January 2017: Antifa activists vandalize shops
and set fire to a limousine as Donald Trump
is inaugurated several blocks away.
Several months later, they clash with far-right
demonstrators at rallies in Charlottesville
and Berkeley.
These moments speak to the deep polarization
in the United States under Trump’s presidency.
But they've also cast a national spotlight
on a far-left group that until now was little
known in the country.
Antifa
Antifa groups.
The anti fascist movement.
Known to not only clash with bigots but sometimes
with the police.
And the president himself has taken note
The violence and vandalism is being led by
Antifa
That was his reaction after some of the most
violent civil unrest seen in the US in years:
protests touched off by the police killing
of an unarmed black man, George Floyd.
Please, please I can’t breathe
Trump has also vowed to designate Antifa a
domestic terror group, despite little evidence
of its role in the unrest
But that's not as straightforward as it sounds.
Antifa couldn't be characterised as an organisation.
So what is Antifa all about - and what makes
it so controversial?
Let us unpack that for you.
Opening sequence ending with Antifa
Antifa, which is short for anti-fascist, is
not a unified organisation, but a loose term
used to describe far-left activists who oppose
anyone they see as holding facist views.
I think of it as more of an orientation of
people who oppose the activities of the facist
movement.
The facist movement is defined as a movement
that seeks to develop a society with strict
hierarchy based on social and biological characteristics
that is imposed through violence.
This is often taken to include white supremacists,
homophobes, xenophobes and racists.
Antifa wants to stop the far right from having
any presence in society, from trying to embed
themselves in communities and spreading their
ideas as common sense and grow their political
power.
In addition to that, Antifa activists tend
to be opposed to the values of capitalism.
There are a lot of contemporary anti-fascists
who view capitalism as a form of systemic
oppression in that it is engendered with inequality
and exploitation of workers.
Groups that identify with the Antifa label
are most commonly found in Europe and North
America.
But anonymity along with a lack of structure,
and overlap in ideas with other leftist groups
makes it hard to know exactly how many people
count themselves as Antifa members.
People who are part of Antifa groups don't
only do Antifa things. They're also environmentalists
and unionists and other kinds of activists
and organisers.
Antifascism is more of a counter movement,
Because antifascism is a social movement,
but it's specifically oriented towards opposing
another movement .
To understand why Antifa is more of a counter
movement, it's important to look at its history.
In the 1930s a wave of nationalism was sweeping
through Europe, most notably the rise of the
Nazi regime here in Germany. This is when
Antifa first arrived on the scene.
The creation of the the anti-fascist action
1932 was a reaction to Nazi assault on members
of parliament of the Communist Party, and
it was thought as creation of a united front
against Nazis in Germany.
The historical Antifa fought street battles
with Hitler’s followers until it was forcibly
disbanded in 1933, but that legacy of resistance
resonated for decades to come.
Post war antifa groups tried to continue denazification
in Germany.
in the 1950s (Antifa groups) struggled for
reparations, supporting the victims of forced
labor under the Nazi regime. A work that continued
till the late 1990s.
And in more recent years, Antifa activity
has been fueled by the growing popularity
of the far right and right-wing violence in
Germany.
We always had right wing terrorism in Germany
after world war 2 Just some examples.
In 1980 seven 13 died in the Octoberfest bombing
which was carried out by a neo-Nazi group.
Between the year 2000 and 2011, nine migrants
and a police officer died by the hands of
a Nazi group.
In October 2019 a neo-nazi attacked the synagogue
in Halle tried to kill the people celebrating
yom kippur
Antifa groups are always a product of their
societies they act in. In Germany and in Europe
they focus on the continuity of racism, facism
and anti-semitism.
While in the US you have different structures
of racism,
But it wasn’t till the 1980s that the movement
really took off in the United States with
a group called Anti-Racist Action. It was
a response to neo-Nazi skinheads in the punk
scene.
After some quiet years in the early 2000s,
the rise of Donald Trump and the alt-right
led to a resurgence in Antifa activities.
With the growth of the alt-right the th eAmerican
political scene there are a number of spectacular
confrontations between anti-fascists and far-right
figures and groups.
Antifa groups also share a common set of tactics
to achieve their goals. They conduct research,
organize information campaigns and demonstrations
to counter far-right street presence.
But they also resort to controversial and
divisive tactics, such as doxing. This means
identifying and publishing personal details
about supporters of the far right, people
who have attended white supremacist rallies
or engaged in other activites that Antifa
backers see as fascist.
that was very successful, particularly after
the protests in Charlottesville in 2017, when
a lot of the Nazis came home to their communities
to find that their identities had been outed
by antifascists and that they didn't have,
you know, their anonymity was gone, that their
horrible views were exposed to the light of
day.
It's about leveraging public shaming because
there is still a social stigma associated
with being an open bigot in at least our society.
But it's the willingness to use violence that
has most drawn attention to Antifa - and put
activists on the radar of governments.
For fascists, the use of violence is inherent.
Anti-fascists, therefore, argue that you cannot
oppose a movement that believes in violence
in and of itself through nonviolence, because
you're simply offering yourself up as a sacrifice
to their force.
Germany's internal intelligence agency notes
that some Antifa members’ militant actions
aimed at political opponents, such as alleged
Nazis,
This has often made Antifa the subject of
debate in the German parliament, the Bundestag
Antifa’s use of violence also often draws
criticism from others on the left, like thinker
Noam Chomsky
I don't think the way to deal with neo-facist
groups is to try and shut them up forcefully,
you should try to win the argument.
Adding to Antifa’s controversy is the movement’s
antagonistic relationship with the state and
law enforcement. It’s members simply do
not that have the confidence that police are
able or willing to counter what they consider
to be facism.
Recently, a lot of scandals became public
when separate networks of neo-Nazis in the
police forces and the military were discovered.
Yet despite Antifa activists views on violence
and their willingness to take matters into
their own hands evidence suggests that the
damage they have done has been majorly overplayed.
We have a context where, you know, centuries
of white supremacy have boiled up in the police
murder of George Floyd and thousands and thousands
of people are out in the streets protesting.
Some of them seemingly so frustrated with
the inability of the system to reform itself
that they have, you know, burned police cars,
burned police stations and so forth. And so
there's a very clearly a connection between
the grievance of the murder of George Floyd
and this outpouring of rage and destruction,
which is a damning indictment of the American
carceral system, police system and 
the white supremacy beneath all of it.
