Thousands of people took to the streets of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane on Saturday November 20 to protest against the COVID-19 lockdown measures and vaccine mandates.
The rallies followed weeks of protests in Melbourne against the Public Health and Welfare (Pandemic Management) Bill of 2021. The previous Monday, protesters hung an inflatable effigy of Victoria’s Prime Minister Daniel Andrews on a gallows mounted on downtown Melbourne.
This needs to be highlighted. Here are death threats directly aimed at Dan Andrews on the microphone.
“I look forward to the day I get to see you dance on the end of a rope” pic.twitter.com/E5zQQ0tNAz
– The Sage (@SarkySage) November 16, 2021
Situations like that connect anti-vaccine movements with far-right extremist groups and white supremacists, as well as conspiratorial communities in Europe and white nations that absorb migrants across the globe, such as Australia, Canada, the United States or New Zealand. .
Vaccine resistance in Australia has a number of mitigating factors. Vaccine vacillation and resistance to pandemic legislation among minority communities, including indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse communities, stems from a mistrust of institutions sparked by centuries of colonial medical and legislative violence. This could be the reason why some members of these communities are participating in protests.
Right-wing and racial supremacist groups are taking advantage of that vacillation with vaccines to distribute conservative ideologies to new audiences through protests and social media. Among them are complex narratives about resistance to a “New World Order”, which supposedly threatens a bygone Australian way of life.
Many involved in these movements probably don’t realize that they are aligning themselves with people whose values and ideas are steeped in white supremacy.
White Supremacism and the New World Order
Many groups have come together under the banner of COVID denial and vaccine resistance. A common narrative shared on social media is that COVID, lockdown measures, and vaccines are part of a plan to implement a global totalitarian regime.
In September this year, a comment from New South Wales Health Director Kerry Chant went viral among COVID deniers and conspiracy theorists, including those at QAnon. Chant responded to a question about how contact tracing would work after lockdown by saying, “Let’s see what contact tracing looks like in the new world order.”
Conspirators in anti-vaccine circles have been using that term, “New world order”, to refer to the theory that a secret group of powerful elites plans global domination. Despite Chant’s intentions, the mention of the term sparked a social media frenzy and Google searches skyrocketed.
Dr Chant’s mention of a phrase that also happens to be the premise of a long-standing conspiracy theory made quite a splash yesterday for Australian search queries on Google pic.twitter.com/MGvwmtvu6f
– Tim Graham “Lil Pharma” (@timothyjgraham) September 9, 2021
The New World Order theory has racist and anti-Semitic inferences. It comes from the speculative and philosophical literature of Europeans and white settlers in the United States who promote paranoid myths about the participation of the Jewish people in the banking system. Since the Second World War he has been forging links with fascism, racism and white libertarianism and satanic panic. Also with the Nazi occultism.
Essentially, resisting that “New World Order” has very little to do with addressing existing power systems, including capitalism and colonialism, that oppress and marginalize groups of people around the world. It is more of a battle between perceived good and bad.
These ideas also have a long tradition in Christian literature, including the New Testament. White Christian extremists, including the Klu Klux Klan, refer to themselves as knights engaged in a holy war to defend their freedoms from other racial and religious groups whom they have historically oppressed.
Far-right conservatism and conspiracy theories
Anti-vaccine movements have proven especially attractive to white women and groups of men who feel disadvantaged by the rapid changes in Western society, which have destabilized their economic and social position.
Many anti-vaccines believe they are resisting evil globalist forces that want to corrupt them and their children through tracking devices, microchips, and other evil technologies supposedly hidden in COVID-19 vaccines.
Protesters carry placards inferring that their sperm is not contaminated by the vaccine, and unvaccinated users on Tiktok refer to themselves as “pure blood”. These sentiments echo the anxieties of the white race popularized during the Aboriginal Protectionism and White Australian Politics eras, which continue to influence Australian immigration policy to this day.
“Unvaccinated sperm is the next #Bitcoin” pic.twitter.com/T9sEnJjU3v
– LetsGoBrandon0612 🔴 (@ Brandon0612) November 15, 2021
Conservative family values are evident in the anti-vaccine movements. For example, protesters in Sydney on Saturday recycled “You Can Say No” posters, which were originally used against the Australian gay marriage ballot in 2017.
Far-right politicians and organizations have capitalized on the rapid changes and experiences of economic crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic to promote ideologies about protecting traditional family values and Western culture.
YOU CAN SAY NO #sydneyprotest pic.twitter.com/L2lF4o5cA3
– Alice (@ReddingtonAlice) November 20, 2021
Political advocates of the anti-vaccine movement, such as Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly, are also anti-immigration and climate change deniers. The current line of the Party for United Australia is “Make Australia Great”, mimicking the Trump campaign.
Kelly and Palmer are taking advantage of anti-vaccine sentiments to gain visibility in protests and on social media. Leading right-wing politicians have also participated in demonstrations, including Tony Abbott’s former chief of staff as prime minister, Peta Credlin.
Who wins?
Known members of pro-fascist, white supremacist and neo-Nazi organizations, including the Proud Boys and the Lads Society, have been present at anti-vaccine rallies. These organizations have also been involved in the organization of the conferences and the security of the speakers.
Investigators have observed members of white supreme and far-right groups recruiting and paving the way for vaccine-reluctant people via Facebook and encrypted messaging groups such as Telegram. Anti-vaccines have also systematically targeted black and indigenous communities with disinformation and propaganda.
The COVID-19 outbreaks have already had devastating impacts on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island communities. Leaders and organizations in those communities are fighting the spread of misinformation in remote Aboriginal communities, including myths spread by Christian groups that COVID-19 is a white male virus. The spread of anti-vaccination propaganda among indigenous communities has serious and life-threatening consequences.
Nothing says “outstanding” like Peta Credlin attending an anti-vaxxer / QAnon protest hey @kennedyawards #melbourneprotest # covid19vic #auspol https://t.co/Y92Djb0xQ2 pic.twitter.com/B6NQEmGrQ4
– Cam (@camliveshere) November 13, 2021
It might appear that anti-vaccine and far-right groups are minorities in Australia. However, far-right political parties that spread misinformation about vaccines are gaining more and more followers.
The Party for United Australia is now Australia’s largest political party with up to 70,000 members. They provided posters for Saturday’s protests that read “Freedom, freedom, freedom.”
It remains to be seen how the growing influence of the far right will affect the upcoming elections and our future. We need to think carefully about the ideas and movements that we are in right now and who is really benefiting from them.
Authors: Madi Day, Professor, Department of Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University; Bronwyn Carlson, Professor of Indigenous Studies and Director of the Center for Global Indigenous Futures, Macquarie University.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. You can read the original article here.