New Age Wellness Cranks Are Joining Forces With the Far Right
The Australian far right has joined forces with New Age spiritualists, snake-oil salesmen, and wellness gurus to take advantage of social alienation caused by the pandemic. Despite the new branding, their anti-union, anti-working-class politics remain the same.
Protestors at an anti-vaccination rally in Sydney, Australia, February 20, 2021. (Brook Mitchell / Getty Images)
The first wave of Australian anti-lockdown protests emerged in Melbourne in early July 2020. Since then, they have continued to grow in size and influence, extending their focus to vaccine mandates and other government public health policies. Most worryingly, this movement has drawn in disparate elements of the far right and has extended its reach to cities and states previously untouched by lockdown orders or restrictions.
It is true that public anxiety about the economy and frustration at the disruptive impact the pandemic has had on day-to-day life make up the context out of which the anti-lockdown movement has emerged. But these factors don’t tell the whole story. What has allowed the far right in particular to exert such a strong influence over the movement is the unique way it has sought to exploit these feelings. Right-wing forces in Australia have strengthened their alliances with the wellness movement and proponents of New Age self-help spirituality. This has allowed their ideas to appear more plausible in the eyes of ordinary people.
A Right-Wing Movement
We should not forget, despite the movement’s constant invocations of the threats that lockdown poses to our freedoms, that it is a right-wing political project. This was highlighted by the protesters’ attack on the offices of the Victorian and Tasmanian branch of the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) on September 20. Mainstream and progressive commentators have suggested that these protests reflected political disagreements within the CFMMEU regarding how best to defend the interests of members during the pandemic. While some participants in the action may have been union members, or at least construction workers, it seems clear that many were bad-faith actors posing as unionists to give credence to their cause.
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