The Sunday attack on Camp Sovereignty by Australian Neo-Nazis
31 August 2025 will go down as yet another day when the thin veneer of multiculturalism and reconciliation was ripped off to reveal the ugly underbelly of a nation still not willing to face the truth of itself – a settler colonial state built on a doctrine of white supremacy.
Twenty years after the Cronulla Riots, self-proclaimed ‘patriots’ again gathered in large numbers, high on their own sense of persecution which has been allowed to fester in an environment of active ignorance, maintained by the state and its institutions. Our education systems, the media, and those in power, create the conditions for ignorance to remain unchallenged. Again and again, white people's feelings are prioritised over truth and the safety of everyone else.
Thus, it was largely white progressives who were most surprised and embarrassed by this open display of white nationalism. Perhaps they’d bought the line sold by corporations and the media that we had moved beyond the racism baked into our systems, that surface level gestures like ‘Acknowledgement of Country’, and Indigenous murals on school walls meant we could relegate racism to the dustbin of history.
But for those not lucky enough to be raised white, the outpouring of hate against us was not particularly surprising. Even so, it cuts deep upon the scars of a long history of hate directed towards us, our families and our communities. None more so than Indigenous Australians, who, having never left their country, have nonetheless been excluded from society and denied their humanity. But having had to survive in White Australia, we understand it so much the better, its inner workings and the soothing stories it tells itself in order to sleep at night.
Stories like that of the Aussie battler, who made this hostile landscape bloom, who turned the vast alien landscapes into a bucolic paradise for those willing to work hard on the land. These stories soothe, and comfort white Australia, and tell them that they belong to this land, that through blood, sweat and tears they have become the true owners of this land, the ‘true’ Australians (Mayes, 2018). Erasing some 60,000 years of custodianship of the land, the ways in which Indigenous Australians had cultivated a land of plenty, and created a system of governance based on care for Country, where their relationship to the land formed the foundations for their relationship towards one another; one that recognised the interconnectedness of all life, human and the more-than-human (Graham, 2023).
For the oldest continuing culture, survival and resistance has become the story of their lives since European colonisers arrived on their shores. Indigenous Sovereignty is embodied, and exists outside of colonial systems of sovereignty based on property ownership, and the violent enforcement of borders. Camp Sovereignty in Naarm represents that sacred and ongoing sovereignty, it is a burial ground as well as a healing space for community to come, to share trauma, to heal and to learn together. Everyone is welcome, so long as you come with respect and an open mind.
However, as dusk fell on a day defined by white nationalism, fear and open hostility, a band of young Neo-Nazis dressed in black, marched towards the camp wielding poles and bars. As they approached the hill they broke into a military style sprint, coming at the small gathering of mostly women caring for the fire. They violently beat women and men, while yelling racist and sexist slurs, before being driven off by the camp's attendants who grabbed logs meant for the fire to defend themselves. The police arrived a few moments later, and escorted the men away without taking anyone into custody, despite the fact that women had been badly beaten and in need of hospitalisation. These men were self-proclaimed Nazis of the National Socialist Network (NSN)—easily identifiable and known for their violent political extremism. Yet the police, and by extension the state, decided to escort them to the tram station as though it were just a case of a boys’ night out getting out of hand.
One can imagine if a group of armed muslim or black men had attacked white women in broad daylight, the outcome would have been different. Understanding why the police disregarded the safety of Indigenous women reveals much of the structures of colonial power which continue to inform the police and state structures we live under.
Patrick Wolfe (2006), has argued that colonisation is not an event, but a structure, and on Sunday the contours of that structure were revealed. Laid bare in the fact that Neo-Nazis were allowed to organise a national rally with full police protection, and given a platform on the steps of parliament to preach ideologies of racial domination. Those who attended the rally who later claimed they didn’t know that Neo-Nazis would be there, were given the benefit of the doubt and not roundly condemned and threatened with deportation. In the state's efforts to prevent rallies supporting Palestine, while white nationalists faced little resistance. But most telling of all, that after a day of demonising immigrants and refugees, Neo-Nazis coordinated a violent attack on those with the strongest claims to this land, the first peoples of this country, and Indigenous people were left having to protect themselves yet again.
From the moment the filmed attacks hit social media, the community mobilised to protect the mob. Their allies shared details and headed down to protect the camp as reports of NSN scouts in the area were circulated. By Tuesday there were calls for an encampment and supplies to sustain the efforts to protect the sacred fire and its caretakers, as well as creating a space for healing, for speaking through trauma, and for allies to gather and show their solidarity.
As a matter of survival, black, indigenous, and other racialised minorities, have had to learn what it is to be white (Du Bois, 1903); how to act white and thus not upset the power dynamics at play, how to render ourselves invisible in order to not become a target, and how to go along to get along in so many social and professional situations. For as soon as we step out of line, call out the double standards, and speak our truths we are deemed ungrateful, and told to ‘f‒ off back to where you came from’. But it is in this collective empathy we have for each other's struggles that we find strength and ways to resist.
For who was it that showed up to stand off against violent Neo-Nazis and their white nationalist allies? Those whose lives are most directly impacted by their violent ideologies, and those for whom staying at home, not ‘doing politics’ and other such excuses, were not a choice. Those for whom racialised violence is the norm, showed up in disproportionate numbers to counter the hate, and protect us all.
While each white body on the frontline was deeply appreciated, there is an ongoing frustration that our white allies are often so few in number, that those who are willing to stand besides those facing violence often fall short. That people prioritise their own comfort, rather than take actions to acknowledge and challenge the racism of daily life.
The responsibility to speak up against racism falls heaviest on white people; firstly, because racists don’t listen to or respect the views of those who aren’t like them; secondly, because they often hide their racism in our presence; and thirdly because this is not our problem to fix. We are slowly seeing the narrative around violence against women shift from being a ‘women’s issue’ for women to fix, to one that acknowledges that it is a men's issue, one for men to fix. That good men need to do more than not assault women, they need to speak up in men's spaces and hold their co-workers, brothers, fathers and mates accountable for sexist views, jokes and attitudes that normalise violence against women.
In this moment when white progressive Australia is feeling most embarrassed and perhaps shocked by the open hostility towards us, there is an opportunity to take responsibility and speak up, because it is the deafening silence of the majority that normalises white nationalism and creates the conditions for racialised violence to continue.
Thousands of Australians gathered to protect Australia from immigrants, to ensure that Australia remains for the white man. They weren’t strangers, they were somebody’s brother, father, sister, aunt, co-worker and friend. They spoke about going to this march—over the dinner table, at a BBQ and in the lunch room. They are ordinary Australians, whose ordinary prejudices allowed them to easily swallow the lies fed to them by the NSN. Did their friends call them out, or was it more comfortable to change the topic and not talk politics?
It is time that white Australians took responsibility for stamping out the racism that permeates our society, and to understand that it is not enough to not be openly racist. It requires white people to speak up in white spaces, and call out their mates and co-workers; to challenge racial stereotypes and disrupt the narrative framing which portrays us as the ‘other’, to be feared and despised. Because until we reframe racism as a white people’s problem to fix, we’re always going to be left abandoned on the frontlines begging those in power to prioritise our humanity and safety, over and above the feelings of white Australia.
References:
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The souls of Black folk. A.C. McClurg & Co.
Graham, M., (2023). The Law of Obligation, Aboriginal Ethics: Australia Becoming, Australia Dreaming, Parrhesia, 37, 1-21.
Mayes, C,. (2018). Unsettling Food Politics. Agriculture, Dispossession and Sovereignty in Australia, Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd.
Wolfe, P., (2006). Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native, Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4): 387-407.
Writer: Yuki Lindley
Editor: Elizabeth Porporis