So far this year in Australia men have killed 74 of their female partners or ex-partners, according to Destroy the Joint. This terrorism goes unremarked (except for crocodile tears) and unaddressed. In fact Federal and State governments have been cutting funding to refuges, safe havens for women fleeing domestic violence.

This murder of women by men is, as Australian of the Year Rosie Batty says, terrorism and yet it is neither characterised as such by governments, the media. or dealt with as such. Why not? Because it is a natural and logical part of capitalism and its cheap future labour raising institution, the family.

The government focuses on Islamic terrorism because it fits into the racist narrative governments in Australia have driven since 1788. The ‘other’ – blacks, Irish, Catholics, Chinese, non-whites, refugees, is the dangerous enemy.

However the capitalist state and its media is soft on right wing terrorism. This real enemy within, if it suits the interests of the ruling class and its accumulation of capital, is not an enemy at all but their friend.

It is why ruling classes have historically had an ambivalent relationship to and with fascism.  In certain circumstances they have turned in desperation to fascism to either forestall revolution or to save capitalism itself from catastrophic crisis or both.

The main role of the Nazi dictatorship in Germany for example was to destroy the left (social democratic and communist) and trade unions, both expressions of the German working class. Once they had done that they could begin to drive wages down and restore profit rates. It can be a high risk strategy because having fascists in charge of the machinery of the state may not benefit all sectors of capitalism and indeed may not work.

We hear in Australia today much about the radicalisation of young Muslim men.  Yet there are Christian sects whose language and modus operandi is the same.

We have heard government officials from the (former) Prime Minister down describe events like the Lindt Café siege in Sydney in December last year as terrorism without any evidence that is the case. It fits the narrative of government to do so, to hype the threat of terrorism from the other, but not from the white right wing terrorists.

The recent rampage in Sweden, a race hate fascist killing two dark skinned people, has not been labelled terrorism. The murder of blacks in the US, and the torching of their churches, is not called terrorism.  Black deaths in custody here in Australia are not given their correct description, state terrorism; nor are the stolen generations past and present called what they really are – terrorism.  OK, in the case of Aboriginal people maybe that is the wrong description – genocide fits the bill better.

In Australia white supremacists, spurred by government racism and xenophobia, have begun scare campaigns against Muslims. Their targets include Islamic food preparation, dress, customs, Mosques, indeed anything that is Islamic. Sometimes their targets have been Muslims, physically.

(As an aside if you substitute the words Jew, and Judaism, for Muslim and Islam you get a real sense of the immense racism of these anti-Muslim groups. It is the 1930s resurfacing.)

In Australia the racists have organised around Reclaim (White) Australia. The fascists and their fellow travellers have been one strong current among the organised racists. There appears to be a split of sorts within the movement with some of the fascists regrouping around the United Patriot Front.

Last week Channel 7 commercial TV had a segment – a puff piece really –  on these racists and fascists. It didn’t mention they were fascists; it didn’t mention their leader advocated teaching Hitler and Mein Kampf in schools.  It undertook no real investigation into the possibility of armed, i.e. terrorist, attacks, by these groups or their allies. It was a soft sell of the hard cell of radical racism in Australia.

Every time there is a raid on Islamic ‘terrorists’ there are hundreds of police and media involved. In most cases, after being held incommunicado for days, those arrested have been released without charge or bailed on minor charges.

Yet when armed Nazis were stopped from boarding a bus from Sydney to join a Melbourne Reclaim rally, there was hardly a peep out of the media or Government, and no discussion whatsoever of the possibility of right wing terrorism in Australia. Certainly there is no discussion about preventing the radicalisation of young Australian men by these neo-Nazis and their allies or co-workers.

Why have there not been police raids, with compliant media in tow, on United Patriot Front members and exposure of their dangerous weapons and propaganda material?

The reason is simple enough. The ruling class won’t crush right wing extremists because it thinks it may need these racists and fascists in the future to control a resurgent working class or to help them impose massive cuts on working class living standards.

In the interim the racists and fascists help keep alive and reinforce the top down racism of Labor and Liberal governments and divide workers along race and other lines at the expense of uniting on class lines.

We should have no illusions in governments and understand why they don’t smash right wing terrorists but rather turn a blind eye to them. It is up to ordinary workers, unionists, the left and others to build the mass campaign and movement needed to destroy the fascists and their useful idiot fellow travellers before they can become a mass movement themselves.

What’s in a name? A right wing terrorist by any other name would smell as rancid