Media beat-up on anti-Hanson 'violence'
By Trish Corcoran
MELBOURNE — The 2000 anti-racists who gathered at the Hawthorn Town Hall to protest outside a meeting to be addressed by Pauline Hanson on July 19 outnumbered those who came to hear her by 10 to one. Three days later, in Bendigo, Hanson abandoned her public meeting when only a handful of her supporters turned up and 3000 protested against her racism.
Hanson cancelled her appearance in Hawthorne after the police advised her they could not guarantee her safety. Afterwards, Robyn Spencer, Victorian leader of One Nation, called on police to use capsicum spray and water cannons against protesters.
Despite sensationalised media reports of violence at the rally, the overwhelming majority of protesters demonstrated their opposition peacefully. There were some verbal clashes and jostling between One Nation supporters and protesters, but the scene turned ugly only when police used horses to drive a wedge into the rally.
Some protesters were knocked to the ground and trampled, resulting in some injuries. Many of those trampled were not involved in the jostles with One Nation supporters. The crowd, incensed by the police action, formed a human chain by linking arms against the police.
According to Maurice Sibelle, a long-time anti-racist activist and the Democratic Socialist candidate in the Northcote by-election, "the police actions were dangerous and unjustified. They inflated an already charged situation.
"I do not believe, however, that we should try to prevent Hanson from having her meetings. We did not attend the rally to stop her exercising her free speech; we were simply exercising our equal right to free speech. Spencer wants to use the cops to deny us that."
Sibelle explained the three approaches in anti-One Nation campaigning. The first, advocated by the ALP and reiterated by Cheryl Kernot after the July 19 rally, is that anti-racists should ignore Hanson and she'll go away. "Obviously, that hasn't worked in Queensland, where Kernot comes from", he said. "The Labor Party is trying to say that if we vote for it everything will be all right. It is trying to draw people back into the two-party system. The problem is that Labor has been responsible for the economic rationalism that has driven people into the arms of One nation."
The second approach, said Sibelle, is to try to deny Hanson a public platform. "The problem with this strategy is that it misleads people into believing that you can drive Hanson underground. It allows Hanson to pose as the victim and to shift the debate to freedom of speech rather than her policies."
The third approach is to build a broad opposition that can challenge the Labor and Coalition parties, which are responsible for the record unemployment, drastic cuts to living standards and reduced social services in Australia which drive many people to see Hanson as an alternative, Sibelle said.
"This strategy involves combining rallies and other public mobilisations with a strong electoral challenge. Hanson has done this and we have to do it too, but with socialist solutions and politics."