White pride beatings in Melbourne, Australia.

I was in a park on Friday afternoon having a beer with a few mates and listening to Chumbawamba on my boombox as we sat around and snacked and sung and lay on the grass just generally enjoying ourselves and causing no fuss. My intention is to paint you a picture of some rather peaceful dudes, causing no harm to anyone, so if I haven't, then imagine that.

We were approached by a group of young men in basketball shorts with short, cropped, mostly blonde (or at least very desparately bleached, presumably to hide any latent trace of a distinct race other than indistinctly white) hair. Their leader wore a singlet top which showed on prominent display his Iron Cross tattoo, worn boldly and sketched poorly across his pale, blotchy skin. Also adorning his speed-addled but leanly muscular frame was a Southern Cross tattoo (the significance of which, I think Queerpunk could probably explain better than I, and which is meant to be a symbol of unionist solidarity but which is more often than not used a means to promote racial vilification) which, I could tell (despite being only a minor artist) had been scrawled upon him by a cretin who had maybe only glimpsed the original design. The other members of the group were somewhat non-descript shaved headed lads, so it was obvious that if this were a unit, he was their captain.

At first we supposed this faction a joke of their own invention, as they clumsily repeated in terrible German "SIG HAIL" (as they put it) and a number of other white power slogans while thrusting their pointed hands toward the sky along their eye-lines. I wondered, perhaps, if they weren't a joke, but had decided to adopt some nazi slogans to scare off the one gentleman of our number who was obviously dark skinned. Since we were many and they few, whatever their intentions, they shambled off again, forever stopping and starting; checking over their shoulders; having huddled conversations with the leader; waiting, as Pat Grant (cartoonist, Australian, very good, look him up) would so ably put it, for something to happen.

We carried on, the beers were drunk, the wine was opened and the tape unwound to the inevitable end of Side "A". As we came to flip it, a young blonde woman of their number, on whose description I shan't lavish much detail, but who seemed to be the type perfectly at home with the men we were soon to properly encounter, approached us for cigarettes. She meant to target the punks among us, especially the ones her fearless leader had identified as anti-fascists, and demanded cigarettes for a mix (if this is not common slang everywhere else, she wanted the tobacco for a bong). Those she had asked initially, none of whom are smokers, declined her without thought. Other members of the group, most of whom roll their own cigarettes and so would not have had whole cigarettes to part with, quite politely told her to try elsewhere. She left, indignant, accusing us of supreme rudeness and reminding us of who she was with. We were still perplexed at the whole matter and chose to keep chilling out, letting the confrontation melt from our minds, and starting the weekend off right.

About the time we put the next tape on (it may have been Agadoo, but who's asking?), we had moved to sit around a statue of what appeared to be a cat, arched in such a way as to make a fantastic couch, barring the slight discomfort of metal on ass. Hardy folks that we are, this obviously bothers us not! Enjoying the rarely-attractive sight of the sun setting over the city, we were interrupted in our levity again by the young woman. She had brought her partner (I suppose, anyway), the leader of the unit, if my logic is fair enough to follow. What ensued was a volley of racist remarks and gestures, his underlings surrounded our group, standing so as to menace us away from the cat, where sat two of my friends who had intially rebuked the requests for cigarettes.

The argument (as, at this stage, it was verbal) which followed was half "race traitor" and half "are you disrespecking my missus? (translation: are you being rude to my girlfriend?)". What this precipitated was that my friend, let's call him Dave (because it's a nice name to call someone), begun to absorb the quickest, most obviously speed(and mindless hatred)-induced flurry of blows I've ever seen perpetrated upon someone. Our female friend, let's call her Terri (because it's the first name I could think of that wasn't hers or a man's name) was grabbed to the ground and kicked and beaten first by the woman, then by two of the shambolic stormtroopers themselves, as she was held down. Dave was beaten repeatedly and senseless by at times all and other times every member of the group in turn, had wine bottles smashed over his head and his bloodied face kicked and kicked as he gushed blood onto the perfect, green, well-trimmed grass. Never in all my life have I witnessed an attack instigated by so little, so methodically orchestrated, or so violent in intention and execution as the one which I witnessed last Friday night.

And I, dear readers, stood, and watched, frozen to the spot. I stood and watched as my friends were beaten and kicked. I stood and watched as everyone else fled. I stood and watched as Dave had a wine bottle broken over his head and then, trying to get his own back, broke another, only to have it crumble in his hands. I stood and watched as my friend's bloodied, twisted mouths called my name between volleys of blows. I stood and watched as I stood and watched idiots, full of hatred and indoctrinated evil, full of cowardice and lust for violence and destruction, tried stamping out the flames, so long burning in all my friend's dear hearts, of courage, integrity, beauty, passion and peacefulness.

I just wanted to make a pledge today.

Never again shall I let ugliness kick at the face of beauty.
Never again shall I let fear win over courage to object.
Never again shall I stand idly as brutality smothers in its grasp the flowers of peacefulness.
Never again shall this be allowed to happen to my dearest of friends.
And never again shall I stand, aghast and gaping-mouthed, as my friends spill blood in an unchosen battle, for the love of their right to exist.

 

I spoke to him the next day as well, and was very pleased to hear him in good humour. Then again, he has such an unquashable humour does our "Dave" that I doubt anybody could have broken his spirit with such as a beating. By the way, liking the Mike Moore motif there, good screen grab.

 

Both "terri" and "jane" (who I didn't mention in my piece, but got a big ol' gash on the head from a bottle to the face) fared a little better, but endured rather savage conduct nonetheless, so I can only hope as well that they're not too bad. "jane" is fine, I hear, which is a lovely piece of news to receive any day.

 

That may be the cutest assortment of emoticons I've ever seen beating the shit out of the fascist hate machine!

 

Haha, I find it impossible to sit down behind a keyboard without rambling. Although I did eschew my usual barrage of references to the Bee Gees, Dire Straits and Barbara Bush...

 

I think I'm missing a crucial verb here.