Little more than a year ago, far-right activists in Australia could reasonably accurately be divided into three ideological groupings: civic patriots, nationalists and racialists. Whatever they might be said to have in common, these groups differed fundamentally in their beliefs about race, religion and citizenship. But now, something far more sinister is going on. There has been a move further to the right by the civic patriots and nationalists, and a general convergence around the racialist myth of “White Replacement.”
In 2019, the far right began its activities with a rally on St. Kilda beach in Melbourne, protesting so-called “African crime.” The “Reclaim St. Kilda” rally was organised by two well-known far-right figures, Blair Cottrell and Neil Erikson ― both Hitler-admirers and anti-Muslim campaigners. Some of those at the rally were openly neo-Nazi, displaying Hitler salutes and flaunting a Nazi SS helmet. The rally was addressed by Senator Fraser Anning, who has stated he would bar Muslims from migrating to Australia. However, the participants were not all white supremacists. In attendance were also some Vietnamese-Australians who had been violently attacked by Sudanese-Australian youth.
Such political exploitation of racism and religious bigotry is nothing new. It preys on fears about non-European immigration into Australia, and attempts to revive the old “White Australia ” conviction that Australia should be almost wholly, if not fully, composed of those of European ethnicity and Christian culture. Even indigenous Australians are air-brushed out of the picture. Variants of this kind of “nativist” populism are percolating in Australia, and throughout the world.
What is new is the concept of “White Replacement” (sometimes called “White Genocide”) which claims that there is a global Jewish plot to “import” non-Europeans ― especially Africans, Asians and Arabs ― into Europe, North America and Australasia for the express purpose of “destroying” European culture, and subjugating and decimating those of European ethnicity.
Those who subscribe to the “White Replacement” myth believe that in this way, people of ethnic European background will become a minority group, outnumbered and dominated in countries where once they were a majority of the population. This is the kind of feared “replacement” that the marchers at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, were referring to when they chanted, “Jews will not replace us!” It is the mirror opposite of the claim often made by far-left antisemites that Jews are an integral part of the “White oppressor” establishment.
The “White Replacement” myth is yet another mutation of classical antisemitism, the paranoid fantasy about a world Jewish conspiracy. TheWorking Definition of Antisemitism adopted by the 31-nation International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance describes it as:
“making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective ― such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions”.
Read the article by Julie Nathan on the ABC Religion and Ethics website.