A Klansman, a bikie and a guy in a niqab walk into parliament. It sounds like a joke, because it’s reminiscent of a common joke format in which three people from disparate walks of life enter a venue of some description – but in this case it was all too real.
The three men represented an ad hoc organisation called Faceless, concerned with the hot button agenda of banning Islamic dress in the federal parliamentary precinct. That issue became headlines a few weeks earlier after an anonymous phone call to a radio station warning of a pro-burqa protest from someone calling themselves “media manipulator”.
At the other end of the political spectrum, a few days ago up-and-coming battle rapper BK Ultra (Brad Kain) took to the airwaves on 3AW’s Tom Elliot program, masquerading as another rapper and social commentator, 360 (aka Matt Colwell). He was making a timely point about journalistic standards, considering the burqa ban scandal was sparked by someone who hadn’t even bothered to hide their manipulative agenda.
What’s the difference between these stunts?
In the Faceless protest, the masks served an important dual purpose. They were necessary to make whatever confused point the protesters had in mind, but also masked the protesters’ identities long enough for the media to become invested in the thrilling dress-ups narrative. (“Will they be allowed to enter parliament in a way that nobody else is? Maybe not! But what if? Wouldn’t that be something!”)
Then, off came the hoods, to reveal the three as veteran rightwing activists for whom Muslims – garbed or otherwise – are the enemy.
The faux Klansman was Sergio Redegalli. We know that because he was interviewed on 3AW by Justin Smith after the protest. Best known for the Say No To Burqas mural on the back of his Newtown gallery, his murals have occasionally branched out to condemn media cover-ups of Muslim riots in Australia (remember all of them?) and multiculturalism.
A good friend of the Australian Protectionist party, you might think that Redegalli spends more time in burqas than out, having previously protested against the fact that burqas make it difficult to drive and allow men to enter female restrooms (something he proved by doing it himself).
In the niqab was Nick Folkes, a traditional white supremacist. He considers Africans a “failed people” and has entertained the idea of mass sterilising the developing world. Some in his latest venture, “Party For Freedom”, are even more extreme in their views. Victor Waterson, the bikie, believes Australia is “swamped by Asians”.
Suffice it to say this motley crew may not have needed to go to the costume shop to get a KKK outfit.
The sort of duplicitousness displayed on the doorstep of parliament is straight from the rightwing playbook. It’s a struggle for racist activists to get the airtime or the community support they desire. Playing games is often the best way to get the message out there.
For decades, the prominent Holocaust denier John Bennett distributed antisemitic and racist screeds to unsuspecting newsagents nationwide in the form of layman’s legal guide Your Rights. In 2007, when the ABC screened the film The Great Global Warming Swindle, local acolytes of Lyndon Larouche spiced up proceedings at the following panel discussion by stacking the audience with their members.
In October 2004, a neo-Nazi group found that it was a lot easier to get press at an anti-John Howard rally if they told journalists that they were the Working People’s Coalition of Australia. As their spokesman noted on neo-Nazi forum Stormfront at the time: “Had I said, ‘White Pride Coalition of Australia’ do you honestly think they would have even bothered reporting on us?”
Leftwing activists are no strangers to a disguised stunt either, but their motives are different. In 2002, balaclava’d anarchists in Melbourne convinced both Today Tonight and A Current Affair that not only was there an army of dole bludgers living in the sewers beneath Melbourne, it was worth paying them to appear on camera. The Dole Army’s point that the tabloid media would publish anything about the unemployed, no matter how absurd, was well proved in the wash-up.
In 2011, Occupy Melbourne activists highlighted the ridiculous nature of camping bylaws with a clever action involving tent monsters. The joke turned sour a few days later when one of the activists was violently stripped of her tent-costume by Melbourne city council officers and Victoria police.
And after BK Ultra’s appearance on Tom Elliot’s radio show, in which he annouced he was a unicorn who was a member of the illuminati, he explained he “actually majored in journalism at Monash University but didn’t pursue it as a career because of sensationalist nonsense like these so-called ‘reporters’ are responsible for”.
On the far right, the aim of a stunt is to obscure the true motives or identity of the protesters who might never get attention otherwise; for leftwing jokers, obfuscations serve a broader political purpose.
Either way, in the age of clickbait, the staid old protest marches of yore don’t get the hits that can be achieved by clever or visually arresting stunts.
As the more odious elements of the rightwing political sphere embrace the traditionally left-dominated field of culture-jamming, media consumers will have to be savvy enough to spot frauds for what they are – because you can’t rely on the media producers to do it for you.
