Australia is among the nations driving discussions about the “great replacement” theory that inspired Christchurch gunman Brenton Tarrant, and religious leaders warn that the spread of the extremist conspiracy theory could result in physical violence.
New research from the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue over the spread of the theory, which originated in France and suggests white European populations are being deliberately replaced by Muslims, examined tweets and social media posts made since April 2012.
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Andre Oboler, chief executive of the Online Hate Prevention Institute and a law lecturer at La Trobe University, said the far right here had long been adopting overseas narratives that seemed out of place with local demographics.
According to the 2016 census, Muslims accounted for little more than 600,000 of Australia’s then population of 23.4 million people. “Stats have got nothing to do with it,” Dr Oboler said.
“Australia also doesn’t have that many illegal immigrants coming in but it doesn’t stop the spread of the use of various narratives — memes etcetera — that are lifted from overseas.
“They try and transpose them to Australia, even though the facts don’t actually bear them out.”
Julie Nathan, research director at the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said the theory had gained more prominence online in the past few years and messages were often anti-Semitic as well. “It’s kind of grown out of the anti-Muslim stuff of about 2015 … some of them have thought: ‘What’s really going on? The Muslims are here and we don’t like them being here,’ ” she said.
“They genuinely believe Australia is under threat of becoming ‘swamped’. They believe it is happening in Europe, in North America and in Australia.
“It’s something we really need to watch and authorities need to watch. We don’t want something like Christchurch happening.”
Read the article by Mark Schliebs in The Australian.