{"id":171847,"date":"2020-06-09T14:33:07","date_gmt":"2020-06-09T18:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.countingpips.com\/?p=171847"},"modified":"2020-06-09T08:34:40","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T12:34:40","slug":"what-or-who-is-antifa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/2020\/06\/what-or-who-is-antifa\/","title":{"rendered":"What \u2013 or who \u2013 is antifa?"},"content":{"rendered":"
June 9, 2020<\/div>
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By Stanislav Vysotsky<\/a>, <\/strong>University of Wisconsin-Whitewater<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The movement called \u201cantifa\u201d gets its name from a short form of \u201canti-fascist,\u201d which is about the only thing its members agree on.<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump and some far-right activists and militants have claimed antifa is allegedly conspiring to foment violence amid the protests sweeping the U.S. In my forthcoming book, \u201cAmerican Antifa: The Tactics, Culture, and Practice of Militant Antifascism<\/a>,\u201d I describe antifa as a decentralized collection of individual activists who mostly use nonviolent methods to achieve their ends.<\/p>\n

Their goal is to resist the spread of fascism. That word can be an inexact term, but generally antifa activists see fascism as the violent enactment and enforcement<\/a> of biological and social inequalities between people.<\/p>\n

Opposed to violent supremacy<\/h2>\n
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An anti-fascist protest in Berlin, 1928.<\/span>
\nBundesarchiv, Bild 102-05976\/Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fascists go beyond viewing particular categories of people as inferior, based on gender identity, race and ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation. They believe it is imperative to use violence to oppress and ultimately eliminate those groups. In addition, they use violence to oppose their ideological enemies, even if they are from groups they believe are not inferior, such as heterosexual white men.<\/p>\n

The initial anti-fascist movements<\/a> were founded in Europe and North America between the world wars, and were primarily organized by anarchists, communists and socialists \u2013 three groups that were frequently targets of fascist violence.<\/p>

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The modern-day anti-fascist movement in the United States, including antifa, grew out of the Anti-Racist Action Network<\/a>, a decentralized activist movement resisting racist skinhead subcultures and public demonstrations by neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan organizations in the 1980s and 1990s.<\/p>\n

Anti-fascists\u2019 objections aren\u2019t simply that they disagree with fascists. Their problems with fascism are much more fundamental.<\/p>\n

Personal and collective self-defense<\/h2>\n
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The arts have long been a part of anti-fascist efforts, including by American singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie in the 1940s.<\/span>
\nAl Aumuller\/New York World-Telegram and Sun\/Library of Congress\/Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My own research has found that a significant proportion of anti-fascists<\/a> are women, people of color, members of LGBTQ communities, or otherwise have some characteristics fascists seek to control or eliminate.<\/p>\n

These anti-fascists, therefore, often see fascists as a threat to their personal existence, and their physical and emotional well-being \u2013 as well as presenting threats of violence or vandalism to their communities and shared gathering spaces. They perceive their opposition as very much in personal and collective self-defense.<\/p>\n

Because opposing fascism is a viewpoint rather than a formal organization, people\u2019s actions vary widely. Informal or everyday anti-fascism can include speaking out against bigotry, standing up for victims of fascist harassment or confronting fascists in public places. Generally, these are relatively spontaneous actions that happen when anti-fascists encounter fascism in the normal course of their regular lives.<\/p>\n

More formal anti-fascism can include large, well-funded mainstream organizations like the Anti-Defamation League<\/a> and the Southern Poverty Law Center<\/a>, who monitor fascist activity and provide the public information on its scope.<\/p>\n