Fascism and the Police

1 Sept

Nath O'Flanahee

If you’ve ever turned up to counter a fascist rally, then it would be no surprise to you as to who the police support politically. They actively protect fascist protesters and use their overreaching powers to intimidate working class anti-fascist resistance.

Police arresting two ACP members at an antifascist counter demonstration on July the 15th. Their legal battle continues. The full video can be found at https://www.facebook.com/401913306258/videos/2673664329570237

In July of this year two anti-fascist protesters, who are members of the Australian Communist Party, were selectively targeted by the police. They attended a counter protest in Newtown, Sydney, against a demonstration organised by far-right agitator and white-nationalist activist Nick Folkes. Within minutes of arriving they were arrested by NSW Police; one for the use of ‘offensive language’ and another, shortly after, for ‘assaulting a police officer’. The second arrest came after one of the anti-fascist protesters tried to film the initial arrest of her comrade. She was subsequently grabbed by plain-clothed officers, and after she attempted to free herself from her apparent attackers she was arrested for assault[1].

Australian police have also been in the spotlight recently for flashing white supremacist hand signals at Black Lives Matter rallies[2] and climate action protests[3]. These are not isolated incidents; police across the globe have been exposed time and time again for sympathising with fascist demonstrators. One example of this occurred in 2016 when American police were exposed for having worked with the Traditional Workers Party (TWP), a neo-nazi organisation, to identify anti-fascist activists. This came after a clash between anti-fascist and neo-nazi protesters in Sacramento, California, which resulted in the hospitalisation of multiple anti-fascist protesters with stab wounds. Despite the fact that police officers had seen multiple TWP members at the protest armed with knives, they selectively prosecuted anti-fascist activists and actively tried to conceal the identities of TWP members. California police even went as far as treating and referring to neo-nazi protesters as “victims”[4]. For those who are unaware of the sympathetic treatment police give to fascists, this news will likely be very disturbing, but why do the police sympathise with fascists? Why do they consistently side with these reactionaries who often publicly advocate for acts of racial violence and genocide, when the police claim to “protect and serve” the general public? The answer to these questions is embedded in the true role of the police, and the history of their existence.

“In 1854, on December the 3rd, the Victorian Government sent 276 Victorian Police and troops to the Ballarat gold fields after miners burnt their licence bills, set up a stockade and erected the Eureka flag”

The role of the police since their formation around the globe has always been to protect the interests of the ruling capitalist class. In America police forces first emerged between the early-1700s and mid-1800s, and their main roles were committing acts of genocide against Indigenous North Americans, in an effort to expand the western frontier, as well as catching runaway slaves, protecting private property, and breaking up workers’ strike struggles[5]. Australia’s first police force, the Sydney Night Watch, emerged in 1789 after policing by British Marines proved to be extremely unpopular within the ranks of the British Royal Navy. Commander of the British Marines, Major Robert Ross, was very vocal in stating that his men were soldiers, not prison guards, and that he felt that it was insulting to his men to expect them to perform policing duties. The formation of the Sydney Night Watch came after a convict by the name of John Harris, approached the then Judge Advocate of Sydney and British Marines Captain, David Collins. John Harris made a proposal to David Collins for a night watch to be established among the convicts in the colony, which would deal with those found out of their dwellings at “improper hours”. David Collins later commented that “it was to be wished, that a watch established for the preservation of public and private property had been formed of free people, and that necessity had not compelled us in selecting the first members of our little police, to be appointed from a body of men in whose eyes, it could not be denied, the property of individuals had never been sacred. But there was not any choice, convicts who had any property were themselves interested in defeating such practises [as theft]”[6]. The Sydney Night Watch was replaced just one year after it’s formation, in 1790, with the Sydney Foot Police.

By 1810 state funded police in rural areas began to be appointed by local Justices of the Peace, known colloquially as ‘Bench Police’[7]. In 1825 the first mounted police force was established in Australia following the Bathurst War of 1824, between the Wiradjuri people and the British. This police force was made up of British Army soldiers who were stationed in the colony, and it was known as the Military Mounted Police (MMP). The MMP were largely tasked with capturing escaped convicts, and repressing Aboriginal resistance. They regularly conducted raids on Aboriginal camps with the support of armed settlers, capturing Aboriginal prisoners who would later be executed[8]. In the following decades other extremely repressive state funded police forces were established; these included the Native Police Corps (NPC) which was formed in 1837[9], and the Native Mounted Police Force (NMPF) which was established in 1848[10]. Both the NPC and the NMPF were predominately made up of male Aboriginal troopers, some of whom were still children, lead by European officers. These European officers were not only tasked with leading their Aboriginal troopers, but also with the recruitment of other Aboriginal males into the force. Both the NPC and the NMPF were tasked with roles that largely consisted of committing acts of genocide against Indigenous Australians and kidnapping Indigenous children after massacring their families. Children kidnapped by the Native Police were often given to settlers as slaves to serve in the house, or on the fields[11].

It’s blatantly obvious that these acts were colonialist and white supremacist in nature, but why did the government decide to largely recruit Indigenous Australians into their state funded death squads, and why did young Aboriginal men join these genocidal police organisations in the first place? It’s likely that young Aboriginal men ended up joining the NPC and the NMPF due to the looming realisation that if they didn’t, it would likely be them and their families being massacred under the direction of the state. Some Native Police troopers were even kidnapped as children from the scene of massacres, and raised to repeat the horrific cycle all over again. When recruiting Aboriginal males, European officers would deliberately recruit from places that were located far away from where the recruited troopers would be sent to work. This was ultimately done to ensure that these troopers had no prior relationship with the people they were going to be killing[4]. The state’s use of Native Police troopers to commit acts of genocide was likely done in an effort to divide and conquer the Aboriginal population, and it has left deep scars that have persisted for generations in Aboriginal families.

Aside from acts of genocide, Native Police troopers from the NPC under Commandant Henry Dana were also tasked with suppressing miners’ strikes in Ballarat which were held in opposition to the introduction of obscenely high government licence fees to mine for gold. On the 24th of November 1852, Henry Dana died from pneumonia, and in early 1853, shortly after his death, the NPC was disbanded[12]. This wasn’t the end of the Native Police however, as the NMPF continued to operate until approximately 1904[4], and other Native Police forces continued to operate, in one form or another, until as late as the 1960s[3]. In early 1853, around the time of the NPC’s disbanding, the Victoria Police Force was officially established[13]. In the following year of 1854, on December the 3rd, the Victorian Government sent 276 Victorian Police and troops to the Ballarat gold fields after miners burnt their licence bills, set up a stockade and erected the Eureka flag[14]. Police and troops ambushed the miners in the early hours of the morning while most of the miners slept and the stockade was lightly guarded. A 15 minute battle ensued, resulting in the deaths of 8 soldiers, 22 miners and the arrest of another 113 miners[15]. Karl Marx commented on the Eureka stockade rebellion in an article published in the German newspaper ‘Neue Oder-Zeitung’, saying “We must distinguish between the riot in Ballarat (near Melbourne) and the general revolutionary movement in the colony of Victoria. The former will have been suppressed by now; the latter can only be suppressed through complete concessions. The former is by itself only a symptom, an incidental eruption of the latter.”[16]

Over the course of Australia’s history, police have continued to suppress working class struggle. Regularly showing up at pickets to intimidate and suppress striking workers and their union representatives, whilst rolling out the red carpet for scabs, the police have effectively opposed workers’ activism throughout their history. ‘The Great Coal Strike of 1949’ was no exception, and on this occasion the Chifley ALP government brought in the military to use as scab labour. The strike, which was organised by the Communist led Miners’ Federation, was held to demand that miners work a 35 hour week, receive a 30 shilling increase in wages, and obtain long service leave in their conditions of employment. Unfortunately the strike was defeated after 7 weeks, and police rounded up and arrested multiple union leaders, 7 of whom were later sentenced to 12 months jail, and another to 6 months. Police raided the headquarters of the Miners’ Federation of Australia as well as that of the Communist Party, and fines were imposed on the Miners’ Federation, the Federated Ironworkers’ Association, and the Waterside Workers’ Federation[17].

NSW Police Force had disproportionately targeted indigenous children from 2016 to 2018 under a repeat offender monitoring scheme called the ‘Suspect Target Management Plan’

Throughout their history Australian police have continued to commit acts of genocide against Indigenous Australians, only by the early 1920s the state’s tactics had begun to change. Massacres of Indigenous Australians were no longer commonplace, and had largely ended after the 1920s[18], but now the state’s strategy was to ‘breed out’ the Aboriginal population. Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families by Australian police under the state’s policy of ‘Assimilation’, and these children later became known as the ‘stolen generations’. Indigenous children kidnapped by police were placed into the custody of white families or institutions where neglect and abuse were rampant. They were forced to reject their Indigenous culture in favour of ‘white Australian culture’, forbidden from speaking in their traditional languages, and often had their names changed. Although the policy of Assimilation officially ended in 1973[19], police and case workers still continue to forcibly remove Indigenous children from their families to this day. In 2006 a study revealed that Indigenous children were 5.7 times more likely to be placed in out of home care than non-Indigenous children. Alarmingly a 2019 study revealed that this figure has drastically increased since 2006, and now Indigenous children are 10.2 times more likely to be removed from their families[20].

Other disturbing figures and reports have emerged in recent years that highlight the ongoing institutionalised racism that exists within Australia’s police forces and justice system. Take for instance a report that was released in February of this year by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC). The report by the LECC revealed that NSW Police Force had disproportionately targeted Indigenous children from 2016 to 2018 under a repeat offender monitoring scheme called the ‘Suspect Target Management Plan’. The report stated that 72% of children aged between 9 and 17 who were being monitored by NSW Police Force under the scheme were “possibly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander”. It also stated that many of these children had never actually been charged with an offence. NSW Police Force challenged the report claiming that the LECC’s figure of 72% was incorrect and that the real figure was in fact 47%[21]. The truth is that either of these figures are indicative of Police disproportionately targeting Aboriginal youth. Indigenous Australians make up only 3.3% of Australia’s general population[22], yet they account for 28% of Australia’s national prison population[23].

In a country where prison labour is used to make all kinds of products for private industry, and where prisoners are paid well below the minimum wage, often somewhere between 82 cents and $2.35 an hour[24], it’s clear to see that the practice of slavery never really ended in Australia. Reminiscent to how the state’s tactics of genocide shifted last century, so too has the state’s tactics of slavery. No longer are police massacring Indigenous communities and forcing the survivors into slavery, instead they have shifted to disproportionately targeting Indigenous communities through surveillance, harassment, and over-policing in an effort to fill prisons with a cheap workforce who have no rights.

When looking at the history of policing in Australia and other capitalist countries across the globe it’s no wonder that we see widespread fascist sympathies within the police force. Policing in Australia specifically has been built on the foundations of white supremacy, colonialism, and capitalism. It’s important for us to remember that the police are instruments of the ruling class, and ultimately their actions reflect the attitudes, laws, and policies of the ruling class. Whilst the police may fulfill some vital roles within a society, under capitalism they largely act in the interests of the ruling capitalist class. In order to crush the reactionary attitudes that have existed and thrived within police forces across the globe, the working class must first overthrow the current capitalist system that has allowed the ruling capitalist class to perpetuate these reactionary attitudes in policing.