PARTISAN!

Anti-protest legislation is promoted by Victorian Labor on the grounds that protests ‘disrupt social cohesion’ – Anthony Furia explains what the Left’s response should be.

The Allan government in Victoria announced late last year a series of legislative proposals intended to regulate protests – proposals that, for the most part, are almost comically repressive in their composition. On an announcement titled “Strong Action To Fight Hate And Help Victoria Heal,” legislation is detailed to: ban flags and symbols of ‘terrorist’ organisations, ban the use of face masks at protests (with the explicit awareness that they are used to “shield agitators from… capsicum spray”), ban any “dangerous attachment devices” (ropes, glue, etc.) at protests, and ban (in some form or another) protests around places of worship, similar to those in place around abortion clinics. Also noteworthy is the proposed “social cohesion pledge” that any sort of multicultural organisation must adhere to in order to receive government grants – a demagogic attempt to stymy the politicisation of minority spaces, and their public political power.

These proposals will not fight hate, nor will they help Victoria heal – nor are they intended to. They are intended to enforce a state line on Gaza, and strangle the potentiality for radical, disruptive, or mass action such a line cultivates. In this sense, should these legislative measures pass, it will be a significant step backwards for communists and the Left in Victoria. Preventing protest surrounding places of protest prevents militant atheist agitation (although clearly not yet on the immediate political agenda), criminalising flags and symbols allows for the criminalisation of our flags and symbols, and banning face masks straightforwardly endangers mass communist organising work and eases the (already very easy, if they truly want to) process of identification and repression of specific organisers by the repressive state apparatus. All these measures would clearly impede mass work into the future, and the current involvement of communists in protests and organising work in the present.

What is perhaps more interesting is what these proposals indicate about the state of the Allan government and feelings within the administration. Such an empowering of arms of the repressive state apparatus, and the direct threat to withhold funds to groups deemed out of line with ‘social cohesion’ (ALP policy on Gaza) perhaps illustrates one or more of several things; federal pressure from the Albanese government to crack down on unruly (and embarrassing) continued public protests, mounting fear and paranoia in the state administration on the (perceived to be) explosive potential of public outcry and social disruption caused by Gaza, or a compulsion to quell protests and disruptions in the face of an impending federal election and the recent firebombing of the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne.

Resorting to relatively directly repressive measures does not mean, in any sense, that the bourgeois state is at all truly threatened by the (relatively manageable) ongoing dissent due to Gaza. But it may mean that it feels like it is, in some way. It provides us with a glimpse of the type of repression that any seriously powerful, cohered communist force would face in the front of the bourgeois state. It reminds us of the necessity for dually legal and illegal work, of security, and of practice and experience in dealing with state repression.

What can we do against these proposals? Very little, when considering the extremely small size of the communist left today – yet we can support opposition to them as possible, we can make clear, and public, our denunciation of these laws, and we can agitate against them (and under them, for their repeal, if necessary) as we agitate against all antidemocratic, repressive measures taken by the bourgeois state stumbling to secure its own power. And this is what we must do if we are to win – we must make the democratic struggle our struggle. We must revive it, and carry on its banner, challenging the state on its fundamental, antidemocratic nature and opposing every bit of repressive legislation proposed.

We must embody this struggle through the contents of our minimum program, for a democratic republic, and thus in part through our electoral work – through agitation in organisations, at protests, and in parliament against any and all measures taken to restrain the power of the working class in favour of the power of the capitalist state and its thugs. What we must work towards is the strength to wage, and heighten, this struggle – the strength of an organised class, of a communist party.