By Norm Dixon
Pauline Hanson's neo-Nazi fan club is not restricted to North America. The notorious bovver boys of the pro-Hitler National Front — now known as the British National Party (BNP) — who have terrorised Britain's African-Caribbean and Asian communities since the 1970s, sparking a huge anti-Nazi movement, count Pauline as a sister-in-arms in their fight against "anti-white racism".
While the BNP has attempted to change its image from that of an army of Union Jack-tattooed skinhead street thugs to something superficially resembling a "mainstream" political party, little has changed.
As Nazi-watcher David Greason points out, the BNP is still controlled by the former deputy leader of the British National Socialist (Nazi) Movement, John Tyndall. In 1959, he was convicted of threatening a commemoration of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. In 1962, he was jailed for organising a paramilitary organisation. In 1986, he was jailed for offences under the Race relations Act.
The BNP, says Greason, "is a haven for thugs, gun runners, drug runners and unreconstructed Hitlerites". While Tyndall's "bonehead" (the term anti-racist skinheads give their racist counterparts) battalions have stepped back, they are still an essential part of the BNP and a significant source of racist violence.
Combat 18 is a Nazi terror group (its name derives from the 1st and 8th letters of the alphabet, A and H — the initials of the group's deity) that acts as the "security" arm of the BNP.
It has been responsible for dozens of violent attacks — including murders — on black and Asian people. Its membership overlaps into the criminal underworld. C18 cadre organise violent racist soccer gangs.
In February, David Greason reported in the Australia/Israel Review that the BNP's January web page said that Hanson, with her maiden speech, "did the unspeakable — she stood up and spoke up for her race".
In October, the site's monthly news listing sympathetically reported Hanson's views on three separate occasions. In December, Hanson's maiden speech was reproduced in the BNP's magazine, Spearhead.
During the May general election, the BNP used pictures of Hanson and quoted her to bolster the legitimacy of its candidates' pledge to stop "non-white" immigration and deport "non-white" residents.
The BNP's election manifesto, Britain Reborn, declared: "Australians in particular are rapidly waking up to the fact that their very existence as a nation is threatened by Asianisation. Australian MP Pauline Hanson's outspoken stance on this issue has made her a heroine for millions of ordinary Australians. With such people gaining power and influence, the BNP's policy is becoming more practical than ever."
The BNP also has kind words for former Labor, now Australia First, MP Graeme Campbell and Denis McCormack, from the rabidly anti-Asian, League of Rights-linked Australians Against Further Immigration.
The January edition of the BNP's magazine Spearhead announced: "Hot on the heels of the controversy generated by Pauline Hanson, comes news of another advance for the forces striving to protect the European, mainly British, identity of Australia. On October 28, 1996, Graeme Campbell spoke at length in the House of Representatives to table a research paper — The Grand Plan: Asianisation of Australia — by leading anti-immigration campaigner Denis McCormack ... By putting the facts exposed in this shocking document on public record, Graeme Campbell has taken another important step in the fight back."
Hanson again featured in the June edition of Spearhead. A long article by "Australian poet and British traditionalist Nigel Jackson" (also a well-known associate of the anti-Semitic Australian League of Rights), bemoaned "mob violence" and "hooliganism by anti-racist fanatics" against Hanson's public meetings.
The Australian mainstream media and the establishment feared Hanson, Jackson theorised, because through her "the Anzac spirit is reasserting itself in Australia. This nation may even be led in the not-too-distant future by the quality of men who stood fast in Tobruck [sic] and brushed the Japanese out of the Owen Stanley Ranges in Papua New Guinea."
Referring to John Howard's feeble repudiation of Hanson's racism, Jackson declared: "In the real world, discrimination, in the sense of making wise choices to protect one's own race, is a virtue not a vice. And if our largely dry continent cannot support a much larger population without a drastic reduction in living standards, then opposition to immigration makes excellent sense, especially if the newcomers are Negro basketballers or Asian traders."
Howard's criticism of Hanson, he continued, owed much to the influence of "an interested ethnic minority": "Howard and the whole Coalition team had already shown that they were under the thumb of this powerful Zionist lobby when they followed meekly in the steps of Paul Keating by denying British historian David Irving an entry visa." Irving is the notorious apologist for the Nazis who denies that the mass slaughter of Jews took place.
Jackson, however, believes that the rise of Hanson is the greatest opportunity in 50 years for "a rebirth of white, British-centred nationalism". He offers this free advice:
"The great danger to those endeavouring to save the nation is disunity. It is to be hoped that Pauline Hanson and Graeme Campbell can resolve their differences and merge their parties as soon as possible. Moreover, it will be necessary for such a new party to ensure it has the confidence of other important nationalist bodies, such as the Australian League of Rights, whatever remains of Australians Against Further Immigration, and even the Catholic-based National Civic Council of veteran commentator and brilliant political analyst, Mr B.A. Santamaria."
"Even that will not be enough", Jackson warns. What is needed is a Fuehrer!
"From somewhere a national leader of requisite capacity must be found. Graeme Campbell is a crafty and experienced politician, with the ability to be a cabinet minister, but he is too old and lacks the charisma needed for this task. Pauline Hanson, I suspect, may only be of outer ministerial competence."
Given the enthusiasm with which the international far right is embracing Hanson, it should not surprise anyone that local followers of the Ku Klux Klan and the BNP are also flocking to regroup beneath her racist banner.