Beating the Fascists: The authorised history of Anti-Fascist Action

[Joe Reilly]

I'm guessing many, if not all, of you are aware of this. Thought I would post in case not as I was wondering if this is significant enough to indicate a potential move back from political to street activity. Despite not knowing anything about AF stuff I agreed with butchersapron for once, but seeing this, especially the raperefugees banner I would be in favour of petrol bombing the lot of them.Cambridgeshire neo-Nazi rally billed as 'private party' - BBC News

Addressing the wider point - there is a generally hankering, typified by the snatching at the slimmest of hints, the far-right (or significant sections of it) might be preparing for a return to the streets. But As the nationalist right does not operate at an entirely irrational level the question is why would they need to? To what end?

Across Europe they are winning the electoral battle with liberalism hands down. Even when taking the current shambles in UKIP into account it is much the same here. The liberal left have proved they can't deal with them. So should they at some stage decide on a return to the streets, there is no reason to believe 'anti-fascism' (as currently constituted) would be equipped to deal with them there either.

Be careful what you wish for is my advice.

 

[Anju]

Addressing the wider point - there is a generally hankering, typified by the snatching at the slimmest of hints, the far-right (or significant sections of it) might be preparing for a return to the streets. But As the nationalist right does not operate at an entirely irrational level the question is why would they need to? To what end?

Across Europe they are winning the electoral battle with liberalism hands down. Even when taking the current shambles in UKIP into account it is much the same here. The liberal left have proved they can't deal with them. So should they at some stage decide on a return to the streets, there is no reason to believe 'anti-fascism' (as currently constituted) would be equipped to deal with them there either.

Be careful what you wish for is my advice.

It's not something I wish for. I am opposed to violence but having argued with a few people here post referendum I did a bit of reading up and recently saw an article by Benjamin Zephaniah that has partially changed my mind.

I don't think the people in this video care about electoral success. I do think they will take the current wave of xenophobia in the UK as a sign they can take to the streets.

 

[chilango]

Worth remembering that there's nothing new in that video.

Similar events have been organised for decades now. Some bigger, some smaller. Some opposed, some stopped and some gone largely unnoticed.

The BBC report talks of a large proportion with of attendees as coming from overseas, again nothing new, but it does reduce the likely number of domestic attendees to a pretty small number and not indicative in and of itself of any significant danger from neo-nazi street activism off the back of gigs like these.

 

[Pickman's model]

It's not something I wish for. I am opposed to violence but having argued with a few people here post referendum I did a bit of reading up and recently saw an article by Benjamin Zephaniah that has partially changed my mind.

I don't think the people in this video care about electoral success. I do think they will take the current wave of xenophobia in the UK as a sign they can take to the streets.

i think you'll find lots of people on the right have been taking to the streets in recent years, not to mention taking to the service station car parks.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Antifascism needs to happen in the estates, more than the streets, right now.

 

[chilango]

It's not "anti fascism" that needs to happen right now at all.

 

[Serotone]

Antifascism needs to happen in the estates, more than the streets, right now.

Unfortunately the Clapton/Goldsmiths SU/intersectional lot are more country estate than council estate.

I wonder how many would involve themselves with grass roots activism (physical or not) outside of set pieces or their trendy subculture.

Then again working class people have to do it for ourselves. 'Anti-fascism' seems divorced from class struggle at the moment.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

It's not "anti fascism" that needs to happen right now at all.

Depends how you're defining it.

 

[chilango]

Depends how you're defining it.

The "ism" at the end is important.

Just as I'd probably argue that I'm anti-fascist, but not an anti-fascist.

Such linguistic detail aside, I do think that "filling the vacuum" remains the key task. But it needs to be done by something far more than "not the BNP/UKIP/whoever".

Hardly a new argument.

Yet, we are further away than ever from tackling it. See the Corbyn thread, seethe Clapton thread etc. etc.

The retreat from w/c representation continues headlong and very, very few people on the Left appear to be facing it.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

The "ism" at the end is important.

Just as I'd probably argue that I'm anti-fascist, but not an anti-fascist.

Such linguistic detail aside, I do think that "filling the vacuum" remains the key task. But it needs to be done by something far more than "not the BNP/UKIP/whoever".

Hardly a new argument.

Yet, we are further away than ever from tackling it. See the Corbyn thread, seethe Clapton thread etc. etc.

The retreat from w/c representation continues headlong and very, very few people on the Left appear to be facing it.

I agree with all that so all we appear to be disagreeing about is that kind of work coming under the title 'antifascism', which I suppose I can live with.

 

[malatesta32]

the UK far right is very split over street tactics: the older ones have done street stuff & BNP electoral route and favour the latter; the younger lot, and those with less political experience - EDL, infibellends, National Action Men - want the excitement. NA have caused more dissent than unity over their sex offender revelations and mishandling of that. they keep pretending they have grown but the evidence is hardly convincing cos its the same 12-15 names and faces we see. the far right 'street gangs' have been increasingly outnumbered, have shown themselves to be politically clueless, and been decimated by the wave of heavy manners sentencing they've received (often compounded by previous violence on their records). UKIP is another matter.
addition: in case you aren't familiar with NA nonce scandal:
Heil Grope-n-Fuhrer! Nonces, Nazis & National Action

 

[treelover]

I agree with this analysis

Spoiler: IWCA piece from up thread

Surveying the scene now, we see every possibility of Europe seeing the election of its first far-right head of state since 1945 in Austria in December, Marine Le Pen consistently leading the polling for the first round of the 2017 French Presidential election, UKIP eating into Labour’s core vote in England and Wales, the AfD as the biggest working class party in Berlin and the populist right climbing all over the furniture across northern, western and central Europe. The financial crash of 2008 and subsequent chronic economic crisis has stripped the political centre of its vestigial credibility, but it is the right who are filling the vacuum in working class political representation. The antecedents of the IWCA had as their mission statement ‘to oppose fascism physically and ideologically’. Cable Street was one of the inspirations for the physical struggle, a struggle that has been won – for now. If the current wave of populist nationalism is to be beaten back, the struggle now has to be political: no less than to reconstitute the working class as a political fighting force and the prime agent of radical political change, independent, democratic and beholden to no-one but itself. The challenge is considerable, but the risks of failing to meet it are clear.

but you didn't seem to...

can't find that article on IWCA site.

 

[treelover]

Unfortunately the Clapton/Goldsmiths SU/intersectional lot are more country estate than council estate.

I wonder how many would involve themselves with grass roots activism (physical or not) outside of set pieces or their trendy subculture.

Then again working class people have to do it for ourselves. 'Anti-fascism' seems divorced from class struggle at the moment.

Key players in the Momentum Conference last month, very very little on class, lots on race, gender, intersectionality.

 

[Serotone]

Key players in the Momentum Conference last month, very very little on class, lots on race, gender, intersectionality.

Similar thing in the US with Clinton saying taking control of the banks won't end racism/sexism or words to that effect. Shows how liberal identity struggles can be co-opted by elites to preserve the status quo.

Then at home we have Dianne Abbot who I'm pretty sure is an agent saboteur bank rolled by UKIP... Some of the stuff she comes out with, during a period of glimmering reconnection with labour's heartlands, is just plain daft.

 

[The39thStep]

Interesting study: Policy Alienation, Social Alienation and Working-Class Abstention in Britain, 1964–2010 | Cambridge Core


Policy Alienation, Social Alienation and Working-Class Abstention in Britain, 1964–2010

This article presents an examination of class-based inequalities in turnout at British elections. These inequalities have substantially grown, and the class divide in participation has become greater than the class divide in vote choice between the two main parties. To account for class inequalities in turnout three main hypotheses – to do with policy indifference, policy alienation and social alienation – are tested. The results from the British context suggest that the social background of political representatives influences the ways in which voters participate in the political process, and that the decline in proportion of elected representatives from working-class backgrounds is strongly associated with the rise of working-class abstention.

 

[Red Sky]

Addressing the wider point - there is a generally hankering, typified by the snatching at the slimmest of hints, the far-right (or significant sections of it) might be preparing for a return to the streets. But As the nationalist right does not operate at an entirely irrational level the question is why would they need to? To what end?

Across Europe they are winning the electoral battle with liberalism hands down. Even when taking the current shambles in UKIP into account it is much the same here. The liberal left have proved they can't deal with them. So should they at some stage decide on a return to the streets, there is no reason to believe 'anti-fascism' (as currently constituted) would be equipped to deal with them there either.

Be careful what you wish for is my advice.

Sections of the far-right did 'return; to the streets. That may or may not be the most significant battleground but it did happen. I'm also not sure that the far-right is quite such a monolithic entity as your post implies, what might seem rational to some nationalists will seem irrational to others.

Across Europe we are seeing the electoral success of the far-right (AfD etc ) coupled with street activity.

 

[Pickman's model]

yeh, treelover, not surprised you like this barking nonsense.

 

[Serotone]

View attachment 93806
yeh, treelover, not surprised you like this barking nonsense.

I'm banning myself from internet sarcasm.

 

[DaveCinzano]

I'm banning myself from internet sarcasm.

I really believe you

 

[Pickman's model]

I'm banning myself from internet sarcasm.

go one better and see what editor can do for you in the banning department

 

[Joe Reilly]

Sections of the far-right did 'return; to the streets. That may or may not be the most significant battleground but it did happen. I'm also not sure that the far-right is quite such a monolithic entity as your post implies, what might seem rational to some nationalists will seem irrational to others.

The far-right is not of course a monolithic entity - these days - and for some time, it struggles to register as an 'entity' at all. Moreover 'returning to the streets' is not the same as attempting to impose through violence your systematic control of the political events that might place in public places across the entire country. It was the latter strategy the BNP abandoned 20 years ago. Despite the wishful thinking of the odd groupuscle, (and hyped by same) there has been no discernible attempt to return to that strategy since.

 

[Red Sky]

The far-right is not of course a monolithic entity - these days - and for some time, it struggles to register as an 'entity' at all. Moreover 'returning to the streets' is not the same as attempting to impose through violence your systematic control of the political events that might place in public places across the entire country. It was the latter strategy the BNP abandoned 20 years ago. Despite the wishful thinking of the odd groupuscle, (and hyped by same) there has been no discernible attempt to return to that strategy since.

So, as recently as 1996 the BNP thought they had a chance of imposing "systematic" control of all political events in the UK through violence?

 

[Joe Reilly]

Across Europe we are seeing the electoral success of the far-right (AfD etc ) coupled with street activity.

An unlovely position. So what's the Antifa diagnosis?

 

[The39thStep]

An unlovely position. So what's the Antifa diagnosis?

Refugees welcome here?

 

[Joe Reilly]

Copsey, 'Who owns the 'Battle of Cable Street'?', www.historymatters.group.shef.ac.uk/owns-battle-cable-street/
For AFA, the key episode that embodied their dedication to the honourable tradition of Cable Street (which the SWP/ANL had betrayed) was the ‘Battle of Waterloo’, not the battle in 1815 but the one between AFA and ‘Blood and Honour’ skinheads at Waterloo train station in September 1992.'

For AFA Waterloo was never regarded as a 'key episode'. Copsey who will know this, having reviewed BTF (where his assertion is firmly rebutted) but ploughs on anyway in the typically dishonest way of his (he has even claimed to be an AFA member on occasion) to make it fit his narrative.
The essential difference between this clash and arguably more significant initiatives was the resultant publicity.

 

[Joe Reilly]

Refugees welcome here?

Could that be the reason the AFN 'takes the Fifth' when asked a rudimentary question?

 

[Red Sky]

An unlovely position. So what's the Antifa diagnosis?

Ignoring for the moment that you dodged my question by asking another...'Antifa' is a pretty generic concept these days. It was the name of a UK based group in the early 2000s but that's defunct now.

Are you after the official AFN position? I'm afraid there isn't one. As the name suggests - the AFN is a network made of groups and individuals with a variety of political positions.

 

[Joe Reilly]

Ignoring for the moment that you dodged my question by asking another...'Antifa' is a pretty generic concept these days. It was the name of a UK based group in the early 2000s but that's defunct now.

Are you after the official AFN position? I'm afraid there isn't one. As the name suggests - the AFN is a network made of groups and individuals with a variety of political positions.

Surely someone has an opinion? How about you for instance?

Ps I didn't dodge your question. The motivation behind it was so obvious I simply choose not to dignify it with a reply.

 

[Casually Red]

.

Across Europe we are seeing the electoral success of the far-right (AfD etc ) coupled with street activity.

We already know that . Many even predicted it as inevitable. And that there'd be very little answer to it . I can't pick a horse to save my life but even I saw that coming a mile off. Long time ago .

I don't think they care much for safe spaces really . Or that a safe space is were any leftist will ever learn how to counter them. Politically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. Much less physically . They're laughing . Like really laughing .

 

[Red Sky]

We already know that . Many even predicted it as inevitable. And that there'd be very little answer to it . I can't pick a horse to save my life but even I saw that coming a mile off. Long time ago .

What did you do about it?

I don't think they care much for safe spaces really . Or that a safe space is were any leftist will ever learn how to counter them. Politically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. Much less physically . They're laughing . Like really laughing .

The trouble with you is that you've lumped everyone who's ever disagreed with into one category. Why do you think I've got anything to do with 'safe spaces'?