Groups promoting right wing extremism, like the Antipodean Resistance and the Lads Society, have recently dominated headlines, but they are far from the sum of the extreme right in Australia.
Stan’s remake of the 1992 film Romper Stomper swaps skinhead culture for the complexities of contemporary Australian extremist politics. In doing so, it highlights disillusion with mainstream politicians and media.
The cultural context in which class, ethnic and racial tensions explode into open violence must be analysed honestly.
AAP Image/Paul Miller
Australia’s key foundation stories have a narrative arc based on the slow simmering of social tension and anxiety culminating in an explosive release of group hostility. Was Cronulla any different?
Danny Nalliah’s Rise Up Australia is one example of a far-right, ‘moralistic’ party that has sprung up in recent years.
AAP/Joe Castro
Far-right movements and parties in Australia will continue to create interest, given their policies and method of operation. Their future longevity, however, is by no means assured.
Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said the booing of Goodes, which was racist, had gone too far and was damaging not just the game but also our society.
Dave Hunt/AAP
Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane has said if the vilification of Adam Goodes does not stop, players may have to take matters into their own hands and walk off the field in protest.
Music – as a tool of mobilising people against power – tends to suit a more progressive agenda.
AAP/Richard Milnes
Cold Chisel’s Khe Sanh was played at Reclaim Australia rallies in various cities last weekend – but won’t be again, after a public statement by the band’s frontman, Jimmy Barnes. Was it a good song choice?
Reclaim Australia is attracting a broad assortment of supporters based on a loosely defined platform of anti-Muslim, anti-immigration and economic protectionist sentiment.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Reclaim Australia is not the first radical nationalist movement to emerge in Australia, and it has applied the lessons of past groups’ mistakes to attract a broader range of people to its rallies.
The online social networks that social media facilitate can act as powerful distribution channels for political messages.
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We need political and civil society leaders to reflect on the language that they use, and to strive to shape a civic narrative with which we can all engage.
Reclaim Australia supporters at the April rallies displayed a mix of liberal and anti-Muslim slogans.
Irfan Ahmad
If Reclaim Australia were rallying Muslims, the liberal media would examine its religious inspirations. Yet the media treat its supporters as disgruntled individuals rather than Christian representatives.
‘A dramatised event is no replacement for the horrors of what is really going on.’
AAP Image/NewZulu/Nicolas Koutsokostas
The government has announced its latest method to stop the boats: a telemovie with storylines about asylum seekers dying at sea. Is it really the role of government to fund propaganda pieces like this?