Are People Who March at Freedom Rallies Really Nazis?

I've avoided the topic of vaccines - I've always just told my clients to speak to a medical professional as it's outside of my scope of work as a doula. But to be totally honest, I've avoided the topic because of the histrionics that come with it. Many people who speak out either for or against vaccines get death threats, and quite simply, I'd rather avoid the drama. But the time has come.

First, some context

I live in a town with some of the lowest vaccination rates in Australia. My children have friends who are not vaccinated. My family doctor accepts patients who are not vaccinated. My cleaner is not vaccinated. I've had plenty of clients who are not vaccinated. I can understand their hesitation.

As women and mothers, we've had our bodily autonomy undermined for centuries. We've been raped, denied access to contraception and abortion, and routinely had our bodies subjected to interventions that are not based on scientific evidence and sometimes not even safe.

I get all of this, and ten years ago, as a new mother, I was anxious about vaccinations too.

Like many mothers who tried to have an evidence-based birth, I came to question routine policies and didn't always trust doctors - especially when they were paternalistic and condescending.

Once whilst taking my baby for vaccinations, a doctor joked that he was going to "stab a baby" as he walked into the clinic where I held my child in my loving arms. I walked out crying, and I never went back.

I can understand why some mothers would not want to vaccinate after experiences like that. I really do. Our medical system needs to do better for women and mothers generally if they expect us to trust them on vaccines.

I rarely talk about my personal experiences as a parent, as I firmly believe that anecdotes are not evidence and that my choices as a parent should not impact my clients' choices. Professionally, as a doula, I give only evidence-based information when helping my clients make decisions.

But in this case, I feel context is relevant. I want you to know where I'm coming from - a place of scepticism. In terms of my decision-making, I'm a minimalist, a doubter and a naturalist - read the excellent book Your Medical Mind: How to Decide What Is Right for You for more on this subject. I'm also an educated, married woman with a decent income and a postcode that puts me squarely in the demographic to reject vaccines. 

Many people would assume I don't vaccinate.

But I do.

What first made me question whether my values aligned with the vaccine-hesitant community was how they spoke about autism. 

I found it disturbing that people in those communities thought it was better for a child to have a disease than to be different. Being gay or being left-handed was once (and in some communities still is) considered a terrible defect to be cured or suppressed. I noticed the vaccine-hesitant community had the same attitude towards autism.

For example, when a popular children's television show introduced an autistic character, a vaccine-hesitant group responded with concern that this would brainwash people into accepting autism as normal.

Disinformation about vaccines and autism has damaged public trust in vaccines and damaged public perception of autistic people. It gave rise to dehumanising and stigmatising organisations like Generation Rescue and Defeat Autism Now! 

Growing autistic pride means that this tactic doesn't wash anymore. There is usually a 'flavour of the month' when it comes to disinformation.

Vaccines do not cause autism. Studies of millions of children worldwide have proven this without a doubt. And if we trust Cochrane on topics like delayed cord clamping, surely we ought to trust them on vaccine safety too. 

And so I began to question both the ethics and the evidence in these communities. I don't mean individual mothers (many of whom are friends and clients and colleagues) but the movement more broadly, and those who wholesale subscribe to everything in these groups. This was my first glimpse into what I now know as "Conspiratorial Extremism." I was naive. If I'd realised where it would lead, I would have been more vocal about vaccines earlier. 

This past couple of years, in vaccine-hesitant communities, I've seen a surge in climate denial and fundamentalism and I've realised that vaccinations can be a gateway for some mothers into extremism.

Women are being indoctrinated into an agenda that is damaging to women's rights.

And this is not an accident.

Enter the "freedom" rallies of 2021.

We know what these rallies are against - mandatory vaccines. But it's unclear what these rallies are FOR. It's fair to say that a wide range of people participated from a wide range of backgrounds, and many of them want different things. Some protestors may feel they have genuine concerns about human rights. Others believe that lizard aliens control Earth by taking on human form and gaining political power to manipulate human societies.

And some protestors are self-identifying White Supremacists who want to keep refugees and migrants out, lock Aboriginal people up and put women back in the kitchen. To put it mildly.

It's not correct to label everyone at these rallies as nazis. Plus, it's dangerous.

The people who identify as nazis will use this to their advantage - to say, "See? They are the crazy ones! They think we are nazis when we are clearly not!" And deeper down the rabbit hole they all go…

We must be careful because there are loud and proud nazis at those Freedom Rallies, and they are there to recruit. They are standing at the front holding gallows and waving flags and wearing t-shirts that say "Feminism is Cancer."

Most concerning, they aren't just a fringe group; their values are embedded in the rhetoric; they are the speakers on stage. Take the Melbourne rally in November, for example:

• MC Simeon Boikov is a right-wing extremist supporter of Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin. He has fought with Russian far-right militias against Ukraine.

• Craig Kelly is the leader of the far-right United Australia Party, bankrolled by Clive Palmer and a serial denier of climate change. He has described the Uluru Statement from the Heart as a reverse form of apartheid.

Extremists are deliberately co-opting legitimate concerns and grievances of women (and other marginalised groups) who have a history of being let down by politicians and healthcare professionals. Nazis have used anxiety around Covid vaccines to draw people down the rabbit hole of ideology, and once people become entrenched in ideology, it's very, very difficult to pull them back out again with evidence.

I do have real concerns about the implementation of vaccine mandates. The fact that our "Vaccine Commander" here in WA is the Police Commissioner is a problem, and it's little wonder First Nations vaccination rates are so low. And it's not ok that the riot police shot rubber bullets at anti-lockdown protestors in Melbourne a few months ago. I'm worried that attacking a protest group with low public approval will shift public thinking on what is socially acceptable regarding police treatment of other protest groups, like the growing climate movement.

But I will still never attend a Freedom Rally.

Who organises and attends a rally matters a lot. I would never go to a climate rally attended or organised by a fossil fuel company. I would never go to a Deaths in Custody rally attended or organised by police. I would never go to a human rights rally attended or organised by White Supremacists.

The intended political endpoint of White Supremacy is never human rights, and especially not women's rights. It's the maintenance of power and privilege by straight, white, cis-gender men. If that is not your intention as a protester, you are being used as a puppet.

Be kind to mothers who make different choices than you do. We all want to be happy and healthy, and we all want what is best for our children. And we don't want to drive anyone deeper into the waiting arms of extremism.

But never, never march with nazis.

Resources I recommend for learning more about vaccinations and the history of the anti-vax movement.

• On Immunity by Eula Biss - Written by a mum like me. A mother who was concerned about chemicals and feminism and capitalism. It is a book that is as much about poetry and philosophy as it is about science.

• The Last Archive has an episode on the polio epidemic and how the right-wing, anti-universal health care movement marked the beginning of vaccine resistance in the US.

• The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin - Written by an investigative journalist exploring his own fears and hesitations as a concerned father.