Antifa

The anti-fascist handbook

Mark Bray

• Publisher: Melbourne University Press Digital
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780522873061
• eBook ISBN:
  9780522873078
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Fascism & Totalitarianism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

So long as there has been fascism, there has been anti-fascism—also known as "antifa." Born out of resistance to Mussolini and Hitler in Europe during the 1920s and '30s, the antifa movement has suddenly burst into the headlines amid opposition to the Trump administration, the rise of the alt-right, and the resurgence of white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Now, in a smart and gripping investigation, historian and former Occupy Wall Street organizer Mark Bray provides a one-of-a-kind look inside the movement, including a detailed survey of antifa's history from its origins to the present day—the first transnational history of postwar anti-fascism in English. Based on interviews with anti-fascists from around the world, Antifa details the tactics of the movement and the philosophy behind it, offering insight into the growing but little-understood resistance fighting back against the alt-right.

NOTES

1. Jim Malewitz, “Investigators: Fire that ravaged Victoria mosque was arson,” Texas Tribune, February 8, 2017: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/02/08/investigators-fire-ravaged-victoria-mosque-arson/; Mary Emily O’Hara, “Wave of Vandalism, Violence Hits LGBTQ Centers Across Nation,” NBC News, March 13, 2017: http://www.nbc-news.com/feature/nbc-out/wave-vandalism-violence-hits-lgbtq-centers-across-nation-n732761; “‘Build that wall!’ Latino school kids reduced to tears by classmates’ pro-Trump chant,” RT, November 11, 2016: https://www.rt.com/viral/366540-build-that-wall-school-chant/; Shawn Cohen et al., “White supremacist accused of murder says he came to NYC to kill blacks,” New York Post, March 22, 2017: http://nypost.com/2017/03/22/white-supremacist-says-he-killed-man-because-he-was-black/; Daniel J. Solomon, “Trump Doesn’t Mention Jews in Holocaust Remembrance Day Message,” Fast Forward, January 27, 2017: http://forward.com/fast-forward/361425/trump-doesnt-mention-jews-in-holocaust-remembrance-day-message/; Walter Benjamin, “On the Concept of History”: https://www.sfu.ca/~andrewf/CONCEPT2.html.

2. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past (Boston: Beacon, 2015), 15.

3. Emilio Gentile, “Fascism as Political Religion,” Journal of Contemporary History 25, no. 2/3 (May–June, 1990), 234.

4. Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Vintage, 2004), 17.

5. Walter Laqueur, Fascism: Past, Present, Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 25.

6. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, 20.

7. Alexander Reid Ross, Against the Fascist Creep (Oakland: AK Press, 2017); Don Hamerquist et al., Confronting Fascism: Discussion Documents for a Militant Movement (Chicago: ARA, 2002).

8. Angelo Tasca, The Rise of Italian Fascism 1918–1922 (London: Methuen, 1938).

9. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, 218.

10. Interview with Dominic; http://scalp-reflex.over-blog.com/. I do not focus on the institutional “antiracist” movement of organizations like SOS Racisme or formal anti-fascist organizations affiliated with political parties like Unite Against Fascism. For the European “antiracist” movement: Stefano Fella and Carlo Ruzza eds., Anti-Racist Movements in the EU (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

11. Voltaire never wrote that. The phrase originated with a 1907 book on Voltaire. Roger Pearson, Voltaire Almighty: A Life in Pursuit of Freedom (New York: Bloomsbury, 2005), 409, 431.

12. Interview with Dominic, March 2017.

13. Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), 36.

14. Isabel V. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and Practices of War in Imperial Germany (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), 8–85.

15. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, 8.

16. Interview with Georg, May 2017.

17. Dave Renton, When We Touched the Sky: The Anti-Nazi League 1977–1981 (Cheltenham: New Clarion, 2006); Nigel Copsey, Anti-Fascism in Britain (London: Routledge, 2017). Activist accounts include: Dave Hann, Physical Resistance: Or, a Hundred Years of Anti-Fascism (Winchester: Zero Books, 2013); Sean Birchall, Beating the Fascists: The Untold Story of Anti-Fascist Action (London: Freedom, 2010); M. Testa, Militant Anti-Fascism: A Hundred Years of Resistance (Oakland: AK Press, 2015).

18. Gilles Vergnon, L’antifascisme en France: de Mussolini à le Pen (Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2009); Réseau No Pasaran, Scalp 1984–1992: comme un indien métropolitain (Paris: No Pasaran, 2005); Jan Jämte, “Antirasismens Många ansikten” (PhD diss, Umeå Universitet, 2013); Adrien Alexander Wilkins, “Vold og Motvold—Antifascistisk voldbruk i Norge 1990–2001” (master’s thesis forthcoming); Valerio Gentili, Antifa: Storia contemporanea dell’antifascismo militante europeo (Rome: Red Star, 2013).

19. Dave Renton, Fascism: Theory and Practice (London: Pluto, 1999), 18.

20. Mark Potok, “The Year in Hate and Extremism,” SPLC, February 15, 2017: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2017/year-hate-and-extremism; Adam Peck, “Hate Crimes in New York City have Skyrocketed this year,” ThinkProgress, March 2, 2017: https://thinkprogress.org/hate-crimes-in-new-york-city-have-skyrocketed-this-year-907ffb24cac8; Susan Svrluga, “‘Unprecedented effort’ by ‘white supremacists’ to recruit and target college students, group claims,” Washington Post, March 6, 2017: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2017/03/06/unprecedented-effort-by-white-supremacists-to-recruit-and-target-college-students-group-claims/?utm_term=.568b82eice43.

21. Interview with Walter Tull, May 2017.

22. Robert Soucy, French Fascism: The First Wave, 1924–1933 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), 39–55.

23. Soucy, French Fascism: The First Wave, 55–56; Le Figaro, April 24, 1925.

24. Soucy, French Fascism: The First Wave, 55–56.

25. Ibid., 56.

26. L’Humanité, April 24, 1925.

27. Soucy, French Fascism: The First Wave, 1–5; Martin P. Johnson, The Dreyfus Affair: Honour and Politics in the Belle Époque (New...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction
• One: ¡No Pasarán!: Anti-Fascism Through 1945
• Two: “Never Again”: The Development of Modern Antifa, 1945–2003
• Three: The Rise of “Pinstripe Nazis” and Anti-Fascism Today
• Four: Five Historical Lessons for Anti-Fascists
• Five: “So Much for the Tolerant Left!”: “No Platform” and Free Speech
• Six: Strategy, (Non)Violence, and Everyday Anti-Fascism
• Conclusion: Good Night White Pride (or Whiteness Is Indefensible)
• Appendix A: Advice from the Anti-Fascists of the Past and Present to Those of the Future
• Appendix B: Select Works on North American and European Anti-Fascism
• Notes