The Grampians or Bavaria? Dvir responds
Fairfax Media has reported members of a far-right group burning a cross and chanting anti-semitic slogans close to holiday spots on Australia Day in the Grampians national park in Victoria.
Dvir Abramovich – ADC
The report states that locals and visitors were met with Nazi salutes and police questioning members of the group were photographed by them with their badge numbers being posted on the Internet.
J-Wire asked members of the Australian Jewish community well-versed in the activities of the far-right.
Chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission Dvir Abramovich told us:
“The ideology of Nazi Germany has infiltrated our state and we need to take these extremists at their word. We do not need to wait for a Christchurch rampage in Melbourne to act decisively in countering this escalating threat.
Who would have thought in 2021 Australia, in a week in which we commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the modern face of Hitler would reveal itself in our nation without consequence? Though some would have thought this would be unimaginable, neo-Nazi incitement and rallies are alive and well in Victoria, and these home-grown SS soldiers, who dream of a Fourth Reich with an Australian Hitler at the helm, are a clear and present danger, agitating for a racial war and recruiting like-minded bigots. The bottom line is we cannot ignore this form of extremism and as the horrific atrocities in Christchurch, San Diego, Pittsburgh and El Paso have clearly demonstrated there is a direct linkage between hateful words, conspiratorial ideas incitement and lone-wolf shooting incidents. Where white-supremacist come together, physical assaults and murder are usually not far behind.
This group and others are creating an echo chamber and incubator on the net, taking full advantage of their virtual audience to feed and amplify their vitriolic fantasies about an Aryan Australia, without Jews, Muslims, Aboriginals, the disabled immigrants, members of the LGBTQI community and anyone else they deem ‘inferior’.
Make no mistake, the dangerous rhetoric that these Hitler worshippers are spewing can cross the line into real-world lethal attacks, especially since such groups glorify and are inspired by ‘heroes’ or ‘martyrs’ who have carried out massacres such as Robert Bowers and Dylan Roof.
We know that before they committed the atrocities, Brenton Tarrant, Dylan Roof and Patrick Crusius self-radicalised online, frequenting fringe social media platforms and sharing ideas associated with the notion of “white genocide. In fact, some of the members of this group tried to recruit Tarrant. The risk here is that they may have followers who are absorbing their poisonous messages and who are finding reinforcement and approval for their beliefs that any action is justified to help “save” the white race from their ‘enemies’.
‘Never Again’ is now, and this is the time to fight violent, hateful movements that are a dire and evolving security threat and to act quickly. This a whole-of-society challenge and is national priority, I call on our state and federal governments to lead the fight against the growing problem of racially-based extremism by candidly characterising it and advocating that these groups be added to the terror list. This measure is one which is ready for immediate action, and it will bring the full weight of our law enforcement’s resources to combat this bomb that is waiting to go off.”
