Shermon Burgess, far-right anti-Islam campaigner, becomes a Muslim

One of Australia’s most outspoken anti-Islamic activists has become a Muslim, claiming the West has lost its way to alcohol, porn and drugs.

Shermon Burgess became a controversial national figure for his role in the far-right groups United Patriots Front (UPF), Reclaim Australia and the Australian Defence League over the last decade.

Burgess once likened Islam and Muslims to a cancer and organised dozens of protests alongside self-declared neo-Nazis Blair Cottrell and Neil Erikson. 

He was involved in 2015 anti-Islamic protests against the construction of a mosque in Bendigo, Victoria.

Burgess’s meeting with Muslim Freedom Movement leader Youssra Rose (left) was instrumental in providing him a ‘clearer outlook towards Islam’

He still describes himself as a ‘national socialist’ on LinkedIn.  

But the former far-right figure has since converted to Islam, claiming it is the only religion capable of countering the so-called ‘woke’ agenda of the West.

‘The west has lost its way, people are depressed and try fix all life’s problems with alcohol, drugs, porn, sleeping around,’ he wrote on Facebook yesterday.

‘Islam rids you of all of this and allows you to have meaning again.’

Burgess confirmed to Crikey that he had taken his Shahada, an Arabic term for an Islamic oath, and had been welcomed by his local mosque.

‘The Muslim community is so kind and amazing, if you need help they are there,’ he told the website.

Burgess, a former council worker from the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, was a member of metal band, Eureka Brigade, which penned the violent anti–Muslim song Border Patrol, according to ABC News.

The lyrics advocated burning mosques and called the Cronulla riots ‘Australia’s Muslim holocaust’. The band also had a song entitled ‘S*** on a Mosque’.

Burgess ran a Facebook page called the ‘Great Aussie Patriot’ with almost 30,000 followers until he took it down in 2015 after followers mocked him. 

He once published a video on the page in which he likened Muslims and Islam to cancer, according to the Online Hate Prevention Institute.

‘This isn’t an attack against our governments, this is an attack against us the people,’ he said about Islam. 

‘They [Muslims] are already overly highly represented in crime statistics in this country, so we have to look at if this is what we are receiving now with 500,000 of them, imagine when we hit the one million mark… we cannot afford to sit here until the problem becomes uncontrollable and we cannot get on top of it.’ 

‘When you detect cancer you attack it straight away, you don’t let it grow.’ 

Burgess has now converted to Islam, claiming it is the only religion that counter the ‘degeneracy’ of the West

In 2015, Burgess said the Muslim community had a duty to ‘clean its mosques’ and stop radicalisation. 

He reportedly quit the UDF after members of his own movement mocked him.

Now he regularly extols the virtues of Islam, claiming ‘Western values are degenerate and left wing’.

Burgess told Crikey that he switched his beliefs after the witnessing the strength of Australia’s freedom movement — the anti-vaccine, anti-government, conspiracy-fuelled activism that emerged out of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

His meeting with Muslim Freedom Movement leader Youssra Rose was instrumental in providing him a ‘clearer outlook towards Islam’. 

Ms Rose, also known as Yosra Alyateem, is a candidate for the anti-vaccination Informed Medical Opinions Party in Bankstown, NSW, in the forthcoming state election. 

Burgess told the website that former UPF members attacked him online when they found out about his conversion.

‘Many of them were heavy booze-drinking alcoholics and degenerates,’ he said. ‘I liked the health aspect of Islam, how they train hard and refrain from alcohol and drugs.’

Burgess captioned this recent photo: Allah has granted me wings . Hard training and discipline in Islam has paid off

Burgess is trenchant in his anti-LGBTQ views, describing homosexuality as ‘evil’.

He regularly shares videos from controversial YouTuber and former kickboxer Andrew Tate, the self-styled ‘king of toxic masculinity’.

Tate, a self-described misogynist and men’s rights influencer, is currently being held in Romania on suspicion of rape and human trafficking.

Last night, Burgess posted a long rant on Facebook complaining that people from all across the entire political spectrum were criticising his conversion to Islam.

‘The nazi men are losing their minds calling me a traitor and upset because I’m not drinking 24 beers on the weekend and screaming about making Australia for whites only,’ he said. 

Burgess was a member of the Eureka Brigade band which had a song entitled ‘S*** on a Mosque’

He has been vocal about his belief that Islam is the only religion capable of coutnering what he believes are the sins of the West.

He posted on Facebook recently:  ‘It is not Muslims you fear, it is parting ways with western degeneracy that you feaR.

‘Islam is here to return the west back to purity, bring back family values and healthy masculine brave male youth, feminine modest and beautiful female youth.’

Daily Mail Australia has approached Burgess for comment.