As protests over the death of George Floyd spread across the United States, Trump and some administration officials blamed the violent nature of the demonstrations on a group called " Antifa” organization. Later, Trump tweeted that Antifa would be added to the list of terrorist organizations.

The full name of Antifa is "Anti-Fascist". It was born in Europe in the 1930s to combat the Nazi, fascist and racist ideas that were prevalent at the time, and is still active today.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, neo-Nazi organizations rose in Germany, and Antifa also responded to the situation and re-emerged. Every spring on Hitler's birthday, German neo-Nazis organize marches. In response, Germany's Antifa groups launch a march against the Nazis and to accept immigrants and refugees on May 1 every year.

Most Antifa organizations in the United States were born in the 1980s, and their main purpose is to fight against racism. Entering the 21st century, Antifa has almost disappeared in the United States, but after Trump came to power, the organization began to glow with vitality.

In August 2017, Charlottesville, Virginia, the local council planned to remove a statue of Robert Edward Lee, a Confederate general who supported slavery in the Civil War. This caused dissatisfaction among right-wing groups. Launched the "Unite the Right" event, which included many white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan supporters. Antifa groups immediately took action to confront them. During the process, a car crashed into a crowd of people at high speed, killing one person and injuring at least 19 others.

What is the origin of "Antifa", which Trump has designated as a terrorist organization?

"Charlottesville incident", 2017, picture source: CNN

James Anderson, a webmaster of the news website "It's Going Down" organized by the American Antifa organization Zeng said that when the website was established in 2015, there were only about 300 hits per day. By mid-August 2017, after Trump came to power, the number had risen to 10,000 to 20,000 per day.

Unlike the “organization” we are used to understanding, Antifa does not have a formal leader or headquarters, as Mark Bray, author of “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Movement Handbook” said: Antifa can be an ideology, an identity, a tendency or social environment, or a self-defense activity. Its organizational structure is very flat, developed from members of various left-wing groups - communist, anarchist, socialist, anti-racist, etc.

What is the origin of "Antifa", which Trump has designated as a terrorist organization?

A protester draped in an Antifa flag, 2020, photo source: The Nation

The New Yorker introduced this book in a 2017 book review, As well as some unknown details of the Antifa organization and movement, the following is the translation, with some modifications:

An Intimate History of Antifa

Daniel Penny, The New Yorker, August 22, 2017

On October 4, 1936, on the streets of London’s East End, thousands of Jewish Zionists, socialists, Irish dockworkers, communists, anarchists and many angry local residents came together to stop Sir Oswald Mosley and his The British Union of Fascists, led by the British Union of Fascists, marched around the neighborhood.

This conflict was eventually called "the Battle of Cable Street": anti-fascist demonstrators built barricades to prevent more than 3,000 fascist "black shirts" and 6,000 Police parade. Demonstrators detonated homemade bombs, threw glass marbles at the feet of mounted police horses, and even toppled a burning truck to stop the march.

Then, they kept throwing various objects at the marchers and the police who were protecting the marchers: stones, bricks, glass bottles, and even chamber pots. As a last resort, Mosley and his men were forced to retreat.

What is the origin of "Antifa", which Trump has designated as a terrorist organization?

The Battle of Cabourg Street, 1936, photo credit: SHELDON KIRSHNER JOURNAL

In Antifa: A Handbook of the Anti-Fascist Movement, published last week by Melville House, Historiography Writer Mark Bray sees the Battle of Cable Street as a powerful symbol of stopping fascism: a strong, unified alliance outnumbered the fascists, thereby defeating their movement.

For many modern anti-fascist organizations, this incident is still a major event that they talk about, like a North Star in the fight against fascism and white supremacy throughout Europe and even the United States. According to Bray, "Antifa" can be an ideology, an identity, a tendency or social environment, or a self-defense activity. ”

It was a leaderless, horizontal movement with roots in various leftist causes—communism, anarchism, socialism.

In Donald During the inauguration of Donald Trump as the new US president (in early 2017), anti-fascist Antifa people launched a wave of damage to other people’s property. Since then, Antifa has appeared in the public eye more and more frequently. Among them - there was even an attack by a masked man on white supremacist Richard Spencer

In February, right-winger Milo Yiannopoulos. Milo Yiannopoulos' scheduled speech at the University of California, Berkeley, was canceled due to riots caused by demonstrators. In Charlottesville, Virginia, white supremacists were scheduled to hold a "Unite the Right" event at Emancipation Park. (Unite the Right)" rally, but many Antifa members blocked the entrance to the park with sticks. Clashes broke out - many Antifa members reportedly sprayed large amounts of chemicals and threw paint-filled balloons into the crowd .

FOX News reported that the White House had received a petition calling for Antifa to be designated a terrorist organization, with more than 100,000 signatures.

< p>The book is rich in content: it is the first history book written in English on how the anti-fascist movement developed in different countries. It is also an instruction manual on how to become an anti-fascist activist. It is also a summary of An archive of the proposals of several anti-fascist organizers from the past to the present - what Bray calls a "historical, political and operational theoretical" writing project by anti-fascist activists. They don't often speak in the media, but Bray is an organizer of the previous "Occupy Wall Street" movement and an open leftist. Not to mention whether Bray himself is also involved in Antifa, he does have connections with Antifa-related people. Close contact. Especially in the final chapters of the book, his description of how Antifa members conceptualize their destructive and sometimes violent behavior is extremely detailed and even unusual.

There are many liberals who generally agree with Antifa’s goals, but criticize their tactics as not being “liberal.” Peter Beinart talked about Oregon in the latest issue of The Atlantic. He wrote: "Those who prevent Democrats from holding a safe rally on the streets of Portland may feel that they are fighting against American right-wing authoritarianism. Strong supporters, but in fact, they are the most unreliable” (Beinart’s article is titled “The Rise of the Violent Left”).

However, Bray writes in the book that anti-fascist activists believe that when fascists deprive others of their rights through violence and intimidation, they themselves also give up their rights to speech and assembly. For example, last week, the Tribune, a local media outlet in North Dakota, published a letter from Pearce Tefft. In the letter he related a terrible argument he had had with his son Peter. Shortly before Peter left for the Charlottesville rally, he told his father: "It's not that we fascists don't believe in free speech. You can say whatever you want. But in the end we're going to throw you into the oven." . ”

For Bray and Antifa members, they are afraid that history will repeat itself, and the government has done nothing to curb the spread of fascism, so they can only take action on their own. Bray pointed out that historically, both Italy and Germany failed to control fascism at the national government level - the fascists ultimately took power through legal means rather than violent revolution - and this is almost the same now, and the alt-right will Its activities were billed as a defense of free speech, and fascism gradually expanded under the tolerance and protection of liberals.

Antifa does not agree with John Milton’s statement that “truth speaks for itself in free and open debate.” Bray writes in the book: "After Auschwitz and Treblinka, anti-fascists will fight to the end against organized Nazis and completely eliminate their right to express any speech."

Bray points out in the book, “In the past few generations, whenever far-right violence rose, collective self-defense measures would appear accordingly, and this relationship has lasted for hundreds of years. "And one of Antifa's missions is to "continue this history." In the first half of the book, Bray introduces a brief history of the development of anti-fascist groups. From this perspective, Antifa originated from German and Italian leftists who united after World War I to fight the earliest fascist groups. In Italy, these leftists gathered under the banner of the Arditi del Popolo ("Organization of the Brave"). In the Weimar Republic, groups like the Antifaschistische Aktion (from which the name Antifa came) originated from the paramilitary forces of political parties.

After the brief introduction, Bray changed his writing and wrote about the failure of the anti-fascists during the Spanish Civil War, and then wrote about the historical events throughout the second half of the twentieth century. By the late 1970s, open conflict between leftists and the new generation of neo-Nazis was becoming increasingly tense, and the social environment of the time also influenced the style and tactics of many anti-fascist movements today.

In the Netherlands and Germany, a group of ultra-leftists known as the Autonomen took the lead in adopting the "Black Bloc" parade strategy, that is, wearing all black clothes and wearing black masks , so that it would be difficult for the marchers to be prosecuted or retaliated afterward. Regarding the modern anti-fascist movement, Bray opens with "Pinstripe Fascists" such as Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, and he also writes about the rise of new anti-fascists in Europe and the United States. The rise of far-right parties and groups. The book covers many countries and spans decades, but there is not much analysis. Overall, the book conveys a message that wherever fascism appears, Antifa will fight it by any means necessary.

In the second half of the book, the description is more focused and the content is more convincing, such as "Five historical lessons for anti-fascism" and "We have had enough of the conservative left!: No Platform and Free Speech” chapters. Bray here clearly analyzes the ideological and practical issues of Antifa: violence or non-violence; popular activities or military actions; target selection and strategic changes, etc. Bray acknowledged that disrupting fascist rallies and events could be interpreted as infringing on others' rights to free speech and assembly. But he argued that these protections for free speech and assembly rights were originally designed to prevent the government from arresting ordinary people without reason, and were not used to prevent citizens from obstructing each other's free speech.

Bray pointed out that in the United States, laws related to "obscenity, incitement to violence, copyright infringement, censorship during war" and "restrictions on incarcerated persons" have restricted people's freedom of speech. Why not add another limit, as many European democracies do, on hate speech? Those who fall prey to the slippery slope of logic worry that Antifa will end up attacking anyone who opposes them the same way it attacked fascists in the first place.

Bray said that from a historical perspective, this fear will not come true: for example, in Denmark, anti-fascists either gradually withdrew from the stage of history or eliminated them after eradicating local hate groups. Attention turned to other political goals rather than finding new enemies to fight against. (Beinart also mentioned in his article in "The Atlantic Monthly" that "fascism gradually withered after World War II, and so did the anti-fascist movement.")

Bray insists that no matter in the past Still now, violence is not Antifa's preferred tactic—but the use of violence is not ruled out. He quoted a Baltimore activist who went by the pseudonym Murray to explain the prospects for antifa: "Because you can fight them by writing letters or making phone calls, you don't need to use your fists. "Because you can use your fists, you don't need to use a knife; because you can use a knife, you don't need to use a gun; because you can use a gun, you don't need to use a tank."

This concept of anticipatory self-defense has its merits. Moral logic, but regardless, the evolution from writing letters to fighting with guns is still concerning. The right-wing militiamen in Charlottesville claimed to show their armed strength to the opposition forces, and this statement, according to reports, "scared law enforcement officers on the scene to panic." Should anti-fascists pick up AR-15 assault rifles as right-wing forces wield swords of oath? In the current environment in the United States, this statement is somewhat naive. After all, in reality, only white people do not have to worry about police intervention when holding guns in public.

In the book, Bailey mentions a number of pro-gun Antifa groups, including the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, as well as another organization with the ironically named Trigger Warning (Trigger Warning)". Bailey disagrees with liberal scholars, including Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, who argue that violence cannot generate public support. But judging from this book, it is impossible to tell whether Bailey himself agrees that this emphasis on armed force is not only a matter of tactics and strategy, but also a moral issue, nor whether he is worried that violence will escalate.

As Bray detailed in the previous chapters, the postwar anti-fascist movement mainly took place in Europe, and the two sides often clashed and even stabbed each other to death. But there was no firearms problem on the European battlefield. There are no assault rifles here, and the Battle of Cabourg Street is just a throwing of stones.

What was the impact of the Battle of Cabourg Street? Scholars from all sides have debated this point endlessly. In the aftermath of the battle, Lord Mosley, like many contemporary fascists, had the image of a law-abiding victim attacked by the hordes of immigrants. In the following months, fascists attacked London's Jewish residents and shops in what became known as the Mile End Genocide. And soon after, the Federation of Fascist Britain was doing better in the 1937 polls than in previous years.

But Bray believes that even if these subsequent events occurred, they did not affect the importance of the Battle of Cabourg Street to later generations. It was precisely because of the Battle of Cabourg Street that a group that fought against fascism was born. . They continued to fight fascism both during and after the war, and their efforts were highly successful.

Charlottesville comes as society begins to debate what to do when right-wing extremists come to your community. And at least when the British media reported on the protests and terrorism in the event, they mentioned the Battle of Cable Street.

Bray personally believes that we can take some "daily anti-fascist actions" to confront diehards in non-violent ways, such as criticizing them, not patronizing their business, criticizing their oppressive ideas, Stop being friends with them, etc. He believed that this would not only prevent fascists from marching in the streets, but also completely resist the spread of fascism in all aspects of daily interactions. He wrote, “The future of the anti-fascist movement will not allow fascism to tolerate any disapproval, nor will it allow fascism to disapprove of anything.

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