En Passant

Oh dear, some of the commenters here are exposing themselves for what they are – friends of fascism and/or wankers for Wilders. Excuse me while I drop all pretense at civility when a racist far right winger comes to Australia to spread his message of filth and hate for political advantage.The matters are too important to pander to the sensibilities of the foolish sucked in by targeted racist campaigns.

And lo and behold the gullible and ignorant line up to tell us how this is an important issue. The decline of some of the middle classes, and the backwardness of sections of the Australian working class, especially non-unionised sections, provides a fertile ground for reactionary ideas. Throw in an economic crisis and that angst and anger can burst forth in support for fascism.

Here is a letter I penned to the Australian, no doubt to remain forever unpublished in that august newspaper, which shows why there can be no civility to the friends of fascism and the wankers for Wilders. Nazis don’t do nice, and neither do wannabe Nazis.

Dear Editor

I agree with all the esteemed letter writers, opinion writers and editors at The Australian supporting Geert Wilders and his warnings about the Islamification of society. No doubt the takeover of white society by foreigners was happening too in Europe in the run up to the 1930s, only then it was the Jews. Obviously what we need today is a good Wilders/Hitler type to not only warn us of the danger but to take real action to address it.

The real danger isn’t Muslims or Islam. The real danger is those sprouting this dangerous racist nonsense.

John

I would add to that letter that the support this softly softly reactionary is garnering around the identification of one group as the enemy, reflects the lack of a mass left wing party in Australia let alone a revolutionary party that understands the nature of capitalism and the clear and present danger fascism or nascent fascism presents.

This is not some historical journey. The most obvious example is Greece right here and now where the avowedly fascist Golden Dawn is blaming immigrants for the economic crisis, denying them access to hospitals and roaming the streets beating them up, attacking left wing organisations and people when it can and doing so in collaboration with the cops.

The economic crisis isn’t as severe in Australia (or in Holland) yet and given the horrors Nazism inflicted on the world in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s it is not surprising that fascism in most European countries (except at the fringes) does not openly identify itself. But the tactics are obvious.

Blame ‘the other’ for the problems of society, for unemployment, for wage cuts, for industrial decline, rather than the real culprit – capitalism and its systemic crisis ridden nature.

So what we have is extreme right wing politicians like Wilders playing the democratic card – a look at history shows to even the most backward that Hitler adopted the same tactic – and targeting one group in society as the cause of all the problems, another tactic Hitler used.

What Wilders hasn’t yet done a la Hitler is organise thugs to patrol the streets to attack the other, in this case Muslims, and the left. Such groups of thugs do exist in Holland and when the economic crisis worsens sharply in Holland, Wilders can bring them into the fold.

The end result is not just the vilification of Muslim Australians and the creation of an atmosphere of fear for them but eventually it will led to physical attacks on them.

The seemingly good Australian economy means that the fascism the politics that dare not speak its name, has found no large following here, yet. However the enthusiastic response to Wilders’ lies about ‘Islamification’ and the rest of the vile filth this man spews forth show that the seeds are there for a re-birth of fascism in Australia built around anti-Muslim vitriol and a fear and hate campaign against Islam.

We cannot sit back and let this happen. We have to try to stop it before the seeds begin to grow.

We must resist this evil, and that means at every point organising demonstrations against Wilders and any Australian wannabes riding on his coattails.

So excuse me if I abuse the fools for fascism or don’t publish your nonsense. There can be no compromise with fascism and if you want to pull your pud over Wilders find somewhere else to do it. My hope is your seed falls upon the ground.

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