Today, my husband and I had parked our car, and were walking to visit the Newcastle Medieval Festival for a bit of fun. We knew there were a number of protests planned across the nation, for a variety of reasons, and had checked up on where they were meeting, and knew we’d drive past the assembly point. What we didn’t know, was that they were marching to where we were walking.

Some of you may have seen social media posts about a ‘March For Australia’ over the last few weeks. I had a look at the website. It had no transparency about who was organising it, and neither did it have much in the way of information, except to repeatedly decry ‘mass migration.’ My local small town community facebook page had a number of posts by what I’d normally call ‘The Usual Suspects.’ You may have them on your own local pages. They usually post about things they’re unhappy about, current conspiracy theories they’re into, and generally emit a kind of background aura of unhappy entitlement which sort of goes something like ‘I want this thing, that I should have because I’m me, but I’m not going to get it because someone else gets it instead, even though I’ve been living here longer so I deserve it.’

Recently, as expected, when a website decries ‘mass immigration,’ several news sources found background links to neo-nazi organisations, and white supremacist persons. Yet, when I’ve talked to people about it, I’ve heard statements (with no evidence) that say things like: ‘Our people are homeless because of migrants.’ And: ‘They (referring to recent migrants) should just become like ‘us’ if they’re coming here.’ Or: ‘They should go back to where they came from if they don’t want to become like us.’ And they all said the march had nothing to do with neo-nazis. Clearly they didn’t agree with the investigative journalists.

The thing is, we know that homelessness isn’t due to ‘mass migration.’ You can read about the figures here, at The Australia Institute, and about the fact that you’re more likely to be homeless in Australia if you’re a refugee or an immigrant, here.

And the irony of it all, is that unless you’re an indigenous Australian, you are either an immigrant yourself, or descended from immigrants. Take myself, for example. I was born in Australia, as were my parents. However, my maternal grandfather came from the UK. You have to go back couple more generations on Dad’s side to discover that his forbears also came from the UK. And, I’m married to a migrant – from New Zealand. But, I suspect that the marchers today would think I’m the ‘right’ kind of migrant. Or maybe not, as I have some suspect views, I guess. (In their opinions.)

Anyway, we ended up trying to walk along the footpath on one side of the road to avoid the ‘March for Australia’ people, only to have them decide to cross the road. So then they were on both sides of the road. And then, coming down the street from another direction, were the counter protesters. (Who at one point, were chanting: ‘Your flags were made in China.’ to the other march.)

So, what to do. We crossed the road, hoping to escape the March for Australia mob. But then they stopped and we were sort of in the middle of them, trying to get from one place to another. It was interesting to look at the demographic, while trying to not be part of the group, and moving away at the same time. I have to say, I felt somewhat uneasy.

The demographic: The majority were white, and male. There were women, but very much in the minority, and definitely older in general. There were a few kids. The entire group appeared quite disorganised. There were very few signs. There were a lot of Australian flags, and a fair few Eureka Stockade flags. There were large cars flying flags, some of which decided that revving their engines loudly was a good idea. I’m not sure that proved anything except it reminded me of an old TV ad. https://youtu.be/JqWO7fzwSLM?si=qr0GvUtqZ1c98t90

And now I’m watching the news. It’s very clear that the March for Australia had a background of racism, despite what some of the people I know said to me. Speakers at the protests were known white supremacists, and known neo-nazis.

What’s the problem? Well, anyone is entitled to protest. But you really should know who is organising your protest. And you really should know why you’re there. And perhaps your sense of entitlement should be assessed against the actual, real, world. We do live in a fabulous country. It’s nowhere near perfect, and there’s a lot of stuff to work on. But on the whole, life threatening health and injury will be treated for free, there’s decent education, and living standards the envy of many. We are very much safer than a huge chunk of the world, and we never have to worry that our children will be shot at school.

We can live in a social media bubble. We can go down rabbit holes and make ourselves paranoid. We can worry about a pile of things that are unlikely to happen, while ignoring how we could make our corner of the world better, and become so self focused we ignore reality.

Or, we can choose to be better, behave better, and look for things to do that help others, and make our corner of the world a better place. Maybe that includes protesting if that’s your thing. Or you could contact your local member of parliament, or even the PM. You could join a community organisation, or volunteer to help others. You could simply give money to community organisations. Because as long as there is selfishness and greed, things will not always be equable. But seriously, don’t be racist.

And we can definitely be better than some of the stuff I saw today, both in person, and also on the news.