In early August 2022, some neo-Nazis visited a bar in Melbourne and were kicked out by a bartender.
There’s a very good report from The Age on the incident, but mostly what we’ve seen since is a smattering of terrible reporting from mainstream media outlets. There’s also been some online posting among the Australian left, who have been eager to contribute.
The matter has been complicated by the actions of the bar’s owner, defying the good advice they received; it’s made more complex still because of the genuine danger posed to staff by the neo-Nazis in question.
Consequently, the matter has become a shitshow and is all but impossible to discuss frankly in the public arena. But I’m concerned that if we don’t try, we’ll leave a vacuum that rash people might feel the need to fill.
It’s undoubtedly been made worse by media outlets like The Herald Sun. Journalist Brianna Travers will not be collecting Walkleys for her article: ‘The Irish Times pub fires workers for spitting in neo-Nazi’s beer’. Her article begins with ‘A neo-Nazi has revealed what allegedly prompted an Irish pub’s bartender to spit in his beer’, making it sound like Brianna bravely gave voice to a neo-Nazi about what the extremist bartender did to him.
Read the article in Independent Australia.