learning about the far-right with help from the far-left Words by Jack Mencel It starts with a small group of individuals feeling angry and disenfranchised. They meet in private to discuss their ideas in an echo-chamber, knowing full well that their true beliefs are too extreme for public pronouncement. To spread their message incognito, they plaster their political slogans all over the city, with posters and stickers criticising democracy and calling for revolution. They go to events where popular causes are being expressed, and through polite and inquisitive conversation, they draw moderates into their fold. ‘Don’t you see that elections are rigged? Democracy is a sham controlled by the elites.’ Exploiting popular grievances, they encourage this anger and point it towards the group they suppose is to blame. When asked, they gently present their extreme ideology as the solution that can solve everything. Then, when they are confident enough, and have gained enough followers, they mobilise in the streets, waving banners and chanting. It is
now that they openly incite the action they want to see: their enemies ‘smashed’ and ‘destroyed’ in a revolution to replace Australia’s democracy. There is no grievance that this revolution won’t fix, if only you let them implement their plan: the abolition of the liberal-democratic system and its replacement with an apparatus based in centralised party control. This party, of course, is their own. These are the strategies of the farright; extremists whose illiberal ideas are on the rise. I learnt about their playbook while attending the SRC’s event ‘Understanding the New Far-Right and How To Fight It’. It is difficult to properly summarise the informative speeches given by the event’s three panellists, though I took away a key message from each. Lecturer Gareth Pritchard spoke about the importance of building a ‘unity’ against fascism and the farright; an insight he gained during his involvement in the Anti-Nazi League. Pritchard stated that this united stand must comprise of anti-fascists from across the political spectrum: 39
