Nazi infiltration into the punk and metal scene in Melbourne - report on
2002.

Introduction.

Blood and Honour are a small Nazi organisation, which is based in Melbourne.

Their aim is to spread Nazi ideas through music.  Throughout 2002, they
have held a few gigs to try and achieve this.  There are a number of 
Nazi bands connected to Blood and Honour, for example Fortress, Bailup, 
and Ravenous.

The management of the Birmingham Hotel (on the corner of Smith and 
Johnston Streets in Fitzroy) has helped them.  The Birmingham let them 
put on two gigs (one of them to celebrate Hitler's birthday).  The 
Birmingham also allowed them to meet there regularly.  Due to pressure 
from us, Blood and Honour seem to be looking for another venue to put on 
shows.  However they also seem to still be meeting at the Birmingham.

Our activity.

Our aim in 2002 has mainly been trying to get around information about 
Blood and Honour, and especially to try to get a response from the punk 
and metal scene.  We have asked people in the area to stop supporting 
the Birmingham Hotel.

Successes.

One major success is that Blood and Honour have said they're not doing 
any more gigs at the Birmingham.  They announced this on the 'Melbourne 
Punx Forum' website (although they felt the need to say that it 'wasn't 
because they were scared').

We wrote to Community Radio 3CR and the Friends of the Earth bookshop. 
Both 3CR and FOE have offices on Smith Street, would've been seen as 
targets by Nazis, and put on benefit gigs at the Birmingham.  Neither of 
them wrote back to us, but neither of them have had any more gigs at the 
Birmingham as far as we know.

This has meant that the Birmingham has lost two sources of money, and 
that Blood and Honour no longer have a central location to put on gigs - 
although they appear to still be using the Birmingham for meetings.

The Melbourne Times.

We approached the Melbourne Times, a local paper with a reputation for 
being slightly 'lefty'. They talked to us about it, but refused to run a 
story.  One of their reasons was that "they talked to a lot of local 
councilors and social workers and they hadn't heard of Blood and 
Honour".  Blood and Honour operates almost completely within the punk 
and metal scenes.  Common sense would suggest that talking to someone in 
that scene might be a better idea.

It's likely that these local councilors and social workers wouldn't know
about *anything* that goes on in that scene.  It's a bit like us talking 
to some metalheads and asking them to name some local councilors - and 
if they couldn't, deciding the local council mustn't exist.

The undertone of their attitude was like "if it doesn't effect 
councilors or social workers it mustn't be important".  One of the local 
Nazis, Patrick O'sullivan, has recently gone to jail for stabbing 
someone in North Fitzroy.

We told the Melbourne Times this but they treated it as if it was 
totally unimportant.  I got the impression that the Melbourne Times 
didn't care, because of who the victim was.  He was 'just' a skinhead 
who'd turned away from Nazism.  I got the impression that if he'd been a 
social worker or councilor then it would have been treated differently.
In a way the Melbourne Times agreed with the nazis, that this person was 
of no value or importance, because of who he was.  There was a real 
element of classism or snobbery to it; like if 'those people' want to 
hurt each other then it's OK, as long as they don't turn on 'us'.

The sad thing is, if the Nazis ever kill someone, then the Melbourne 
Times would probably decide it was now newsworthy, run to us begging for 
an interview, and run a story about how "someone has to do something". 
We want to stop the Nazis before they kill someone, and they couldn't 
care less.

The best that can be said about this episode, was that it was our own 
silly fault.  We shouldn't have put that much faith in an institution 
like the Melbourne Times, and in future we won't.

The punk scene.

Although a lot of people in the scene have supported us, some people 
have been very defensive about ties to Nazis.

A typical comment on the Melbourne Punx Forum website, was that the
Birmingham is the only pub that supports the punk scene.  This is 
completely false. Punk gigs happen at the Arthouse, the Pink Palace, the 
Tote, and several other places.

Someone even said that "the birmy is our pub".  This is a ridiculous
comment.  The Birmingham belongs to the owner of the Birmingham. They're 
not "supporting the punk scene", they're supporting the idea of them 
getting money.

If the Birmingham management decided there was more money to be made by
putting on top 40 bands, that's what would happen.  It's likely that if 
our campaign keeps going, the owner of the Birmingham will just cut off 
all ties with the punk scene, and the punk scene will find that 'our' 
pub was their pub all along.

Punk is supposed to be partly about 'diy'.  Even if there were no venues
putting on punk gigs, there are always places like youth centres.  A lot 
of techno fans have gone further and set up their own events in 
abandoned warehouses or even just out in the open.  Some people in the 
punk scene seem to have the opposite of a 'diy' attitude.  Their 
attitude seems to be "we can't do it ourselves, we need a businessman to 
organise it for us".

Punk is also supposed to be about more than 'having a career'.  A member 
of punk band Charter 77 wrote that "my band Charter 77 will continue to 
play at the Birmingham, as they are one of the few venues that have 
supported us".  In other words, they can get a higher profile by hanging 
around with Nazis, so they will and that's that.  Their career comes 
before anything else.  Charter 77 say that they're not Nazis, and this 
seems to be true.  But were happy to, for example, advertise a gig with 
pictures of Nazi skinheads from Romper Stomper (they explained this as 
being 'just a joke').

If the Nazis Stay...

Roddy Moreno, lead singer of The Oppressed, saw the early 80s skinhead 
scene in Britain destroyed by Nazis.  He said that "If you don't care, 
they will take your scene, they will ruin it and suck the lifeblood out 
of it. When we started off, we had songs on compilation albums and were 
making the national charts. But once you had bands like Skrewdriver 
singing 'white Britain' and stuff, all of a sudden nobody would
touch any skinhead bands. If you were a skinhead, you couldn't play
anywhere, nobody wanted to put your records out. It was all because the
Nazis came in and most people stood by and let it happen."

A similar thing could easily happen in Melbourne.

Blood and Honour paints a picture where they're standing up for the 
scene and defending it against us.  They make out we're a bunch of uni 
students who want to destroy it.  In fact one person in our group is 
working, and doing uni by correspondence at the same - that's it for our 
  uni connection.

The number of people in our group who don't go to punk or metal shows is
exactly 1 - and they used to be the singer of a punk band.  The first 
event that APE did was an all day punk and metal show.

Our connection to the scene much more real than the Nazis, who are in 
there purely to advance their politics.  In the 70s nazis wanted to get 
rid of rock music and replace it with folk music.  In the 80s in Germany 
they said that electronic bands were the only 'pure white music'.  Now 
they're jumping on the punk and metal bandwagon.  Next year it could be 
something else.

People also should remember that, if they felt confident enough, Nazis 
would start to 'purge' the scene of people who were against them.  After 
all, Melbourne Nazi leader Patrick O'Sullivan went to jail for 
stabbing...not a Jew or a hippy, but another skinhead, after he made a 
vaguely anti-Nazi remark at a party.

A Blood and Honour supporter has confirmed this.  They wrote on the
Melbourne Punx Forum that the Nazis didn't care about the punk scene and
"perhaps if a skinhead was fucking a coloured sort then [Blood and 
Honour] might have a problem".  In other words, we don't care about you, 
and we will use violence against you if you don't do what we want.

The worst thing about this comment was that no one criticised any part 
of it.  But some people on that website still act like we are the people 
who are threatening the scene from outside.

As we saw with the Melbourne Times, the 'establishment' couldn't care 
less about what's happening, as long as they're not personally 
threatened.  If enough people in the punk and metal scene treat us like 
we're the bad guys, and use the excuse that 'it's the only place we can 
go', then the Nazis will easily be able to take over.

All People Equal - Anarchy Against Bigotry.

links: contact us -

email [EMAIL PROTECTED]

PO Box 1191
Richmond North VIC 3121

Phone (03) 9513 0533
(message bank - call any time)

Our website, which included information about the stabbing by Patrick
O'Sullivan, and other anti-racist information, can be found at
www.angry.at/racists

Melbourne Punx forum - http://worldcrossing.com/WebX?.ee9c11b

quote from Roddy Merino is from www.turnitdown.com - anti-racist website.


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