Preventing the “Fractured Far Right” from Gaining Traction: Palestinian Organiser Tasnim Sammak

White Australian nationalists are not new. What is, however, are the monthly nationwide far right protests occurring since August, which spout antiimmigration rhetoric and are linked to rising white supremacism in the UK and in the US, where a fascistic Trump administration reigns supreme. But the local far right is “fractured” and those mobilising against it, plan to keep it this way.

Speaking prior to the 30 November 2025 United Front antifacist rally that was countering the Put Australia First white nationalist protests of the same day, Palestinian organiser and academic Dr Tasnim Sammak told the crowd of antifascists to stay focused, as they only had one job that Sunday afternoon, which was “to get in the way of a fascist, racist colonialist march”.

A United Front coalition of social justice groups in Naarm-Melbourne has been effectively countering the monthly white nationalist turnouts. Dr Sammak underscored that these reoccurring rallies are being performed on Indigenous land to assert an imported white supremacy, which is certainly not apparent when ‘Australia First’ demonstrators speak at their ongoing events.

White nationalism last raised its pale face prominently circa 2015. This saw white nationalist groups, such as Reclaim Australia and the United Patriots Front, mobilising, draped in Southern Cross flags and dehumanising Muslim people.

Since March 2023, however, some of these pale faces, the National Socialist Network, or the NSN, have been bold enough to mobilise on city streets openly as followers of Nazism.

As is well known on the ground but not so well documented and easy to prove, Australian authorities are either incapable or unwilling to crack down adequately on white Australian nationalism, which is perhaps because both were birthed together.

But the 8 November 2025 NSW police authorised neo-Nazi demonstration before NSW state parliament appears to have bucked this trend and provided a tangible example.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers spoke to Palestinian organiser and academic Dr Tasnim Sammak about why it’s important for people not to let white nationalists assert supremacy on city streets unchallenged, the fact that the fractured nature of the local far right can be used to advantage and how this nation should have reckoned with the Australian-perpetrated Christchurch massacres but never has.

Tasnim, you gave a speech in Naarm on Sunday, 30 November 2025, prior to a rally countering the Put Australia First demonstration, which was a white nationalist rally.

Midyear this year, there was no major white nationalist movement calling for an end to “mass migration” out on the streets, but since August there has been a nationwide far-right day of protests every month.

So, why do you consider your group Free Palestine Coalition Naarm, amongst a united front of other social justice groups, has been having to get out on the streets and counter these rallies all of a sudden? Why is white nationalism on the rise like this? 

The first March for Australia was held on a Sunday, closely following the Sydney Harbour Bridge march in solidarity with Palestine, so the Palestine movement was already mobilised to protest that Sunday.

March for Australia follows mainstream political and media hysteria about Free Palestine rallies taking over city streets, with attempts to ban protests both in so-called Sydney and Melbourne.

Our protests have been labelled as hate marches that inspire antisemitic attacks towards Australian Jews and that negatively impact social cohesion. They have also been characterised as dangerous sites of radicalisation.

Our communities did take to the streets weekly here in Naarm, holding over 100 consecutive Sunday protests to demand an end to the Gaza genocide and stand with the resistant people of Palestine.

Before the March for Australia initiative and far right regular protesting, a far-right Zionist group here in Naarm, the Lions of Zion, have been assembling to counter our protests almost weekly in the past year.

They realised that if ten or twenty of them placed themselves along our march route, they can gain much attention to their cause from social media and from the authorities with little effort, so they have been repeating this formula. We have encountered them many times.

March for Australia promoted itself as a movement that rallies Australians for an Australian cause, using footage of the Sydney Harbour pro-Palestine march to build support on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.

“If the Palestinians are protesting, so can we, true blue Australians. We’re sick of these extremists taking over our streets, displaying blood-stained shrouds and supporting terrorists. We’re Australian, we march for Australia here.”

Of course, this was not the complete or singular rhetoric that built the March for Australia, but the presence of this fascist street movement cannot be understood without recognising the cultural implications of two years of highly visible antiwar, antiracist mobilising and the backlash against minorities for exercising a political agency that actually is moderate given the scale of atrocity and Australian government complicity.

The tens of thousands who mobilised for Palestine were responding to a very real and urgent concern regarding crimes against humanity committed with impunity: a concern that is in no way comparable to the manufactured crisis of ‘mass migration’ that blames economic issues on foreigners.

In Naarm, it turned out that the NSN were key actors in the coordination of the 31st of August March for Australia event.

They led the march with their banner and a contingent of their members, and their leader took to the podium to address thousands of participants.

Along the way, our Free Palestine contingent accidentally encountered the NSN members headfirst as they were marching up to parliament.

We were attempting to get to another section of the city when we saw over 10,000 people shrouded in the Australian flag marching towards about 500 of us.

Some members of our contingent entered into an altercation with the NSN. This received a mention in the NSN leader’s speech as he decried how the communists and the Palestinians are out to get the white Australian race. Other racists also burnt the Palestinian flag and chanted ‘Fuck Palestine’.

The NSN went on to attack Camp Sovereignty, as a conclusion to their fascist parade, as a declaration of colonialist victory for the white race.

Last year, the NSN attempted but failed at a similar ambush against the refugee encampment that our movement strongly supported. They practised their attack techniques in these attempts, as the Lions of Zion have over multiple assemblies, where they experimented with different ways to disrupt our marches.

Their little experience in political activity, mixed with the IDF military training of some of their members, has allowed them to insert themselves in the recent Put Australia First march, providing its security.

The issue of Palestine in this settler colony is tied up in the politics of colonisation and racism and so we are naturally implicated and involved.

In the UK, too, fascists have been having regular marches, which mirrors the Palestine movement and is in some way an unwanted side effect of what we have created, like a mutation that we didn’t really account for.

Pauline Hanson appeared at the Put Australia First rally. The fourth such rally. She’d just pulled her burqa stunt in parliament. You considered it significant that she was there, and you mentioned that the One Nation leader has been trading in divisive race-based politicking since the 1990s.

You also referred to her tactics and those like her as white supremacist. Why would you say what’s occurring in this moment can’t simply be dismissed as a bit of Aussie pride? What sort of impact would you say her politicking and the growing white nationalist movement is having? 

Pauline Hanson’s burqa stunt was obviously timed with the Put Australia First demonstrations, which took place merely days after her appearance.

Put Australia First is a slogan she has frequently used, so I could see this connection even though we did not have knowledge of her scheduled appearance until the day before.

In my speech, I state that although the far right failed to capture Australian politics with a Peter Dutton government, as he lost both his seat and the prime ministership, they are organising alternative approaches towards this end.

Wearing the burqa was surprising because it reflects early 2000s racism that builds xenophobia by portraying Muslims as unable to be assimilated into the dominant white majority ‘way of life’.

The March for Australia antiimmigration rhetoric is more white nationalist, in that it calls for a restriction on Black and Brown immigration regardless of whether assimilation is possible, so there isn’t really a good migrant subject that the nation conditionally accepts.

The demand is for fewer migrants and for deportation of existing migrants, with little talk of assimilating to Australian values.

At the Put Australia First march, Hanson declared that she supports bringing all Australians together and the march was supported by far-right Christian and Zionist groups, though she very overtly called for a restriction on immigration, appealing to white nationalist demands.

It’s unclear where this program will land, as a key white nationalist figure was not allowed at this protest, yet the protest itself is an attack on migrants and is organising against multicultural and migration policy.

The federal Liberal party also just announced that it will be making some promises about mass immigration, which shows how white nationalism is finding its hold even in these ways that are still emerging.

These draconian policies follow antirefugee oppressive policies, so in my speech, I note how terrifying it is for these new demands to win, given that white supremacy is already law. As we know, Labor is proceeding with the Nauru deportation plan.

There has been a strong United Front coalition countering what you see as a growing fascist movement in Naarm. You stressed at the rally the importance of what it means to have a counter movement out on the streets visibly opposing it.

There would be people in other parts concerned about this nationalist movement that’s basically targeting migrants and people who aren’t of a European background, although the white nationalist insist this isn’t the case.

Why is it important to challenge these movements on the streets at the grassroots level? What would be the issue if everybody just sat at home and ignored them?

If we didn’t come together to counter the fascist protests, then Naarm’s streets would belong to fascists who are able to be emboldened by parading their program out in the public.

But this is Black Native land and the days of the colonialists spewing their white pride filth should be over.

Indigenous resistance should ground our understanding of antifascism, as it is Indigenous resistance that has stood in the way of the white nationalist project of the colony.

Indigenous people fought off racist, colonial forces that sought to annihilate, subjugate and assimilate them, springing forward, alongside international anticolonial and racial justice movements, the 1967 referendum, land rights, racial equality laws and later, the repeal of the White Australia policy.

Today’s white nationalists want a return to early settler colonial laws that empowered white settlers to plunder and purge in advance of the national project.

The NSN say, ‘Australia for the white man’, which is not a new slogan, they directly draw on early colonial ideals.

Our task is to provide and foster an alternative racial politics by attempting to disrupt far-right marches and reject their vision.

As capitalism is in crisis and social and economic problems deepen, fascism will be on the rise to keep the system intact, but we can intervene in this process and prevent white masses from embracing the populist appeal of rising neo-Nazi and far-right political programs.

Comrades today are having to face stun grenades and rubber bullets in Naarm, which has been very testing for our movement.

We are facing difficulty knowing how to withstand such police assaults against counterprotests. We should remember then that such violence is miniscule compared to the genocidal assaults that Indigenous peoples resisted on these very lands.

Indigenous and working people also fought against the spread of fascism in World War Two, which our generation is not yet asked to do. We can accomplish a lot and should look to history when our hesitations gain hold.

You said to the Naarm rally that those gathered ought not to wait around “for the National Guard and ICE to start detaining every Black and Brown person” down there.

You were alluding to what’s happening in Trump’s America, which no one would have imagined this time last year and no one still really imagines could happen here in a localised form.

How much of what is happening in the US is feeding into what is happening here?

The far right is gaining power throughout Europe, supercharged by the re-election of Trump on an America First vision that was built from the ground up by American white middleclass youth, like Charlie Kirk.

Here, the far right has found it difficult to build a populist fascist-aligned campaign. But as I have stated above, this does not mean they will not ‘hack’ an effective way forward.

Australia provided a template for the deportations that Trump is executing on a mass scale in this term of his presidency, so time is an interesting thing, because in some ways, we are further into what the fascists see as a white supremacist utopia, we already do detain “illegals” and are raiding and deporting people on temporary visas even without the glamour and extrajudicial powers of a Trump in charge.

My comments about ICE and the National Guard coming for Black and Brown people here gained some push back online, with some opponents mocking me for thinking I live in America.

They then started debating amongst themselves how Australia will never do that to migrants, while others argued that Australia should precisely bring on the National Guard.

My comment was to raise concern about how difficult it has been for comrades in Turtle Island, or the so-called United States, to defend their communities in the face of such high-scale and militarised state oppression.

I was not saying that the majority of us are currently under such a threat, but rather that we should defeat the disorganised and fractured Australian far right before they build and use the state to accomplish their goals.

I want to be clear, though, that vulnerable communities are already selectively subjected to military assaults, such as in the Northern Territory, or through border control, it is just kept out of sight and mind for even racialised citizens here.

Tasnim, in your 30 November speech, you repeatedly stressed that this white nationalist movement was mobilising on Indigenous land. You raised the point that this is a multicultural nation, however these white nationalists are challenging this.

You also suggested that people defend diversity and in turn, defend those who are different in society.

But this is bigger than Naarm. These forces are growing across the continent and across the western world. So, what do you consider has to occur to stop fascism making broader traction in this country, as is occurring in the US right now?

It’s vital that we keep nurturing a racial politics that wins popular support, and the Indigenous sovereign movement makes this possible. It provides a radically alternative strong sense of national identity that we can all associate with and fight for.

Migrant settlers, like myself, need to continue to organise within our respective communities to make the argument for an antiracism that stands in solidarity with First Nations people, but also, we need to organise defensive structures for when we are under attack.

I have been engaged in building community defence organisation and training, but it is not a very favoured initiative, even though we can see the coordinated and planned aggression that fascists are capable of. Why are we not endorsing antifascist community defence?

Unfortunately, post-Christchurch, when 51 Muslims were murdered by an Australian fascist in Aotearoa, little shifted in the antiracism politics of our communities or the left.

Security and policing agencies have been engaged to protect mosques and Islamic institutions, inquiries into far-right extremism have been conducted, yet the fascists are stronger than they ever were, holding events in central locations.

The state is providing fascists with open freedom to organise, and the police are escorting their events, giving them strength, yet we trust in the state to deal with the fascist threat.

I believe that we cannot expect that a national tragedy will wake us up, and that is not hypothetical, as it has already occurred and we haven’t changed our ways, in Christchurch and against Camp Sovereignty.

It will not be an attack by the fascists, but the deliberate and convincing educational and organising work that we do that can give us a chance to intervene against rising fascism.

We should not forget the Christchurch mosque massacres. We should teach the Christchurch mosque massacres and commemorate the Christchurch mosque massacres.

Our peoples were slaughtered in mere minutes simply for being unwanted Muslims living on land that the white man claimed as his.

To remember our martyrs, here and in our lands, where racist forces commit genocide and war crimes with a vengeance against the inferior savage, we ought to face and defeat the enemy.

As Hampton expressed decades ago, “Nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism is gonna stop us all”.

We founded the United Front Against Fascism to bring our aspirations, experiences and wisdoms together to better coordinate against the present fascist street movement.

It has the support of over 40 organizations. We will see if we can manage to make it a viable project, because we need to fight back together.

On Invasion Day, we can defeat the neo-Nazis and bury their racist superiority along with their Australia Day.

Main image of Victoria police officer approaching a United Front counter-protester supplied by Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF)