Communities in Bundjalung country are demanding Labor call a halt to Israel's war on Gaza. Nick Fredman reports.
Nick Fredman
Speakers at pro-Palestine rallies around the country, on Nakba Day (“Catastrophe” in Arabic) and the weekend, congratulated students for standing with Palestine against genocide.
Thousands of people joined the Bob Brown Foundation’s nation-wide “March for Forests”, aiming to ramp up pressure on Labor to stop logging scarce native forests.
Pro-Palestine protests on the weekend of March 16-17 were the 23rd continuous week of mobilisations against Australia's complicity in Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza.
With the re-election of the Coalition government, conservatives have become emboldened to intensify their agenda of transferring even more wealth and power to the already dominant at the expense of the rest of us, writes Nick Fredman.
More than 4000 young people and adults packed into Birrarung Marr park on October 21 for a Children’s March for Nauru, to demand all refugees imprisoned on the Pacific island be resettled in Australia. Chanting “nurture not torture” and “kids out, all out”, participants marched into the city.
More than 100 people attended public forums discussing the crisis in Venezuela and the need for solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution against the threat of violent right-wing opposition in Geelong and Melbourne on July 28 and 29.
Phillip Galea, linked to far right groups Reclaim Australia and United Patriots Front, was arrested on August 7 as part of raids on four properties in and around Melbourne and charged with making documents likely to facilitate a terrorist act and planning or preparing for a terrorist act. He was jailed last November for possession of several stun guns and bomb precursor chemicals.
Activists evaded eviction from vacant houses and apartments in Parkville on August 3. The homes had been acquired for the East West Link, a project axed under community pressure by the incoming Labor government in 2014, with a promise to use the properties for public housing.
As the left in Australia faces the need to organise against escalating racism from mainstream politicians and the far right, important lessons can be learned from anti-racist struggles across the world.
Sibylle Kaczorek is a Socialist Alliance activist now living in Melbourne who was active in anti-racist campaigns in Germany. She spoke to Green Left Weekly's Nick Fredman.
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Despite Germany officially becoming an anti-fascist state after World War II, there have been continuing connections between the far right and the state haven’t there?
The campaign against racism and the far right needs a clear understanding of racism and fascism and how to fight these threats.
Racism is not inherent in human beings. It is a product of capitalism. Racist scapegoating is used by the corporate rich because it undermines solidarity among workers, opening the way for conservative policies such as privatisation and cuts to social spending.
The Denis Napthine government, elected by a slim majority in 2010, has fallen in Victoria. This is the first time a Victorian government has lasted only one term since 1955, when the Cain Labor government fell in the midst of the great Labor split.
The Napthine government had lost support due to brutal public sector cuts, vindictive attacks on nurses, paramedics and teachers, the unpopular East West Link project, and corruption scandals that led to the removal of Ted Baillieu as premier last year and the sacking of several Liberal candidates before the poll.
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