Percy Reginald Stephensen was an important ideological opponent of Jewish immigration into Australia. He feared it would lead to the end of White Australia and result in a balkanized country.
On the one hand, one can see any opponent of Jews was evil and contemptible. On the other hand, one can see that different groups have different interests and that as one group rises, other groups are affected, sometimes negatively, and this provokes conflict.
The best way to protect and preserve your group and country is to get as strong as possible, but this will usually come at a cost to other groups, who will likely respond in their self-interest. In political science, this is called the realist school.
Percy Reginald Stephensen (20 November 1901 – 28 May 1965) was an Australian writer, publisher and political activist, first for the Communists and later for far-Right groups.[1]
He was born in Maryborough, Queensland. He was nicknamed “Inky”, and attended the University of Queensland, where he joined the Communist Party in 1921. He gained a second-class honours degree in Modern Greats at Queen’s College, Oxford where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar and was a member of the university branch of the Communist Party with A. J. P. Taylor, Graham Greene and Tom Driberg.[1]
He was a friend of D H Lawrence and edited the first uncensored version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. He was also friends with Aldous Huxley.[2]
His most significant work was The Foundations of Culture in Australia (1936), which led to the foundation of the Jindyworobak Movement.
Between the world wars, his Fellowship of Australian Writers released a document that advocated disconnection with the United States and stated, “US comics promoted demonology, witchcraft and voodooism, with superman part of a raving mad view of the world.” And of American musicals and minstrel shows, “the American negro, with his jungle is not welcome here.”
He was a member of the Australia First Movement whose magazine The Publicist he helped found in 1936 and edited from 1941-1942. He was noted for his anti-semitic views in this period.[1]
Stephensen was a prolific author. He published over 30 books, as well as translations of works by Vladimir Lenin and Friedrich Nietzsche. He also produced nearly 70 books ghostwritten for Frank Clune.
He was interned without trial from 1942 to 1945 for pro-Japanese and Axis sympathies.
