has meaning beyond the aggregation of bodies.
s0metim3s [December 13, 2005 @ 10:23 am]
That’s kind of what I am thinking. I might argue for rallies targeting the media and the politicians, who bear the bulk of the blame for this, rather than going to Cronulla piss on the territory, which is the suggestion doing the rounds. NSW Parliament is being recalled to pass stronger police powers. That would be an opportunity to make the point.
Maybe a rally at Cronulla would make sense, though, if sufficient numbers could be mustered. To the SWP’s credit, it would be nice if we had an Anti-Nazi League here right now.
Someone just has to make the point that Lebanese gangs do not exist . It’s amazing. This elementary little fact about the world seems to have vanished. Of course, the moment you have a pogrom against group x, that is a sure way of making group x acquire an identity and defend itself, which is what is happening. I am sure I am about to get very angry with the NUS.
Ghost of the Machine [December 13, 2005 @ 11:03 am]
I would go for the state in the immediate moment, no question about it. Reconstructing beach spaces is a longer-term proposition.
s0metim3s [December 13, 2005 @ 11:09 am]
I don’t really give a fuck for the SWP either way, but I’m in a foul and sectarian mood and I do have time to google. Here’s some SWP and racism links:
http://www.labournet.net/antiracism/0506/bookmarks2.html
http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Politics/Chen.html
http://www.londonclasswar.org/antifa3.htm
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2004/08/fascism_and_the.html
http://www.isf.org.uk/ISFJournal/eJournal/StopTheWarCoalition.htm
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/565/galloway.htm
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/490/partynotes.html
http://www.revolutionarycommunistgroup.com/frfi/178/178_res.html
Nate [December 13, 2005 @ 1:54 pm]
“they nevertheless let the Bra Boys go through the roadblocks because, as the report said, “there were not enough police”. In other words, the Bra Boys were deputised.”
I humbly apologise for my glee three years ago when the Bra Boys kicked the fuck out of a station-load of off-duty pigs. It was just one horrible racket momentarily defeating a much bigger one. How quickly the state forgives.
Pete [December 14, 2005 @ 12:14 am]
I did just see the lads - who are hardly young enough to be called ‘boys’ you would think - shaking hands with that other gang, the Comancheros, denouncing racism and the cowardice of “those people at Cronulla”. It was kind of nice, I guess. But, implicitly, it was an ‘our violence isn’t racist; it’s business’. Rackets indeed.
s0metim3s [December 14, 2005 @ 12:34 am]
you know nothing about bra boys and what happened in maroubra sOmetimes. there was a lot involved in coordinating that ‘media op’ to stem the violence, with lots of people who are not bra boys or comancheros taking part and coordinating the opportunity to ‘use’ the media. so be careful when making judgements on it eg. calling it a racket. not best way to deal with situation we have here, but it was a start. everyone here is now working out next steps … (i do fear that the systemic rascism won’t be addressed tho, so massive issues still to deal with,. but we will wait and see)
C [December 14, 2005 @ 6:25 am]
That’s true, I know nothing about the Bra Boys. I did say it was a nice moment, though. (btw, “racket” was a reference to the informal economy of the gangs, if you get my drift, not the moment.)
s0metim3s [December 14, 2005 @ 12:08 pm]
Shame on this people. It´s deplorable
nomade z [December 21, 2005 @ 9:10 pm]
Just to add a more recent link to Nate’s anti-SWP list:
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/610/section9.htm
on the party’s continuing refusal to oppose immigration controls and attempt to prevent others from even articulating such a position, let alone enacting the forms of solidarity that such a position may entail.
With regard to the link Nate gave regarding the SWP’s repeated hosting of Atzmon, a creepy anti-semitic buddy of holocaust deniers who thinks that the jews killed Jesus and want to control the world: I had some discussions with people in the British group ‘Jews Against Zionism’ who called the picket outside of the SWP’s bookshop where Atzmon’s book was being launched, and who were subsequently abused by ‘leaders’ of the SWP in a variety of forums. Liz Thompson and I also met with a leader of the Australian SWP franchise (the ISO) David Glanz here prior to the SWP’s hosting Atzmon again, to discuss the network of which Atmon forms a part and give him a large amount of documentation of the guy’s anti-semitism and links to pro-fascist creeps. He said he would look into it and we never heard from him again.
(Having read over this I think that, to be fair (as a kind of abstract intellectual exercise) I suspect that David was not in the best circumstances to most effectively pursue such political work at that moment, for a variety of reasons. Nonetheless, the SWP has never resiled from its choices and the ISO in Australia has never felt it necessary to comment so far as I know.)
Benjamin
benjamin rosenzweig [February 4, 2006 @ 6:11 pm]