Introduction & Background

For those who haven’t heard, after the recent “March for Humanity” (the massive Palestine protests which included the Sydney Harbour Bridge march), some social media and later news articles have fueled hype for a nationalist anti-immigration counter-protest, the “March for Australia” this Sunday.

Notably, the people organising the event have been very secretive about themselves, leading to tensions among the groups who make up this march’s main audience (various generic patriotism, generic ‘right-wing’, anti-vax, Zionist groups and White Nationalist groups), and leading to notable figureheads and influencers advising their fans against joining.

To anyone who did bother looking, or even just read their brief coverage in news articles after the initial wave, it’s become clearer and clearer that the organising circle behind the curtain are made up of literal, self-identifying neo-Nazis and their surrounding ring of associated White Nationalist influencers (crypto-fascists like Auspill^[www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq9Qlr9Q62M, may require a VPN to watch due to a legal takedown attempt by Auspill] and Bec Freedom) who are a bit more palatable to the ‘right-wing’ than open Hitler fans. The official announcements from organisers have consistently argued for the inclusion and against the exclusion of Nazi groups (oh, sorry, “people and groups on the right many consider controversial”).

Articles for further reading: [Independent Australia article] [pedestrian.tv article]

What this ultimately means is, the “March for Australia” is a project by neo-Nazis and other White Supremacists using toned-down, big-tent, populist rhetoric with the intent of conning regular patriots and nationalists into standing alongside them “for Australia”. This is a known and often-used tactic for the NSN, and although these Nazis have a history of rejection in their recruitment attempts among conservative and anti-vax protests (alongside some limited recruitment success) because even cookers usually know Nazis are scum, however this event, if it were seen as a success, would symbolise popularity or increased acceptance for the Nazis and White Nationalists among the broader normal nationalists and ‘right-wing’.

The actual post

I’ve been a little concerned that such a big-tent nationalist cause, despite the tensions and fractures, could turn out crowds of thousands who mistakenly think they’re just supporting the country and fighting against extremism or protecting their communities. Allowing such a protest to look big, to look like it’s representing the community at large, is a serious issue.

And, I was wondering what kind of support there would be for the counter-protests popping up against these crypto-fascist rallies, because I’ve been to a lot of tiny protests before, where we have more people honking support from vehicles than with us on the ground. (I was also worried about Sydney in particular^[Sydney had the regular weekend PAG rally in Hyde Park promoting itself, as well as an explicit counter-protest concert over in Prince Alfred Park run by a coalition of pro-refugee and anti-racist groups, splitting up the counter-protest. However, I’m glad to hear they’ve now announced they’ll do what I hoped they would - the pro-refugee concert will run from 10:30am for a couple of hours before marching to Belmore Park where the March for Australia will be if they haven’t scampered yet, and then onto Hyde Park to join up with the regular PAG Gaza protest].

This Sunday’s pro-Palestine protests marked the first (large) protests of its kind in many cities and towns and showed that the broad anti-genocide movement has enough momentum to continue mobilising in the hundreds of thousands. And I reckon they have enough mass to continue onto this week for a proper show of popular resistance against the so-called “March for Australia”.