Nazi Imagery Has No Place in Politics

There is something deeply troubling about seeing Pauline Hanson depicted as Adolf Hitler.

Whatever your view of Hanson or One Nation, political debate should not descend into Nazi imagery being used as a partisan political weapon.

Hanson is not Adolf Hitler. She is not a Nazi dictator. Australians are entitled to criticize her policies and political record, just like any politician. That is democracy.

But there is a line between political criticism and historical demonization, and that line matters.

The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers and crematoria. It began with words, propaganda, slogans, caricatures and the gradual normalization of hatred. By the time the Final Solution was in full force, it was accepted as normal.

The Nazis understood the power of propaganda. Joseph Goebbels used newspapers, radio and film to repeatedly portray Jews and political opponents as dangerous and responsible for society’s problems. While we have social media to spread propaganda today, in the 1930s Goebbels gave Germans radios so that propaganda could be spread effectively and successfully.

Once Adolf Hitler becomes little more than a political insult, we risk trivializing one of history’s greatest crimes and turning the Holocaust into a political meme.

Australia has spent the past three years talking about antisemitism and social cohesion. Yet political debate increasingly appears comfortable with language and imagery designed to demonize opponents.

Words have consequences.

We saw that lesson brutally demonstrated on Bondi Beach last December, when 15 people were murdered by Islamist extremists. For years, Australians had warned about extremist ideologies, antisemitic conspiracy theories and incitement being normalized under the banner of free speech.

Then people were killed.

Among the victims were Jews and non-Jews, Zionists and so-called “infidels”. Extremist ideologies rarely stop where their proponents initially claim they will.

There is also an uncomfortable double standard surrounding antisemitism.

Antisemitism is rightly condemned, yet antizionism is sometimes treated as though it is automatically beyond scrutiny, even when it adopts familiar antisemitic conspiracy theories. Antizionism is branded by what ‘Israel is’ and therefore must be destroyed together with anyone associated with it.

There is a legitimate distinction between criticizing the Israeli government and demonizing Zionists as a collective. That is democracy. Likewise, there is a difference between supporting Palestinian statehood and claiming a mysterious “Zionist lobby” controls governments, institutions or the media.

Peace requires two sides willing to meet somewhere in the middle. Senator McKim can argue his position as loudly as he likes, but lasting peace requires compromise and recognition of the legitimacy of the other side. So far, Palestinianism does not.

The scenes outside the Sydney Opera House on October 9, 2023 should have been a warning. Instead, Australia witnessed rhetoric and protests demonstrating how quickly extremist narratives can enter our streets. Albanese showed no leadership. In fact, his lack of action not only enabled it to happen, but he emboldened and permitted the temperature to keep rising.

That is why the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion matters.

Australians should expect it to examine extremist preaching, radicalization, incitement and whether governments and institutions have acted quickly enough when hateful rhetoric crosses the line.

New hate laws were introduced in January. The question now is whether they will be applied consistently.

If depicting Pauline Hanson as Adolf Hitler is acceptable, what are we allowed to call every other politician?

Can we call Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Penny Wong, Lydia Thorpe or Anthony Albanese Nazis?

Of course not. Though their language has crossed the line continuously and could be labelled antisemitic.

We have rightly criticized Senator Faruqi for appearing alongside a poster depicting Jews as belonging in a rubbish bin. We can criticize all of them for their rhetoric and division. The standard must apply regardless of political affiliation.

If Nazi imagery is acceptable when directed at Hanson, we have opened the door to using it against politicians across the political spectrum.

That is not social cohesion. It is partisan tribalism.

Perhaps Australia should also look more closely at why social cohesion appears to operate differently in countries such as Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. Their political systems are very different from Australia’s, but both have taken a harder line on communal incitement, religious hatred and rhetoric threatening social harmony.

The question is not whether Australia should copy their political systems. It is whether we have become so concerned about offending particular groups that we have lost sight of maintaining social cohesion.

A multicultural society cannot survive if every grievance becomes an excuse for hatred.

And perhaps Anthony Albanese should ask another question: why are voters who traditionally supported Labor increasingly turning towards Pauline Hanson?

The Secret Harbour by-election in Western Australia should be a wake-up call. One Nation won its first lower-house seat in the state, defeating Labor in a seat it had strongly held for decades.

Rather than simply demonizing Hanson with inflammatory language, perhaps Albanese should ask why voters feel sufficiently disconnected from Labor that they are prepared to support an alternative.

Perhaps they want to be heard rather than lectured.

A government that governs credibly and responsibly should be capable of maintaining support across a broad section of Australians, rather than appearing increasingly focused on particular constituencies in Western Sydney.

Perhaps ordinary Australians are horrified by the hate that his government, along with its Greens and Teal allies, has permitted and participated in. Perhaps they realize he does not have their best interests at heart. Perhaps they are horrified by how fellow Australians are being treated and perhaps they are fed up of his lies, gaslighting, misinformation, disinformation and name calling.

Whatever their grievances, perhaps they do not go out protesting vile slogans but will show him at the ballot box. That is Australian. After all, our values are based on a Judeo-Christian value system and on mateship.

The man who cannot even balance his ridiculous melons cannot manage his country.

With a Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion underway, our political leaders should understand the responsibility that comes with their words and actions.

Political debate does not need to be sanitized. Politicians should be robustly challenged.

But there is a difference between vigorous political criticism and imagery invoking one of history’s greatest perpetrators of mass murder.

If our leaders cannot recognize that distinction, how can Australians trust them to protect social cohesion and the safety and security of their own citizens?

The lessons of history are not complicated.

We should be learning them, not repeating the conditions that made them necessary.

Jews make up only a small proportion of Australia’s population. But if hatred towards a minority becomes normalized, it is not only Jews who are at risk.

If those principles fall, so does Australian democracy.