Blog #37 - Trust A Military Holiday to Bring Out the worst in people

This year, Anzac Day and Easter lined up to give us the gift of two consecutive long weekends. Whilst most people try to catchup with loved ones or get on the piss a concerning amount of facists took the day as a chance to rear their ugly heads.

The annual public holiday shared across Australia, New Zealand, and Tonga is described as a day of remembrance for all service men and women from the aforementioned nations. I have no individual issues with anyone who has served and understand that most people are simply doing what they believe is best. However, I am not a fan of glamorising the military and feel that days like this that carry a rightwing association only embolden the far right to say and do awful things.

At both the Perth and Melbourne Dawn services, Indigenous Elders leading the welcome to country were booed and heckled by Neo - Nazi fascists. According to the ABC the hecklers were eventually drowned out by audience members applauding in praise of the elders and at the Melbourne event notorious Neo - Nazi Jacob Hersant was arrested.

Growing up, it felt as if we were genuinely moving further and further away from this disgusting behaviour, but recently it has only grown in popularity. Along with the heckling, my social media feed has been filled with videos of emboldened fascists at these events proudly shouting things like “The Anzacs fought for a white Australia”. These videos are difficult for me to watch.

We saw the same thing happen this January 26th (Australia Day), I remember the last thing I saw before going to sleep was videos of full dressed Nazis marching through the streets of Adelaide thinking to myself that this had become way too common.

It should not be normal for fascists to march through the streets and heckle First Nation leaders at ceremonies. Yes, the Prime Minister and other influential politicians spoke out against it, and yes, the majority of people are appalled by this behaviour but it’s still on the rise.

If you ask me what the cause of this is, I’d have to say any gains for the centre or moderate right are a gain for the far right. Unlike the left, where gains for a moderate do not do much for the Socialist or Communist, the entire right wing is emboldened. The rise of the far right in the US, and the return of traditional values in pop culture, such as Pete Davidson removing his tattoos and the glorification of Ozempic, all signal this.

Ultimately, fascism is a symptom of capitalism. When times are tough, political and business leaders will create out groups and go after minority groups as a way to both explain away the economic downturn caused by their greed and keep working folk divided.

I’d love to say that my generation is the solution, but according to the same ABC article, among the people arrested at these events were men in their 20s and the same with the videos I saw on social media. The perpetrators were young men. As long as our society places profits as the top priority and continues to confuse the masses with divisive politics, we will always see this occur.

With the current state of the world, days with a right-wing association are always going to bring out the worst in people. Maybe it's time we start to re-evaluate what we want to celebrate as a country and how we can better tackle the day-to-day problems without resorting to division. Thanks for reading.