By Sam Wainwright
BRISBANE — On July 28, the Anti-Racist Campaign (ARC) adopted a set of aims and objectives which included: "In its campaign against racism ARC will attempt to build actions that challenge the basis for racist ideas and demonstrate that the majority of people oppose racism. While this may result in pro-Hanson meetings being cancelled, ARC does not see this as being the goal of its actions."
This provision was passed only after long debate. Members of the International Socialist Organisation opposed it, saying that ARC should aim to physically disrupt Hanson's meetings in an attempt to have them closed down.
They argued that trying to close Hanson's meetings was necessary to halt the growth of One Nation and that Hanson and her supporters do not have the right to free speech.
Roberto Jorquera, an activist in ARC and spokesperson for the Democratic Socialists, commented: "Closing down Hanson's meetings should not be the aim of the demonstrations; often this would result in futile confrontations with the police.
"Furthermore, we don't want to be drawn down a path where the whole debate revolves around whether or not Hanson has a right to free speech. The focus should be on rebutting Hanson and Howard's racism and getting more people involved in the movement."
In their enthusiasm to see One Nation meetings physically prevented from going ahead, the ISO has supported and calls for an extension of bans on One Nation by the Ipswich and Brisbane councils. On August 1 in the Queen Street Mall they sought signatures on a petition endorsing the Ipswich Council decision.
The irony is that in the past the Soorley administration has tried to prevent the left from distributing political information in the Queen Street Mall. Actually endorsing its "right" to politically censor what happens could backfire.
Meanwhile state opposition leader Peter Beattie has called on people not to demonstrate outside Hanson's meetings and to instead conduct a "dignified" debate over One Nation's policies. He was quoted in the July 23 Courier-Mail as saying, "The violent scenes we see on television only polarise opinions — they guarantee her more exposure".
Here Beattie both accepts and promotes the establishment media's lie that the demonstrations against Hanson's party have been violent. In reality they have been overwhelmingly peaceful.
Lana Halpin, an activist with Resistance, explained, "We want to help build a mass anti-racist movement that isolates Howard's and Hanson's racism and explains the real cause of unemployment and economic hardship. It's completely hypocritical for Beattie to try to claim that ground when you consider that it is the economic hardship inflicted by state and federal Labor governments that pushed some people into the arms of Hanson in the first place."