Tag: Federal Politics

I don’t think Bob Katter is very funny, actually

In 2017, Bob Katter was recorded alongside prominent neo-Nazis reciting the pledge of the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist hate group originating in the United States. He said: “I am Bob Katter and I am a proud western chauvinist. And it is us who brought civilisation to the world and we won’t be apologising for it. Don’t get in our way.” When he was later questioned on the issue, he cautiously distanced himself from the Proud Boys, and explained it away as “larrikinism”.
This week, Woroni released a teaser trailer for an unreleased interview with Bob Katter, where he was treated as a quirky old man. When anti-racists pointed out how poor taste this was, defenders of the interview claimed “Katter is a meme”, and “a political joke”. A larrikin, you could say.
To be clear, Katter is one of Australia’s most serious and prominent far-right activists. To give an abridged record, we’re talking about a man who:

Opposed condom machines during the AIDS crisis;
Supported a Trump-like Muslim travel ban;
Called Fraser Anning’s ‘final solution’ speech on immigration “solid gold”; and
Is a notorious homophobe who claimed being gay was a fashion trend, voted against same sex marriage, and once stated that nobody in his electorate was gay.

In the last few months, alongside all the other most serious racists in Australia, Katter was busy promoting the March for Australia. He released a video on the 13th of August pledging his support for the march. On the day, he spoke at the Townsville March for Australia, claiming “resistance is duty” — resistance, presumably, to immigration. Since then, he’s continued on echoing neo-Nazi “great replacement” theory in claiming Australians are a “vanishing race” earlier this week, for example.
Apart from these last two examples, all of these were public knowledge at the time Woroni chose to interview Katter on the 27th of August.
It’s true, however, that Katter is experiencing a revival within internet “auspol” culture. Katter is indeed a “meme” — but it’s not all lefties poking fun at him. 
The context of Katter’s renewed popularity is a rise of the far right’s actual, non-ironic popularity. Votes for the far right, Katter’s Australia Party among them, have been climbing up in recent elections in Australia, alongside increasing far right street rallies. It’s not just an Australian phenomenon, either: the same “jokes” about Trump’s turns of phrase and Andrew Tate’s hustler reels go alongside the rise of the international right. It was just last week we saw the 100,000-strong march of racists in London, led by notorious Islamophobe Tommy Robinson.
The jokes are not a coincidence — they’re a tactic. Studies show the far right use memes and humour to expand their reach and normalise bigoted ideas. When left-wingers argue against them, they’re shielded by the plausible deniability of saying it’s all “just a joke.”
The extent to which the left takes on this “memeification”, even ironically, helps further sanitise the right. Slurs that were out of mainstream usage only a few months ago have now re-entered everyday slang, even if it’s a left-winger being ironically racist. 
The same goes for interviewing Bob Katter “as a meme.” Even if everyone involved understands Katter is a racist, putting out effectively uncritical content with him helps his project, and the project of the neo-nazis that marched alongside him last month.
We need to be deadly serious about combatting the rise of the far right. When Nazis are marching on our streets, internet in-jokes are not going to cut it.
What’s necessary now is undertaking the very un-funny, un-ironic work of rebuilding left-wing common sense. We need more people who are willing to make it “weird” when people make racist jokes around them. We need more young women who are the “sticks in the mud” against sexist slurs. We need more people who are “too serious,” not chill enough, make a scene, and don’t let bigotry slide.
Of course, it’s more than just a question of rebuilding left-wing culture. We’re in this situation internationally because of the numerical, material growth of the far right — so it’s those rallies and electoral projects we need to demoralise and out-mobilise. For that, we need to rebuild the forces and militancy of our side, which means more street mobilisations, a bigger union movement, more radicals, and more socialists.
It’s a big task, and unfortunately it’s not very funny. That doesn’t make it any less urgent. At the very least, we can’t afford to treat the far right as a joke.
Carter Chryse is a member Socialist Alternative and the convenor of Students for Palestine Canberra.

Carter Chryse