tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/anti-fascism-29368/articlesAnti-fascism – The Conversation2024-03-20T16:35:47Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2254382024-03-20T16:35:47Z2024-03-20T16:35:47ZPeat Bog Soldiers: how an experimental Scottish band contributed to a concentration camp archive in Germany<p>Can a rock band make history? Not in the sense of releasing bestselling records, being garlanded with awards, or achieving notoriety through more controversial means. But rather, can a rock band actually <em>make</em> “History” with a capital H?</p>
<p>Song has always been a medium through which popular tales of the past have been recounted. Scotland, for example, has a strong tradition of folk songs dealing with historical events and figures that have indelibly marked the country.</p>
<p>These range from <a href="https://presserfoundation.org/researching-gaelic-songs-in-the-scottish-highlands/">Gaelic songs</a> about the devastating injustices of the Highland Clearances, to songs about the life of Glasgow’s most famous <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9020kjy51xo">Red Clydesider John Maclean</a>, who fought for workers’ rights during and just after the first world war.</p>
<p>So songs might well be regarded as popular history. But what if we flipped the initial question around: can history be made by a rock band? If we gathered their songs, their videos, their own words about their music, their artwork, how would it measure up against the standard output of the professional academic historian? It would certainly look, sound and feel different. But what might be lost in shifting into this new terrain? And what, if anything, might be gained?</p>
<p>These are some of the questions being explored by <a href="https://osf.io/uh2ga/">The Tenementals</a>, a Glasgow-based group of academics, artists, musicians and filmmakers, of which I am a founding member. As a professor of political cinemas with a longstanding interest in radical history and its expression in cultural form, my work looks at ways to recount radical pasts. The city of Glasgow, with its own radical past, offers a useful test case.</p>
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<p>We have been recording a series of songs that explore Glasgow’s political history, from the <a href="https://glasgowdoorsopenday.com/event/the-1820-radical-war/">Sighthill Martyrs of 1820</a>, to the <a href="https://womenssuffragescotland.wordpress.com/main-sections/suffrage-militancy-in-scotland/">militant suffragettes</a> of the early 20th century. This work spotlights the city’s reputation for protest, interrogates its ongoing entanglements with <a href="https://glasgow.gov.uk/slaverylegacy">empire and slavery</a>, and speculates on where one might find hope in the city. </p>
<p>The Tenementals is a “wild” research project which has one foot in higher education, and one foot in the city’s vibrant music scene. It is wild for a few reasons: it is largely unfunded, it moves to its own beat, and it operates outside higher education’s regulatory frameworks. </p>
<h2>Anti-fascist anthem</h2>
<p>One aspect of this wildness is that it is free to go where it has to go. When The Tenementals played a strikers’ benefit gig last year, we wanted to perform a song beyond our normal repertoire. We opted for the classic German anti-fascist anthem, Die Moorsoldaten (The Peat Bog Soldiers), which was <a href="https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/the-birth-and-long-life-of-peat-bog-soldiers-on-its-90th-anniversary/">written and first performed</a> in Börgermoor concentration camp in north-west Germany, by left-wing political prisoners in August 1933.</p>
<p>Banned from singing traditional protest songs, the Börgermoor prisoners created a six-verse song that recounted their daily experiences. </p>
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<p>Up and down the sentries pacing<br>
No one, no one can get past<br>
Flight for freedom is sure death-dealing<br>
Fenced-in castle holds us fast</p>
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<p>A simple chorus separates the verses.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are the Peat Bog Soldiers<br>
marching with our spades to the moor</p>
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<p>A sense of defiance emerges as the verses build and it culminates in a new final chorus line:</p>
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<p>Then, the Peat Bog Soldiers<br>
No more will march with our spades to the moor.</p>
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<p>The song is (seemingly) simple, rhythmic and memorable. It became well known in German opposition circles, and was taken up as an anthem by the <a href="https://international-brigades.org.uk/uncategorized/international-brigade-memorial-trust/">International Brigades</a> during the Spanish Civil War. It was also was sung by the Free French Army during the second world war as a message of resistance in the darkest of times. </p>
<p>Although the song has been covered by many English-speaking artists, including Pete Seeger, Paul Robeson and Irish band-of-the-moment, Lankum, it remains relatively unknown in Britain. </p>
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<p>We asked a young Scots-German singer, Lily-Belle Mohaupt, to lead us on the night of our gig. She sang it so beautifully that we decided to record two versions: one in a new translation by ourselves, sung in English and German, and one completely in German, the full six-verse version which is rarely performed or recorded.</p>
<h2>A new connection, another history</h2>
<p>After we released the song, we were surprised to be contacted by Fietje Ausländer, former archivist at the <a href="https://www.komoot.com/highlight/603806">Documentation and Information Centre of Emsland Camps</a> (one of which was Börgermoor) in Germany, a few kilometres from the site where the song was first performed.</p>
<p>Ausländer explained the centre’s purpose is to archive materials related to the history of 15 labour and punishment camps, and that due to its national and international fame, Die Moorsoldaten has become one of the archive’s focal points. </p>
<p>Our version of the song – which includes a CD recording, a video and artwork from the promotional campaign – is now to be archived alongside other versions of the protest song which Emsland archivists have amassed over the years. One of our versions will also be included in a CD of the archive’s favourite covers scheduled for release in 2025.</p>
<p>The CD seeks to introduce the song to new audiences, illustrating the philosopher Jacques Derrida’s assertion that “archives are for the future”. These archives of radical activity create a space for solidarity between generations to develop – a place in which artists, academics and activists in the present converse with the ghosts of the past and those yet to discover these histories in the future. It is a privilege to be part of the conversation.</p>
<p>Although we set out to create a history of radical Glasgow in song, we find ourselves a small part of another history, one which sought in similar ways to fight against injustice. Our interests, though, like the prisoners who sang Die Moorsoldaten on 27 August 1933, lie in carving out radical futures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225438/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Archibald is a founding member, songwriter and singer with The Tenementals. For this work he has received funding from Creative Scotland and Glasgow City Heritage Trust.</span></em></p>A radical research project in Scotland has created a new layer of history for a concentration camp archive in Germany.David Archibald, Professor of Political Cinemas, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2003442023-03-16T19:11:19Z2023-03-16T19:11:19ZFor Australian Jews in the 1940s and 1950s, remembering the Holocaust meant fighting racism and colonialism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511555/original/file-20230221-23-8a55wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C1119%2C1832%2C2025&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2707491263/view?partId=nla.obj-2707505174#page/n0/mode/1up">National Library of Australia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Readers are advised this piece contains some racist terminology.</em></p>
<p>Today, the Australian public mostly sees a conservative Australian Jewish communal leadership that has, since the 1990s, rarely spoken out on anything unrelated to Israel or the Holocaust.</p>
<p>Both issues are often drawn together. <a href="https://www.zfa.com.au/zionist-federation-of-australia-welcomes-the-un-resolution-condemning-holocaust-denial/">Arguments for Israel’s defence</a> are often bolstered by the memory of the Holocaust. That the Holocaust is an inevitable cause of conservatism and Zionism has become part of a commonsense idea of, and about, Australian Jews.</p>
<p>But as I argue in my book, <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-10123-6">Jewish Antifascism and the False Promise of Settler Colonialism</a>, the seemingly natural connection made between Israel and Holocaust memory has shifted over time. </p>
<p>In fact, Australian Jewish communities have long fought internally over the best strategy to achieve Jewish safety. </p>
<p>The memorialisation of the Holocaust was key to the ideas and practice of the popular Australian Jewish antifascist left in the 1940s and 1950s.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-covid-has-shone-a-light-on-the-ugly-face-of-australian-antisemitism-154743">How COVID has shone a light on the ugly face of Australian antisemitism</a>
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<h2>A popular Jewish antifascist left-wing movement</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511553/original/file-20230221-28-lflp5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The Jewish Council produced leaflets calling on Australians to oppose fascism." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511553/original/file-20230221-28-lflp5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511553/original/file-20230221-28-lflp5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511553/original/file-20230221-28-lflp5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511553/original/file-20230221-28-lflp5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511553/original/file-20230221-28-lflp5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1273&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511553/original/file-20230221-28-lflp5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1273&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511553/original/file-20230221-28-lflp5d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1273&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Jewish Council to Combat Facism and Anti-Semitism produced many leaflets in Australia calling on Australians to oppose fascism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2707491263/view?partId=nla.obj-2707505174#page/n0/mode/1up">National Library of Australia</a></span>
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<p>In the 1940s and 1950s, I found, Holocaust memory was key to a popular Jewish antifascist discourse that was left-wing, non-nationalist and universalistic. </p>
<p>For these Jewish antifascists, memorialising the Holocaust meant fighting fascism and racism. These were seen as ongoing international threats that could only be defeated through solidarity with progressive forces and other oppressed people.</p>
<p>The main organisation of the Jewish antifascist left in Australia was the Jewish Council to Combat Fascism and Anti-Semitism, sometimes shortened to “the Jewish Council”.</p>
<p>Formed in Melbourne in 1942, the Jewish Council represented, in the words of <a href="https://cat2.lib.unimelb.edu.au/search%7ES30?/arechter/arechter/1%2C12%2C23%2CB/frameset&FF=arechter+david&1%2C%2C2">historian David Rechter</a></p>
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<p>in institutional form the broad-based antifascist leftism enjoying considerable vogue both within the Jewish community and in society at large.</p>
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<p>It monitored and responded to incidents of antisemitism and actively linked the threats of antisemitism and fascism. Its strategy was to fight these threats by allying the Jewish community with progressive political forces. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511878/original/file-20230223-1458-v5en8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Jewish Council pamphlet from the 1950s." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511878/original/file-20230223-1458-v5en8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511878/original/file-20230223-1458-v5en8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511878/original/file-20230223-1458-v5en8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511878/original/file-20230223-1458-v5en8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511878/original/file-20230223-1458-v5en8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511878/original/file-20230223-1458-v5en8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/511878/original/file-20230223-1458-v5en8j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A Jewish Council pamphlet from the 1950s warns of the threat of Nazism to Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-43361144/view?partId=nla.obj-43361153#page/n0/mode/1up">National Library of Australia</a></span>
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<p>By 1943 the Jewish Council was popular enough for the Victorian Jewish Advisory Board (the official representative body for Victorian Jewry) to vote to give it “full moral and financial support”. It was given responsibility for all official Jewish community public relations activities.</p>
<p>Throughout the 1940s, the Jewish Council had widespread support. It had hundreds of members and many committees (including special committees of doctors and lawyers and, later, a very active ladies auxiliary committee and youth section).</p>
<p>The philosophy and practice of the Jewish Council is summed up in a 1950 editorial in the popular Jewish left-wing magazine <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2066914">Unity</a>, which warned that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Goebbels’ spectre is still alive. Hitler’s lies and exploded theories are being refurbished.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It raised alarm about the widespread distribution of propaganda in Melbourne from a white supremacist organisation known as the “All Aryan World Movement”.</p>
<p>The editorial continued:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Shall we ignore such ridiculous and poisonous material? Some people in the community because of their sheltered lives in Australia have never really felt or understood the impact of Nazism on the Jewish people. They are advocates of silence. Their counterparts in Hitler’s Germany only learned the folly of their inactivity on the threshold of the gas chamber […] The spreading of fascist and anti-Semitic doctrines threatens us not only as Jews but strikes at the very foundations of our democracy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the late 1940s, the Jewish Council was especially focused on the alarming numbers of Nazis and Nazi collaborators migrating to Australia under the <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1778528">Displaced Persons scheme</a>.</p>
<p>Some were infamous Nazis and had harassed Jews in migrant reception centres.</p>
<p>In one dramatic <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=lwAAEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT291&lpg=PT291&dq=Sam+Goldbloom+bonegilla+SS+tattoos&source=bl&ots=ACOszp4Lu5&sig=ACfU3U1OTutb4aP_UtJwWUwl3RarvFzI3Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjni5Tqtqr9AhUPwzgGHU9RCcwQ6AF6BAgHEAM#v=onepage&q=Sam%20Goldbloom%20bonegilla%20SS%20tattoos&f=false">incident</a> of intelligence gathering, the Jewish Council’s Sam Goldbloom disguised himself as a plumber and sneaked into the shower block at the <a href="https://www.bonegilla.org.au/">Bonegilla migrant reception centre</a>. He photographed the scars under migrants’ left armpits, where they had removed their SS tattoos.</p>
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<h2>The broader fight against racism and colonialism</h2>
<p>For the Jewish Council, the struggle against antisemitism was connected to fighting racism and colonialism more generally.</p>
<p>In 1947, during a period of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14443050309387852?journalCode=rjau20">persistent attack by the press and conservative forces on Jewish refugees</a>, Jewish Council activist Norman Rothfield <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1765472">proclaimed</a>: </p>
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<p>We must attack reaction, no matter whence it comes. Dutch aggression against the Indonesia Republic is our concern, as is also the lynching of negroes [sic] in America, or the maltreatment of Aborigines [sic] in Australia […] We Jews can only be secure in a secure world. It is a world situation of conflict and strife together with a situation in Australia of intense class conflict which lays the ground for a campaign of anti-Semitic prejudice greater than any previous attacks in this country against a racial or religious minority.</p>
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<p>The Jewish Council frequently compared the Holocaust with other instances of colonialism and racism.</p>
<p>A 1952 editorial from the Jewish Council-affiliated magazine The Clarion criticised Australia’s allies’ involvement in the Korean War, suggesting:</p>
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<p>The Master Race theory of Nazism has reached a new peak in the war circles of America and Britain: for what is the difference between exterminating “Gooks” [sic] in Korea and “Yids” [sic] in Europe? Both are fruits from the same tree of evil.</p>
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<h2>Yosl Bergner, antifascist artist</h2>
<p>The famous artist Yosl Bergner (1920-2017) presents another example of Jewish antifascist Holocaust memorialisation. </p>
<p>The war years saw the emergence of <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3298450">a new pan-Aboriginal movement</a> led by Aboriginal activists <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/nicholls-sir-douglas-ralph-doug-14920">Doug</a> and <a href="https://www.firstpeoplesrelations.vic.gov.au/lady-gladys-nicholls">Gladys Nicholls</a>. </p>
<p>Bergner encountered this movement through Jewish antifascists and left cultural organisations, as well as his membership of the Communist Party of Australia. </p>
<p>He frequently painted urban Aboriginal people, rejecting the typical settler artist imagery of Aboriginal people as a “dying race”. Instead, his work depicts Aboriginal people as complex modern subjects, displaced and dispossessed in a world of urban poverty inseparable from the wider social relations of Australia. </p>
<p>In the mid-1940s, Bergner often exhibited these works along with his paintings of Polish Jews. He sought to suggest strong connections between the plight of the two oppressed peoples.</p>
<h2>‘A Nazi Writes Home’</h2>
<p>Another example is a short satirical story titled “A Nazi Writes Home”, written under the initials “L.F.” and published in Unity magazine in July 1951. </p>
<p>In this fictional letter of furious irony, a Nazi in Australia named “Fritz” writes his Nazi friend back in Germany. </p>
<p>He describes initially fearing Australia was “a spineless democracy-loving country, rotten with worship of the masses”. He changed his mind, however, after seeing how brutally Aboriginal people were treated. He goes on to celebrates Australia as an exemplary country of white supremacy – “the true Aryan theory”. </p>
<p>After seeing a white child racially abuse an older Aboriginal woman, Fritz suggested:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Australia is a land where the principles of National-Socialism are not altogether foreign.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The writer isn’t just drawing a clear link between the ongoing fascist threat and the racism of Australian colonialism. The story also links discrimination against Aboriginal people with the plight of Jews in the Holocaust and racial segregation laws in the United States. </p>
<p>“A Nazi Writes Home” places the oppression of Aboriginal people within an international antifascist context. It suggested antifascists needed to fight the entrenched structural racism of Australia. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-jewish-womans-story-of-surviving-the-holocaust-by-passing-as-catholic-and-sheltering-with-nazis-is-rightly-hard-to-read-191003">This Jewish woman's story of surviving the Holocaust by passing as Catholic and sheltering with Nazis is (rightly) hard to read</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Max Kaiser has received funding from the Commonwealth government for his PhD research. </span></em></p>The memorialisation of the Holocaust was key to the ideas and practice of the popular Australian Jewish antifascist left in the 1940s and 1950s.Max Kaiser, Adjunct lecturer, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1999972023-02-21T09:40:14Z2023-02-21T09:40:14ZSouth Africa and Israel: new memorial park in the Jewish state highlights complex history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510859/original/file-20230217-16-6qx4p0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An artist's impression of Gan Siyobonga memorial park in Israel.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied by author</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Israeli officials and Jewish South African activists <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-723790">inaugurated</a> a memorial park in Tel Mond, a city north of Tel Aviv, in November 2022. Gan Siyabonga (We Thank You Garden) commemorates several dozen Jewish South African anti-apartheid activists who had personal connections to Israel. </p>
<p>The main sponsors of Gan Siyabonga are the <a href="https://www.jnfsa.co.za/">Jewish National Fund South Africa</a> and <a href="https://www.sazf.org/">South African Zionist Federation</a>. The park’s creation is a milestone in the South African Jewish community’s decades-long introspection into its complex relations with the apartheid regime. </p>
<p>This memorial site is unique in Israel, where an <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-south-africa-home-white-colonialists">estimated</a> 20,000 South Africans live.</p>
<p>Gan Siyabonga is the first site in Israel to highlight the involvement of Jews in the anti-apartheid struggle. It is also unique because it calls attention to a group that was both anti-apartheid and pro-Zionist, or at least not anti-Zionist. The combination is considered unconventional today. That’s because <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Zionism">Zionism</a>, the political ideology that favours a Jewish state, is largely associated in South Africa with collaboration with apartheid and the oppression of Palestinians. </p>
<p>Gan Siyabonga is a reminder that relations between Zionism and apartheid, and between Israel and South Africa, were complex and multilayered. In the last few years I have been working on a PhD dissertation that explores this complexity. Digging into archives and historical periodicals revealed a fascinating story that defies some assumptions. </p>
<h2>Israel’s troubled relations with apartheid</h2>
<p>Israel is commonly remembered as one of the last allies of apartheid South Africa. From the mid-1970s, the Israeli government maintained <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/unspoken-alliance-israels-secret-relationship-apartheid-south-africa-sasha-polakow-suransky">close relations</a> with the minority white regime in Pretoria. </p>
<p>It was one of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/09/17/israel-imposes-sanctions-on-south-africa/70cbb4f4-77b9-4898-8df7-dc39c2c5a500/">last countries</a> to enforce full sanctions on Pretoria. As a result, many anti-apartheid activists, including Jewish ones, held fierce anti-Zionist stances. These were amplified by the strong alliances South African liberation movements forged with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/history-may-explain-south-africas-refusal-to-condemn-russias-invasion-of-ukraine-178657">Soviet Union</a> and the <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220609-the-plo-at-58-and-the-anc-at-110-how-they-evolved-and-where-do-they-stand-today/">Palestinian Liberation Organisation</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-push-led-by-south-africa-to-revoke-israels-au-observer-status-is-misguided-168013">Why the push led by South Africa to revoke Israel’s AU observer status is misguided</a>
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<p>The <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">accusation</a> that Israel practises apartheid-like policies against Palestinians is another reason Israel hasn’t been seen as anti-apartheid. Recent anti-Zionist rhetoric by some Jewish veterans of the South African struggle, such as <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/05/17/how-stop-apartheid-israel">Ronnie Kasrils</a>, strengthened this feeling of unbridgeable contradiction between Israel and anti-apartheid values.</p>
<h2>Support for Israel</h2>
<p>But anti-apartheid activism and Zionism were not always in conflict. Up until the late 1960s, many radical anti-apartheid activists were sympathetic towards Israel and Zionism’s more progressive strands.</p>
<p>In 1948, most radical activists in South Africa supported the establishment of the State of Israel and its war against the invading Arab armies in Palestine. <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/362107/pdf">The Guardian</a>, the main radical weekly in South Africa at the time (linked to the <a href="https://www.sacp.org.za/">South African Communist Party</a>), rooted for an Israeli <a href="https://twitter.com/AfrIsrRel/status/1626615101770936322">victory</a>. </p>
<p>Young Israel was a symbol of opposition to racial persecution and fascism. Those two themes strongly resonated with South African anti-apartheid activists. They tended to see the Afrikaner <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Party-political-party-South-Africa">National Party</a> as an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582473.2021.2009014?tab=permissions&scroll=top">ideological relative</a> of the Nazis. </p>
<p>The initial <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/martinkramer/files/who_saved_israel_1947.pdf">Soviet support for Israel</a>, and a prominent socialist element within Zionism, also contributed to these feelings, especially among South African Marxists.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-search-of-advantages-israels-observer-status-in-the-african-union-165773">In search of advantages: Israel’s observer status in the African Union</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>From the late 1950s, many anti-apartheid activists cherished Israel’s stances against South Africa <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/132/559/1440/4831456">at the United Nations</a>. Similarly its <a href="https://www.academia.edu/90295451/_We_Are_Returning_to_Africa_and_Africa_is_Coming_Back_to_Us_Israels_Evolving_Relations_With_Africa">support for decolonisation</a> in Africa. By the early 1960s, Israel had become the most anti-apartheid country in the “western” camp of the Cold War. In 1963, it <a href="https://www.jta.org/archive/south-african-premier-attacks-israel-for-recall-of-envoy-israel-mum">recalled its envoy</a> and supported international sanctions against South Africa. Israeli archives contain many <a href="https://twitter.com/AfrIsrRel/status/1524773424324923393">letters</a> from South African liberation movements <a href="https://www.archives.gov.il/archives/Archive/0b071706800399c8/File/0b071706804bc4fc">thanking Israel</a> for its support at the UN and elsewhere. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An old typed letter signed by an ANC official praises Israel" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510860/original/file-20230217-22-kdw80u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/510860/original/file-20230217-22-kdw80u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510860/original/file-20230217-22-kdw80u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510860/original/file-20230217-22-kdw80u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510860/original/file-20230217-22-kdw80u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510860/original/file-20230217-22-kdw80u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/510860/original/file-20230217-22-kdw80u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Letter from ANC officials praising Israel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Israel State Archive</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the 1960s, Israel offered covert material support to anti-apartheid groups, perhaps even <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2013-12-20/ty-article/.premium/mandela-and-the-mossad/0000017f-e66d-dc7e-adff-f6eda1960000">to Nelson Mandela</a>. Israeli experiences inspired the early stages of uMkhonto we Sizwe, the African National Congress’ (ANC) military wing, for example through <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/arthur-goldreich">Arthur Goldreich</a>. It also had stable communication channels with the <a href="https://www.archives.gov.il/archives/Archive/0b0717068031bdef/File/0b0717068062f0ae">Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania</a>. </p>
<h2>Post-1967</h2>
<p>Sympathy towards Israel diminished considerably after the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4325413">Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973</a>. But relations between anti-apartheid activism and Zionism remained complicated.</p>
<p>Many Jewish individuals who joined the struggle against apartheid had been active in Zionist youth movements. The socialist-oriented <a href="https://habonim.org.za/">Habonim</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Shomrim_in_the_Land_of_Apartheid.html?id=ZMltAAAAMAAJ">Hashomer Hatzair</a> stand out. Those who joined the anti-apartheid struggle (such as <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Slovo_the_Unfinished_Autobiography.html?id=9QxzAAAAMAAJ">Joe Slovo</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Revolutions_in_My_Life.html?id=vQYwAQAAIAAJ">Baruch Hirson</a>) typically abandoned Zionism. But they acknowledged its role in forming their radical worldview.</p>
<p>Jewish South African individuals were prominent in the liberal strand of the anti-apartheid struggle too. They usually used their professional skills to challenge the apartheid regime. Lawyers like <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/advocate-israel-isie-aaron-maisels">Isie Maisels</a>, parliamentarians like <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/helen-suzman">Helen Suzman</a>, journalists like <a href="https://southafrica.co.za/benjamin-pogrund.html">Benjamin Pogrund</a>, and rabbis like <a href="https://www.sajr.co.za/rabbi-ben-isaacson-a-maverick-soul-finds-rest/">Ben Isaacson</a> were examples. Jewish liberal activists usually expressed support for Israel in various ways.</p>
<p>Developments since the mid-1970s have largely overshadowed the complex history of Zionism’s engagement with the apartheid regime. The anti-apartheid struggle became tightly associated with the Palestinian struggle. And, after its rise to power in 1994, the ANC reaffirmed its commitment to its Palestinian allies.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africa-and-russia-president-cyril-ramaphosas-foreign-policy-explained-198430">South Africa and Russia: President Cyril Ramaphosa's foreign policy explained</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Since then, relations with Israel have largely remained chilly. The ANC <a href="https://bdsmovement.net/news/s-africas-ruling-party-anc-reaffirms-boycott-israel-resolution">supports</a> the movement to boycott Israel and Pretoria <a href="https://thewire.in/external-affairs/south-africa-israel-anc">downgraded</a> its representation in the Jewish state. South African foreign affairs minister Naledi Pandor has <a href="https://www.jpost.com/bds-threat/article-713140">called</a> for Israel to be declared an “apartheid state”. </p>
<h2>A step in the right direction</h2>
<p>Israel and South Africa’s Jewish communities have a long and ambiguous history of entanglement with race politics. There were admirable moments in this history. But there were also periods of complicity with racism. In Israel, both sides of this history are largely forgotten.</p>
<p>Gan Siyabonga is an important first step in placing this history in the Israeli public sphere.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199997/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Asher Lubotzky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Gan Siyabonga is unique in Israel. It highlights a group that was both anti-apartheid and pro-Zionist.Asher Lubotzky, PhD Candidate, History, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1505552020-12-06T21:29:18Z2020-12-06T21:29:18ZFact check US: Is there an ‘antifa threat’ in the United States, as Donald Trump claims?<p>Ever since the antiracism protests that followed the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html">May 25 death of George Floyd</a> at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, President Donald Trump has repeatedly asserted that that Antifa (short for “antifascist”) groups threaten American democracy. On September 30, he once again called them (in his usual style) <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-marine-one-departure-093020/">“a very bad group”</a>, which he says should be considered a “terrorist organization”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366706/original/file-20201030-15-4j7fci.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366706/original/file-20201030-15-4j7fci.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366706/original/file-20201030-15-4j7fci.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=115&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366706/original/file-20201030-15-4j7fci.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=115&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366706/original/file-20201030-15-4j7fci.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=115&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366706/original/file-20201030-15-4j7fci.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366706/original/file-20201030-15-4j7fci.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366706/original/file-20201030-15-4j7fci.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<h2>The origins of the antifascist movement</h2>
<p>The term refers more to an amorphous movement than an association, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-antifa-trump.html">flexible network of activists</a> who share a general philosophy, sometimes try to coordinate their activities, but generally operate spontaneously, responding to events at a highly local level. There’s no hierarchy, official status or precise system of organization. </p>
<p>Local groups are independent and do not announce their actions ahead of time. The number of members varies, increasing or decreasing depending on the circumstances. Sometimes they can work with loosely structured organizations such as Black Lives Matter, other times they work by themselves. Their sometimes violent actions have been rejected by many protest organizers working for causes that Antifa groups care about – authoritarianism and antifascism, racism, homophobia and xenophobia, for example.</p>
<p>All this means that it is difficult to establish the exact genealogy of the Antifa movement. The oldest group in operation, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_City_Antifa">Rose City Antifa</a>, was created in Portland, Oregon, in 2007, with the aim of shutting down a neo-Nazi music festival. While Trump singled out the Antifa movement after his election, they gained prominence after the tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 11, 2017. That day a rally by white supremacists and neo-Nazis also attracted counter-protestors, including Antifa activists. They were demonstrating peacefully when James Alex Fields Jr., a white supremacist, drove his car into the crowd, killing one person and injuring more than a dozen others. </p>
<p>Fields’s actions were deemed a terrorist attack and he currently in prison serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole. In response to the deadly violence perpetrated by Fields, Trump claimed that there were <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trumps-very-fine-people-both-sides-remarks/">“very fine people on both sides”</a> and in the first presidential debate <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/30/politics/proud-boys-trump-white-supremacists-debate/index.html">refused to condemn</a> violent right-wing groups. His remarks were widely criticized.</p>
<h2>Are they really a threat?</h2>
<p>At least one death has been attributed to a person affiliated wth the Antifa movement. On August 29, a member of the far-right group “Patriot Prayer” who was part of a pro-Trump caravan in Portland, Oregon, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/31/video/portland-protests-shooting-investigation.html">died after being shot</a>. The man accused of the killing, Michael Reinoehl, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/13/us/michael-reinoehl-antifa-portland-shooting.html">was shot by US marshals</a> five days later. Overall, however, data show that Antifa activists have been involved in <a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/who-are-antifa-and-are-they-threat">relatively few violent incidents</a> compared to white supremacists, who have conducted at least <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/2020_10_06_homeland-threat-assessment.pdf">40 lethal attacks since 2018</a> according to the Department of Homeland Security.</p>
<p>Despite this, Trump and his attorney general, William Barr, have accused the Antifa movement of being the main instigators of violence, looting and public unrest. This is what serves as justification for the administration’s labeling them as “a domestic terrorist group”. </p>
<p>For both legal and political reasons, such accusations are immediately met with scepticism and criticism. Because the United States has no <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/us/domestic-terror-law.html">domestic terror law</a> – something opposed by both progressive and conservative public officials – the only possibility would be to place the Antifa movement on the list of “foreign terrorist organizations”, something that has no basis in fact. The alternative would be take thousands of activists to court, thus criminalizing political beliefs and violating fundamental rights guaranteed by the US Constitution.</p>
<h2>A polarized country</h2>
<p>So does the Antifa movement represent a real threat to American democracy? Let us look more broadly at the partisan, political conflict that is being felt across the country. The Antifa movement is part of a polarization of political views that is eroding one the foundations of the American republic, the mutual recognition of the legitimacy of both political sides.</p>
<p>The groups against which the Antifa movement positions itself, including <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-antifa/2020/09/11/527071ac-f37b-11ea-bc45-e5d48ab44b9f_story.html">white supremacists, neo-fascists and right-wing nationalists</a>, have been involved in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_terrorism#Post-2001">numerous violent actions and killings</a>. However, the Antifa movement’s own actions can contribute to the legitimization of violence, escalate conflicts rather than defuse them, and expose peaceful protesters to danger.</p>
<p><a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/10076/2533">Calls for violence</a>, whatever the source, can also be used by right-wing extremists to justify their own actions. There have even been cases of white nationalists infiltrating Antifa ranks to <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/06/02/twitter-shuts-down-white-nationalist-group-posing-as-antifa-after-donald-trump-jr-shares-its-tweet/">act as provocateurs</a> in order to incite violence. </p>
<h2>One variable in a complex equation</h2>
<p>While Antifa activists can help create an environment that encourages this violence, they rarely plan and even more rarely control the violence that sometimes breaks out at protests – a fact that even the FBI has recognized. They are just one variable in a context that is ripe for sometimes violent interactions between opposing groups.</p>
<p>In an <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/2020_10_06_homeland-threat-assessment.pdf">October 9 report</a>, the Department of Homeland Security called the white-supremacist movement the “most persistent and lethal threat in the homeland”. By comparison, the Antifa movement has no structure or centralized hierarchy and thus it does not constitute a threat to American democracy, much less the United States.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Translated from the French by Rosie Marsland for <a href="http://www.fastforword.fr/en">Fast ForWord</a> and Leighton Walter Kille of The Conversation France.</em></p>
<p><em>The Fact check US section received support from <a href="https://craignewmarkphilanthropies.org/">Craig Newmark Philanthropies</a>, an American foundation fighting against disinformation.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mario Del Pero ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>The anti-fa movement gained momentum in the United States following the election of Donald Trump. However, its members do not constitute a threat in the sense of the American president.Mario Del Pero, Professeur d’histoire internationale, Sciences Po Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1401472020-06-09T12:23:39Z2020-06-09T12:23:39ZWhat – or who – is antifa?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340129/original/file-20200605-176554-1mgeqve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C26%2C4500%2C2964&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A police officer pushes an antifa demonstrator out of the way during a 2019 protest in Washington, D.C.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/police-officer-pushes-an-antifa-protester-out-of-the-street-news-photo/1154309606">Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The movement called “antifa” gets its name from a short form of “anti-fascist,” which is about the only thing its members agree on.</p>
<p>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, “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/American-Antifa-The-Tactics-Culture-and-Practice-of-Militant-Antifascism/Vysotsky/p/book/9780367210601">American Antifa: The Tactics, Culture, and Practice of Militant Antifascism</a>,” I describe antifa as a decentralized collection of individual activists who mostly use nonviolent methods to achieve their ends.</p>
<p>Their goal is to resist the spread of fascism. That word can be an inexact term, but generally antifa activists see fascism as the <a href="https://www.akpress.org/fascism-today.html">violent enactment and enforcement</a> of biological and social inequalities between people.</p>
<h2>Opposed to violent supremacy</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340132/original/file-20200605-176571-rr4unf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340132/original/file-20200605-176571-rr4unf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340132/original/file-20200605-176571-rr4unf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340132/original/file-20200605-176571-rr4unf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340132/original/file-20200605-176571-rr4unf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=863&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340132/original/file-20200605-176571-rr4unf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340132/original/file-20200605-176571-rr4unf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340132/original/file-20200605-176571-rr4unf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An anti-fascist protest in Berlin, 1928.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-05976,_Berlin,_Pfingstreffen_der_Rot-Front-K%C3%A4mpfer.jpg">Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-05976/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>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>
<p>The <a href="https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/antifa/">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 – three groups that were frequently targets of fascist violence.</p>
<p>The modern-day anti-fascist movement in the United States, including antifa, grew out of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Racist_Action">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>
<p>Anti-fascists’ objections aren’t simply that they disagree with fascists. Their problems with fascism are much more fundamental.</p>
<h2>Personal and collective self-defense</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340133/original/file-20200605-176595-15udyg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340133/original/file-20200605-176595-15udyg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340133/original/file-20200605-176595-15udyg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340133/original/file-20200605-176595-15udyg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340133/original/file-20200605-176595-15udyg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340133/original/file-20200605-176595-15udyg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=948&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340133/original/file-20200605-176595-15udyg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=948&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340133/original/file-20200605-176595-15udyg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=948&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The arts have long been a part of anti-fascist efforts, including by American singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie in the 1940s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Woody_Guthrie_NYWTS.jpg">Al Aumuller/New York World-Telegram and Sun/Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>My own research has found that a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/American-Antifa-The-Tactics-Culture-and-Practice-of-Militant-Antifascism/Vysotsky/p/book/9780367210601">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>
<p>These anti-fascists, therefore, often see fascists as a threat to their personal existence, and their physical and emotional well-being – 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>
<p>Because opposing fascism is a viewpoint rather than a formal organization, people’s 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>
<p>More formal anti-fascism can include large, well-funded mainstream organizations like the <a href="https://www.adl.org/">Anti-Defamation League</a> and the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/">Southern Poverty Law Center</a>, who monitor fascist activity and provide the public information on its scope.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/D71bwVKWxRE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A CNN report on antifa participants.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Local action</h2>
<p>But the antifa label is most often applied to smaller-scale groups of like-minded people who live in the same community, working to prevent fascists from threatening their targets and from attracting new followers.</p>
<p>These groups are rarely militant or violent. Most of them engage in commonly accepted forms of political activism. For instance, anti-fascists often work to find out where fascist groups and people are active in an area, and then share that information with the wider community, bringing that activity to public attention.</p>
<p>Anti-fascist activists also take advantage of the general social stigma associated with being a fascist, and <a href="https://psmag.com/news/doxxing-the-alt-right-racists">identify people who participate in fascist events or post fascist messages online</a>.</p>
<p>Culture is another part of anti-fascist work, including art and music. By creating T-shirts and stickers with inclusive messages, and hosting concerts, film screening and art shows, anti-fascists work to create an environment of inclusion and equality that doesn’t directly attack fascism but simply exists in opposition to it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340134/original/file-20200605-176542-qz4cd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340134/original/file-20200605-176542-qz4cd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/340134/original/file-20200605-176542-qz4cd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340134/original/file-20200605-176542-qz4cd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340134/original/file-20200605-176542-qz4cd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340134/original/file-20200605-176542-qz4cd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340134/original/file-20200605-176542-qz4cd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/340134/original/file-20200605-176542-qz4cd4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Antifa members have taken part in the anti-racist marches that have emerged in cities nationwide.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hundreds-of-protesters-gather-at-government-center-news-photo/1216817055">Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Some direct confrontation</h2>
<p>There are more militant anti-fascists, too, who mostly engage in non-militant activism but are willing, at times, to use more confrontational tactics. These people are more open to counterprotesting, sabotage and the use of force, which includes acts of violence.</p>
<p>The varied and decentralized nature of anti-fascist efforts means it includes virtually anyone who opposes violent enforcement of social inequalities to engage in activism. A diverse range of participants and tactics falls under the umbrella of a broad effort to stop fascism.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140147/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stanislav Vysotsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The anti-fascist movement is a decentralized collection of individual activists who mostly use nonviolent methods to achieve their ends.Stanislav Vysotsky, Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology, University of Wisconsin-WhitewaterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1232442019-09-25T22:14:45Z2019-09-25T22:14:45ZIs the United States on the brink of a revolution?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294087/original/file-20190925-51452-f9n7d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3796%2C2528&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Participants in the Women's March gather near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in January 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Political scientists have historically been bad at foreseeing the most important developments. Few of us guessed the end of the Cold War; almost no one saw the Arab Spring coming. </p>
<p>In defence of my discipline, there is a reason for that. </p>
<p>Before a momentous event occurs, there are numerous possibilities and different ways events can unfold. After it happens, however, it will appear inevitable. And after it happens, we will be very good at explaining why it had to happen.</p>
<p>Very few of us are now predicting the socio-political situation in the United States, which <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5944945/pelosi-trump-impeach-ukraine/">now features an impeachment probe</a> into President Donald Trump, will lead to an uprising. </p>
<p>But after years of teaching on protests, uprisings and revolutions, it seems to me the U.S. is currently showing all the signs political scientists and historians would identify in retrospect as conducive to a revolutionary uprising. </p>
<h2>What brings about a revolution?</h2>
<p>Of course, every revolution is unique and comparisons between them do not always yield useful insights. But <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/11/is-violence-the-only-way-to-end-inequality.html">there are a few criteria</a> we identify in hindsight that are usually present in revolutionary explosions. </p>
<p>First, there’s tremendous economic inequality. </p>
<p>Second, there’s a deep conviction that the ruling classes serve only themselves at the expense of everyone else, undermining the belief that these inequalities will ever be addressed by the political elite.</p>
<p>Third, and somewhat in response to these, there is the rise of political alternatives that were barely acceptable in the margins of society before. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293815/original/file-20190924-51438-13py9ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=297%2C0%2C4347%2C3587&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293815/original/file-20190924-51438-13py9ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293815/original/file-20190924-51438-13py9ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293815/original/file-20190924-51438-13py9ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293815/original/file-20190924-51438-13py9ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293815/original/file-20190924-51438-13py9ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293815/original/file-20190924-51438-13py9ua.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A demonstrator holds up an anti-Donald Trump sign during a March for Our Lives protest for gun legislation in Cincinnati in March 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/John Minchillo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Combined, these factors create a deeply felt and widely shared sense of injustice, an almost palpable conviction that the system is not working for the majority and only for the very few who abuse their positions of privilege. These qualities weaken any regime’s claim to legitimacy.</p>
<p>But they’re not solely sufficient. The indispensable ingredient of a political revolution is the mental revolution that happens before: personal convictions that the system is no longer working and needs to be replaced. </p>
<h2>The coming of a revolution</h2>
<p>Before most major revolutions, there’s a substantial increase in the number of protests. Populations display their displeasure and voice their grievances via marches, petitions and protests. </p>
<p>If their concerns remain unaddressed, these protests become more extreme: petitions become strikes, marches become violent uprisings. Resistance becomes a daily fact of life and political organization commonplace. </p>
<p>Once the population is convinced that the system is not working, and their grievances will remain unheard, then almost anything can set off a political explosion. </p>
<p>It could be a historic development like the Lutheran Reformation that triggered the great <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/modern-europe/german-history/peasants-war">Peasant Uprising of 1525</a>, or the Great War that <a href="https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/revolutions_russian_empire">fuelled the 1917 Russian revolution</a>. </p>
<p>But it could also be a relatively mundane, common event like the taxation conflict that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/English-Civil-Wars">led to the English Civil War in 1640s</a>, or a <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/adams-french-revolution/">famine in France in 1788</a>. In the Arab Spring, it was a <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/how-the-arab-spring-started-2353633">fishmonger’s anger</a> with the corrupt police. </p>
<h2>Really? A revolution in the U.S.?</h2>
<p>The United States is displaying all of the above characteristics. The country is experiencing tremendous levels of economic inequality that’s worsening according to every meaningful measurement. </p>
<p>The <em>New York Times</em> writes about the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/08/07/opinion/leonhardt-income-inequality.html">broken economy</a>,” <em>The Atlantic</em> notes the “<a href="https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-9-9-percent-is-the-new-american-aristocracy?utm_source=pocket-newtab">toxic class divide</a>” that is “fast becoming unbridgeable,” and the <em>Intelligencer</em> calls recent data released by the Federal Reserve “<a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/the-fed-just-released-a-damning-indictment-of-capitalism.html">a damning indictment of capitalism</a>.” </p>
<p>Compared to the previous decade, Americans are working much more for much less pay, and they’re paying substantially more for their basic necessities. Even Fox News is having a hard time spinning the fact the more Americans than <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/american-workers-multiple-jobs">ever need to hold multiple jobs</a>, a full-time job and part-time employment on top of that, just to make ends meet. </p>
<p>While the devastation visited upon the working class by the 2008 recession is <a href="https://www.epi.org/multimedia/heidi-shierholz-unemployment/">far from remedied</a>, economists are already <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/is-a-recession-coming">forecasting a new recession</a>.</p>
<p>These would be troubling signs in a country where trust in political authority is strong. In the U.S., that’s not the case. </p>
<p>There has been a substantial loss of faith in the political authority. Trust in the political system is at an <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/22/key-findings-about-americans-declining-trust-in-government-and-each-other/">all-time low</a>, and Americans also seem to have <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/democrats-2020-poverty-poor-peoples-congress-20190624.html">lost faith in politicians</a>, even the rare few they believe mean well. </p>
<h2>Biggest protests</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, the last few years have seen <a href="https://mashable.com/2018/03/27/largest-protests-american-history/">the largest protests in the country’s history</a>. And few of the issues that have spurred the protests, from Occupy Wall Street to the Women’s March and March For Our Lives, have been addressed. In fact, the situations that gave rise to them have either continued or worsened.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294084/original/file-20190925-51463-xmu3kx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294084/original/file-20190925-51463-xmu3kx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294084/original/file-20190925-51463-xmu3kx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294084/original/file-20190925-51463-xmu3kx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294084/original/file-20190925-51463-xmu3kx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294084/original/file-20190925-51463-xmu3kx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/294084/original/file-20190925-51463-xmu3kx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators hold up signs in downtown Orlando, Fla., as a part of the nationwide protest against gun violence across the U.S. in March 2018. Large rallies with crowds estimated in the tens of thousands unfolded across the country.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Joe Burbank /Orlando Sentinel via AP)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Law enforcement, for decades plagued with justified accusations of systemic racism, is for the first time experiencing difficulties <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-police-agencies-trouble-hiring-keeping-officers-survey/story?id=65643752">hiring and retaining new officers</a>.</p>
<p>And the gap between law enforcement and the people goes <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/15/us/border-patrol-culture.html">beyond just a lack of trust</a> — there is now a diminishing faith in the ability and neutrality of law enforcement agencies. </p>
<p>When that happens, people start arming themselves <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/154110/antifa-arming-trump-crackdown?utm_content=buffer88187&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer">explicitly against the state</a>. All the while, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is building facilities to train its officers for <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/ice-fails-redact-document-reveals-location-urban-warfare-training-facility-1458732">urban warfare</a>.</p>
<p>In response to the crises, political movements that would have been unimaginable a decade ago are rapidly, and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/07/02/charlottesville-neo-nazi-washington-kessler/">rather visibly, rising</a>. </p>
<h2>Fascism on display</h2>
<p>Though the U.S. system was never free of its racist and colonial roots, the last time fascism has been this prominent in the country was <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323/when-nazis-took-manhattan">the brief period before</a> the Second World War. </p>
<p>But this time, it’s the government condoning fascist marches and openly deliberating whether anti-fascism is terrorism.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1162726857231544320"}"></div></p>
<p>It’s accompanied by a general sense of alienation from and revulsion with capitalism by Americans.</p>
<p>Indeed, two of the leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, have built their campaigns on the failures of capitalism, the servitude of Washington to the rich and the powerful and the promise of structural change. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Yiga2dDysQ?wmode=transparent&start=9" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">CBS.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Could a U.S. revolution be a good thing?</h2>
<p>No. Revolutions are never good things to live through; they bring conflict and war, pain, suffering and hunger, and plunge the country into political instability for decades. </p>
<p>But also: Yes.</p>
<p>Almost all political rights citizens enjoy and all the protections they have from the arbitrary use of political authority are results of past revolutions. </p>
<p>And sometimes political systems remain so far behind political consciousness that revolutions become the only way to catch up.</p>
<p>In places with longstanding political culture and institutions, where organized political movements engage in politics without using weapons, revolutions can be relatively better-controlled without spiralling into total chaos.</p>
<p>Tunisia, for example, emerged from the Arab Spring and its political revolution unscathed. It was also the only Arab Spring country with longstanding political institutions that took charge of the process. Those four institutions later <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2015/press-release/">received the Nobel Peace Prize</a> for protecting the country from absolute chaos.</p>
<p>In the U.S., it’s clear the system is not working for the good of all. There are still numerous possibilities and different ways events can unfold. But unless these systemic failures are addressed soon, political scientists of the future will be explaining how a societal explosion in the U.S. became inevitable. </p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123244/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Serbulent Turan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The United States is exhibiting several of the signs that have historically resulted in uprisings and revolutions. Is another American revolution looming?Serbulent Turan, Instructor in Political Science & Public Scholarship Coordinator, University of British ColumbiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1003732018-07-25T22:58:13Z2018-07-25T22:58:13ZStephen Bannon’s world: Dangerous minds in dangerous times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229149/original/file-20180724-194143-hxhcqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former White House strategist Steve Bannon holds a news conference with National Front party leader Marine Le Pen in the northern French city of Lille in March 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://crookedtimber.org/2017/01/11/the-political-thought-of-stephen-k-bannon/">Stephen Bannon</a>, the rabble-rousing populist and alt-right enabler shockingly brought to the White House by Donald Trump, said the following to a gathering of the Front National <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the-tide-of-history-is-with-us-steve-bannon-delivers-rhetoric-filled-speech-to-frances-national-front/2018/03/10/4f21e016-2480-11e8-946c-9420060cb7bd_story.html?utm_term=.26fc77edb14d">in March 2018</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Every day, we get stronger and they get weaker…. History is on our side.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Is it true?</p>
<p>Bannon has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/us/politics/steve-bannon-trump-white-house.html">not been in the White House for almost a year</a>, yet Trump seems to be far more of a Bannonite today than he was when Bannon had an office in the West Wing, and seems to get more Bannonite with each passing day. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-44926417">Bannon himself recently visited Europe, where he’s planning a European right-wing “super-group.”</a></p>
<p>As the far right returns to the scene, so do worries about the possible ideological relevance of vehemently anti-liberal and anti-egalitarian thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger — whose influences live on. </p>
<p>In the contemporary academic world, it has been widely assumed that Nietzsche and Heidegger are intellectual resources for the cultural and philosophical left, but in a context where the right and far right are newly resurgent, this assumption requires further scrutiny. </p>
<h2>Dangerous philosophers</h2>
<p>As I suggest in my new book, <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15834.html">Dangerous Minds</a>, intellectuals need to be far more alert than they have been in the past to potential far-right appropriations of these powerful but dangerous philosophers.</p>
<p>Consider as well two writers of the radical right who have been warmly embraced by the contemporary alt-right: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/world/europe/bannon-vatican-julius-evola-fascism.html">Julius Evola</a> and <a href="https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/the-dangerous-philosopher-behind-putins-strategy-to-grow-russian-power-at-americas-expense">Aleksandr Dugin</a>. Evola, the Italian baron and monocled proponent of über-fascism, the inspirer of black terrorism in Italy and an explicit disciple of Nietzsche, articulated a vision of caste-based Nietzschean neo-aristocracy. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Black-Wind-White-Snow-Nationalism/dp/0300120702/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523459094&sr=8-1&keywords=Charles+Clover">Charles Clover</a>, in an illuminating recent book, writes that Evola “believed that war was a form of therapy, leading mankind into a higher form of spiritual existence.” </p>
<h2>‘Man should be overcome’</h2>
<p>Recently, it’s come to light that Heidegger was <a href="https://traditionalistblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/dugin-guenon-and-heidegger.html">very much attuned to Evola</a> as a fellow critic of modernity. The modern-day Dugin — himself a disciple of Evola — presents himself as a Russian Heidegger and is published by two white-nationalist presses (Arktos and Richard Spencer’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/andreas.umland.1/posts/10210005073216892">Radix</a>).</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229139/original/file-20180724-194155-1rrsj2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229139/original/file-20180724-194155-1rrsj2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229139/original/file-20180724-194155-1rrsj2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229139/original/file-20180724-194155-1rrsj2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=842&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229139/original/file-20180724-194155-1rrsj2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229139/original/file-20180724-194155-1rrsj2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229139/original/file-20180724-194155-1rrsj2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1058&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aleksandr Dugin is seen at the New Horizons International Conference in May 2018 in Iran.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Creative Commons)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In April 2014, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/12526868/Who_is_Aleksandr_Dugin">Dugin was asked on Russian TV</a>: “Is there a philosophical quote that is especially dear to you?” Dugin responded: “Yes: Man is something that should be overcome.”</p>
<p>Dugin didn’t specify the source of this quote, but anyone with any acquaintance with the philosophical novel <em>Thus Spoke Zarathustra</em> knows that it’s Nietzsche. </p>
<p>In the same interview, Dugin stated: “The essence of the human being is to be a soldier.” There are texts in which Dugin presents himself as a prophet of a “new aeon” that “will be cruel and paradoxical,” involving slavery, “the renewal of archaic sacredness,” and “a cosmic rampage of the Superhuman.” </p>
<p>He celebrates “hierarchical, vertical, ‘heroic,’ and ‘Spartan’ values.” </p>
<p>Such views capture quite well why the thinkers expressing these views are committed, in a faithfully Nietzschean spirit, to the root-and-branch rejection of the horizon of life embodied in liberal, bourgeois, egalitarian societies.</p>
<h2>Liberalism is ‘dehumanizing’</h2>
<p>Since the Enlightenment, there has been a line of important thinkers for whom life in liberal modernity is felt to be profoundly dehumanizing. Thinkers in this category include, but are not limited to, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Joseph de Maistre and Carl Schmitt.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229147/original/file-20180724-194140-w51qmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229147/original/file-20180724-194140-w51qmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229147/original/file-20180724-194140-w51qmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229147/original/file-20180724-194140-w51qmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229147/original/file-20180724-194140-w51qmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229147/original/file-20180724-194140-w51qmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229147/original/file-20180724-194140-w51qmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Friedrich Nietzsche is seen here in this 1869 photo taken in Leipzig.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Creative Commons)</span></span>
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<p>For such thinkers, liberal modernity is so degrading that the French Revolution and its egalitarianism, traceable ultimately back to the Protestant Reformation, should be undone if possible. For all of them, hierarchy and elitism are more morally compelling than equality and individual liberty; democracy is seen as diminishing our humanity rather than elevating it.</p>
<p>We are unlikely to understand why fascism is still kicking around in the 21st century unless we are able to grasp why certain intellectuals of the early 20th century gravitated towards fascism — namely, on account of a grim preoccupation with the perceived soullessness of modernity, and a resolve to embrace any politics, however extreme, that seemed to them to promise “spiritual renewal,” to quote Heidegger. </p>
<p>For these thinkers and their contemporary adherents, liberalism, egalitarianism, and democracy are a recipe for absolute mediocrity and spiritual emptiness, and hence for a profound contraction of the human spirit.</p>
<h2>Not irrelevant today</h2>
<p>For the political-philosophical tradition within which Nietzsche and Heidegger stand, the French Revolution brought about a world in which authority resides with the herd, not with the shepherd, with the mass (the “they”), not with the elite, and as a consequence, ultimately the whole experience of life spirals down into unbearable shallowness and meaninglessness. </p>
<p>Ferdinand Mount, in a recent New York Review of Books <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/12/21/super-goethe/">essay on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe</a>, correctly writes that Nietzsche revered Goethe because “only Goethe had treated the French Revolution and the doctrine of equality with the disgust they deserved.” </p>
<p>Of course, Richard Spencer famously said that he was “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/his-kampf/524505/">red-pilled</a>” by Nietzsche — the alt-right lingo meaning that Nietzsche opened his eyes to the truth of fascism.</p>
<p>All of this might have seemed irrelevant during the past 70 years, from about 1945 to 2015, when fascism was utterly discredited. </p>
<p>It doesn’t seem irrelevant today.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fascisms-return-and-trumps-war-on-youth-88867">Fascism’s return and Trump’s war on youth</a>
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<hr>
<p>On the contrary, liberal democracy seems to be increasingly on the defensive. Today we have Trumpism and Bannonism in the U.S.; Putinism in Russia and Orbánism in Hungary; Erdoğanism in Turkey; Xiism in China; Modiism in India; Duterteism in the Philippines. </p>
<p>Admittedly, none of these leaders are as bad as Hitler or Mussolini or Stalin. But at the same time, none of them are guardians of liberal democracy. </p>
<p>Roger Cohen recently published a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/06/opinion/sunday/orban-hungary-kaczynski-poland.html">New York Times op-ed</a> on the rise of quasi-authoritarianism in Hungary and Poland in which he quotes a former Polish foreign minister’s expression of disdain toward “those who believe history is headed inevitably toward ‘a new mixture of cultures and races, a world made up of cyclists and vegetarians, who only use renewable energy.’” </p>
<h2>Politics can generate havoc</h2>
<p>The project of populist nationalists in Poland and Hungary is to defend what they take to be European Christian civilization from such pathetic wimps. This, one should not fail to recognize, is a 21st-century version of Nietzsche’s story of the last men who care only about material betterment and lack for any higher aspirations, shuffling through life without anything genuinely meaningful to live for.</p>
<p>Politics always has the potential to generate havoc or worse. The stakes are perhaps particularly high in a political world as unsettled as ours: Where technological change is so head-spinningly rapid; where the boundaries between different societies and cultures are being renegotiated on such an epic scale; where the internet lets loose political passions so little inhibited by norms of civility; and where the most powerful man on the planet is someone as volatile as Donald Trump.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/democracy-on-life-support-donald-trumps-first-anniversary-86824">Democracy on life support: Donald Trump's first anniversary</a>
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</em>
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<p>Bannon sought to encapsulate the new zeitgeist with a memorable line: <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/steve-bannon-apocalypse-third-world-war-coming-white-house-donald-trump-historian-claim-film-david-a7570631.html">“We are witnessing the birth of a new political order.”</a></p>
<p>We have to take with deadly seriousness the possibility that this is actually the case, and equip ourselves intellectually for a fully robust defense of liberal democracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100373/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronald Beiner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fears about the resurgence of fascism might have seemed irrelevant during the past 70 years, when it was discredited. It doesn’t seem irrelevant today with liberal democracy on the defensive.Ronald Beiner, Professor of Political Science, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/892272017-12-28T21:43:31Z2017-12-28T21:43:31ZRomper Stomper reboot is a compelling investigation into Australia’s extremist politics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200305/original/file-20171221-4954-3okvs0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Antifasc' as portrayed in Romper Stomper. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Stan’s new remake and serialisation of the 1992 movie classic <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105275/fullcredits">Romper Stomper</a> opens with the original haunting theme music that has been canonised and sampled by many contemporary skinhead bands. The first scene then begins with waves rolling along a beach - similar to how the original film had ended. </p>
<p>But that is where most of the similarities end. The original film, starring Russell Crowe, had focused on alienated young people who embraced the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead">skinhead ethos</a> and targeted Asian migrants in inner Melbourne. Unlike the film, Stan’s Romper Stomper is not an exploration of this subculture. It has been remade to reflect new schisms and complexities in contemporary Australian extremist politics. </p>
<p>Stan’s Romper Stomper also makes some subtle commentary on the rise of an authoritarian state in Australia. This modern, Orwellian-style Melbourne is a place where youth correction workers wear black uniforms with combat boots and Border Force Officers patrol train stations. </p>
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<p>The Romper Stomper remake focuses on a fictitious but easily identifiable nationalist group call the Patriot Blue. The group is led by Blake, a middle-aged, middle class, Anglo Australian played by Lachy Hulme, and young nationalist, Kane, played by Toby Wallace. </p>
<p>Similar to the real life <a href="https://theconversation.com/reclaim-australia-re-energises-radical-nationalism-45103">Reclaim Australia movement</a>, Patriot Blue is anti-immigration - particularly anti-Muslim immigration. But under the guidance of Kane, Patriot Blue is led into pro-Anglo Australian street vigilantism not dissimilar to the actual <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/vigilantestyle-group-soldiers-of-odin-patrolling-melbourne-cbd-20161009-gry51g.html">Soldiers of Odin</a> who operate in Melbourne’s CBD. </p>
<p>On the other side is Antifasc, a group of predominately university students guided by a politics lecturer. They are a version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-antifa-and-where-did-it-come-from-82977">Antifa</a>, the international anti-fascist group currently taking root in a number of western democracies. </p>
<p>In between these political extremities are average Australians, both migrants and non-migrants, who are beaten and manipulated by Patriot Blue, Antifasc and even the media. Both groups and the media are actively brokering fear for their own gains. Through capitalising on people’s fears, Patriot Blue and Antifasc attract support, while the media gain ratings. </p>
<h2>Ideological war</h2>
<p>In the first episode, we are given a glimpse of Blake’s motivation for organising the Patriot Blues. His speeches to the group are not dissimilar to the kinds of rhetoric used by actual nationalist groups. Blake’s thinking appears to be influenced by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/530270.The_Turner_Diaries">The Turner Diaries</a>, a major literary work of the far-right published in 1978, which tells the story of a race war in the United States. </p>
<p>Echoing the plot of The Turner Diaries, Blake believes that Melbourne will be fragmented along cultural and religious lines and fall into civil war. In Romper Stomper, his fears are not depicted as lunacy and the instances of violence between cultural and political groups reinforce Patriot Blue and Antifasc’s belief there is an ideological war at play.</p>
<p>The early episodes, which form the basis for this review, highlight that the middle ground in Australian politics is impotent. As the stories of the characters develop and struggles between the two extremist groups continue, there is a faint “white noise” of politicians debating new immigration legislation.</p>
<p>It seems the series is highlighting a real emerging belief that mainstream Australian political parties are weak and disconnected from the population. It is possible the series is trying to illustrate the notion that extremism grows where there is a weak centre or <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/extremists-across-europe-capitalise-on-disillusionment-with-third-way-9198336.html">voter disillusionment</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200306/original/file-20171221-4980-1hppjg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200306/original/file-20171221-4980-1hppjg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200306/original/file-20171221-4980-1hppjg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200306/original/file-20171221-4980-1hppjg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200306/original/file-20171221-4980-1hppjg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200306/original/file-20171221-4980-1hppjg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200306/original/file-20171221-4980-1hppjg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/200306/original/file-20171221-4980-1hppjg0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Lachy Hulme (centre) as the leader of Patriot Blue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stan/Ben King</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>The allure of fear</h2>
<p>Extremist politics in Australia are often overlooked in media and academic circles. It would have been easy for Romper Stomper to portray either side or even those caught in the middle as villains, heroes or victims. But the early episodes give no indication that this will be the narrative. Rather, the series provides an insight into the thinking of each group and its motivations. Even for a fictional account, the insights are very real and at the core of people’s motivations is fear.</p>
<p>In Romper Stomper, most resort to violence because they are afraid. Everyone has the perception they are fighting back. Patriot Blue is scared of the changes brought about by increased immigration and the impact it will have on Anglo culture. Blake openly tells his wife he is afraid of what Australia will become with further immigration. Antifasc fears the rise of extreme right-wing politics, which it perceives as Nazism and a threat to progressive politics. </p>
<p>Romper Stomper’s depiction of the way extremist groups operate and organise is realistic. Like real groups, the series shows Patriot Blue and Antifasc establishing “intelligence units”, which gather information on their opponents’ activities and membership.</p>
<p>Likewise, real Nationalist groups and Antifa use social media and fundamental network analysis techniques - such as the interpretation of relationships between people or organisations - along with cyber security measures, to gather and hide information. </p>
<p>We also see how extremist groups recruit and conduct public outreach programs. Both groups in the series also assist the homeless and provide self-styled security on the streets. They argue they are providing services that mainstream governments are no longer interested in or able to offer. </p>
<p>As the series shows, it is socially disadvantaged people (or those who perceive they are socially disadvantaged), who are driven to join extremist groups. These groups often provide them with a wider political explanation for their problems and sell themselves as being able to solve them, through radical means.</p>
<p>This kind of approach is evident in the way Blake initially interacts with Kane and a friend - providing food, employment and social inclusion. This is probably going to have repercussions for Blake down the track in the series with a likely power struggle for leadership that reflects another reality of extremist politics - its propensity to implode through the group splintering. </p>
<p>Based on the early episodes, Romper Stomper is akin to the political fiction of Australian novelist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Hardy">Frank Hardy</a>. Where Hardy provided a raw insight into Labor and union politics, Romper Stomper provides a snapshot of 21st-century Australian extremist politics and the alarming rise of disillusionment with mainstream politicians and media.</p>
<p><em>Romper Stomper premieres on Stan on Jan 1</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89227/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Troy Whitford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Stan’s remake of the 1992 film Romper Stomper swaps skinhead culture for the complexities of contemporary Australian extremist politics. In doing so, it highlights disillusion with mainstream politicians and media.Troy Whitford, Lecturer in Intelligence and Security Studies, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/829772017-08-30T03:12:50Z2017-08-30T03:12:50ZExplainer: what is antifa, and where did it come from?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183536/original/file-20170827-27564-2okz08.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Antifa, or militant progressives, have always existed and flourished in democracies.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Stephanie Keith</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Anti-fascist action, more popularly known as “antifa”, can be best described as international socialism on amphetamines. Driven by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pg/AntifaAustralia/about/?ref=page_internal">progressive ideology and “workers’ rights”</a>, it has adopted violence and intimidation as a tactic to quash conservatives and nationalists – in <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4587116/Left-wing-Antifa-Australia-attack-Andrew-Bolt-Melbourne.html">Australia</a>, Europe and, most recently, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/who-antifa-meet-radical-neo-nazi-fighting-militia-n793241">the US</a>.</p>
<p>Antifa, or militant progressives, have always existed and flourished in democracies. Militant progressives were part of the the 1960s and 1970s counter-culture, and were active during the anti-globalisation protests of the 1990s and 2000s. </p>
<p>It is difficult to accurately state when antifa began. It is more of an evolution of progressive militancy than a birth.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump talks about antifa following the Charlotesville protests.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>What does it fight for?</h2>
<p>Anti-fascist movements can be traced back at least to the 1920s and 1930s. Today, the ideological collective known as antifa evokes the historical struggles of the 20th century against fascists in Italy and Nazi Germany to explain its 21st-century existence. </p>
<p>Antifa believe if anti-fascists had mobilised and crushed fascism before it took root in Europe during the early-to-mid-20th century, then many of that period’s tragedies may have been avoided. </p>
<p>In some ways, antifa’s existence also relies on the political environment of the time. There must be a conservative government in power for it to have traction.</p>
<p>Antifa is a product of progressive thought struggling against conservative or capitalist governments. Without them, it would not enjoy its <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/the-rise-of-the-violent-left/534192/">current prominence</a>. Instead, it would have to content itself on countering the activities of radical nationalist fringe groups.</p>
<p>Antifa ideology features a pro-multicultural agenda, the protection of social and ethnic minorities, and the socialisation of government. The majority of its platform is rather mainstream for contemporary society, and can also be found in the policy platforms on the left of the ALP or the Greens.</p>
<p>For an overview of antifa’s kind of ideology listen to folk musician and activist <a href="http://www.billybragg.co.uk/">Billy Bragg</a>. While its ideological platform is not unusual nor remarkable by contemporary standards, its tactics and zealot approach is what gives antifa prominence.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Billy Bragg performs an anti-fascist song.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What are its tactics?</h2>
<p>Antifa understands how to effectively use technology to further its cause. It enjoys a tech-savvy generation of followers. Its use of political intelligence and social networks is advanced for an issue-motivated group. </p>
<p>Antifa effectively uses social media to organise protests and counter-protests. But it also possesses political intelligence-gathering techniques. It locates and monitors the actions of its opponents, and uses social media to discredit and taunt nationalists and conservatives. Its <a href="https://antifascistactionsydney.wordpress.com/">websites and Facebook accounts</a> provide dossiers on conservatives and nationalist leaders and groups.</p>
<p>Information on people and groups appear, for the most part, to be harvested from the internet. But based on some of its posted pictures of opponents, there is also a hint that antifa followers may conduct surveillance activities. It has a network of followers that know when nationalist protests are planned and the locations of nationalist leaders. </p>
<p>Antifa’s ability to gather information on the whereabouts of its opponents and planned protests gives it a psychological and strategic advantage.</p>
<p>The other tactic antifa uses is political violence. Antifa believes that political violence is justifiable against those it views as fascists or neo-Nazis. It not only justifies it, but antifa also calls on its members to undertake self-defence training. </p>
<p>A desire to train its followers may suggest antifa aims to develop into a quasi-militia to protect progressive views.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183548/original/file-20170828-27807-im7tk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183548/original/file-20170828-27807-im7tk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183548/original/file-20170828-27807-im7tk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183548/original/file-20170828-27807-im7tk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183548/original/file-20170828-27807-im7tk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=361&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183548/original/file-20170828-27807-im7tk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183548/original/file-20170828-27807-im7tk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/183548/original/file-20170828-27807-im7tk4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=454&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/AntifaAustralia/posts/1647720308593616">Facebook/Antifa Australia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A movement, not a structured group</h2>
<p>A distinct feature of antifa is its lack of a structured organisation and leadership. It operates on a loose collective, similar to the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/worldwide-hacker-group-anonymous/story?id=37761302">online activists Anonymous</a>. </p>
<p>Both Anonymous and antifa are driven by a reaction to specific social, economic or political action that is in contrast to their ideological outlook. Antifa followers come together for a specific counter-protest or civil action then disband again.</p>
<p>Increasingly, this kind of ideologically-driven collective action is becoming the modus operandi of groups that are not necessarily organised by leadership – but are mobilised by an ideology. </p>
<p>Such an approach is far more potent and able to resist infiltration. Leaders often become the focal point of negative campaigns against any group. The leader is scrutinised, and often their personal reputation is interpreted as the reputation of the entire group. Where there is an absence of leadership or clear organisational structure it becomes more difficult to target the group.</p>
<p>Some have sought to have antifa categorised <a href="https://www.change.org/p/malcolm-turnbull-list-antifa-as-a-terrorist-organisation">as a terrorist group</a>. Under the <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/terrorism">broad definition</a> of terrorism – “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims” – they may have a case. </p>
<p>With respect to interpretation and definitions, it is also questionable how antifa interprets fascism. It is likely antifa is mistaking some conservatives and nationalists for fascists. The <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fascist">general understanding</a> of fascism:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… is that of extreme authoritarian, oppressive, or intolerant views or practices. Specifically, an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organisation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It would be hyperbole to describe Australia’s mainstream political environment as fascist.</p>
<p>Essentially, antifa is part of a larger schism taking place in democratic societies. Increasingly, there is greater intolerance for opposing views and an inflexibility or desire to achieve compromise. </p>
<p>In many ways, antifa’s contribution to the schism through its use of political violence and intimidating tactics means it runs the risk of turning itself into the entity it claims to resist – fascism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82977/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Troy Whitford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The anti-fascist movement, or ‘antifa’, has undergone more of an evolution of progressive militancy than a birth.Troy Whitford, Lecturer in Australian History and Politics, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/826452017-08-22T01:57:11Z2017-08-22T01:57:11ZHow should we protest neo-Nazis? Lessons from German history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182687/original/file-20170820-22783-12tnnxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A supporter of President Donald Trump, center, argues with a counterprotester at a rally in Boston on Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Michael Dwyer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, many people are asking themselves what they should do if Nazis rally in their city. Should they put their bodies on the line in counterdemonstrations? <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/opinion/why-the-nazis-came-to-charlottesville.html">Some say yes</a>.</p>
<p>History says no. Take it from me: <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/994597123">I study the original Nazis</a>. </p>
<p>We have an ethical obligation to stand against fascism and racism. But we also have an ethical obligation to do so in a way that doesn’t help the fascists and racists more than it hurts them.</p>
<h2>History repeats itself</h2>
<p>Charlottesville was right out of the Nazi playbook. In the 1920s, the Nazi Party was just one political party among many in <a href="http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/section.cfm?section_id=12">a democratic system</a>, running for seats in Germany’s Parliament. For most of that time, it was a small, marginal group. In 1933, riding a wave of popular support, it seized power and set up a dictatorship. The rest is well-known. </p>
<p>It was in 1927, while still on the political fringes, that the Nazi Party scheduled a rally in a <a href="http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=3916">decidedly hostile location</a> – the Berlin district of Wedding. Wedding was so left-of-center that the neighborhood had the nickname “Red Wedding,” red being the color of the Communist Party. The Nazis often held rallies right where their enemies lived, to provoke them. </p>
<p>The people of Wedding were determined to fight back against fascism in their neighborhood. On <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903285667">the day of the rally</a>, hundreds of Nazis descended on Wedding. Hundreds of their opponents showed up too, organized by the local Communist Party. The antifascists tried to disrupt the rally, heckling the speakers. Nazi thugs retaliated. There was a massive brawl. Almost 100 people were injured. </p>
<p>I imagine the people of Wedding felt they had won that day. They had courageously sent a message: Fascism was not welcome.</p>
<p>But <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903285667">historians believe</a> events like the rally in Wedding helped the Nazis build a dictatorship. Yes, the brawl got them <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/212328295">media attention</a>. But what was far, far more important was how it fed an escalating spiral of <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/444439029">street violence</a>. That violence helped the fascists enormously. </p>
<p>Violent confrontations with antifascists gave the Nazis a chance to paint themselves as the victims of a pugnacious, lawless left. They <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/971262984">seized it</a>.</p>
<p>It worked. We know now that many Germans supported the fascists because they were terrified of leftist violence in the streets. Germans opened their morning newspapers and saw reports of clashes like the one in Wedding. It looked like a bloody tide of civil war was <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/828879721">rising in their cities</a>. Voters and opposition politicians alike came to believe the government needed special police powers to stop violent leftists. Dictatorship grew attractive. The fact that the Nazis themselves were fomenting the violence didn’t seem to matter. </p>
<p>One of Hitler’s biggest steps to dictatorial power was to gain <a href="http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=2325">emergency police powers</a>, which he claimed he needed to suppress leftist violence. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182669/original/file-20170820-20193-1btibs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182669/original/file-20170820-20193-1btibs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182669/original/file-20170820-20193-1btibs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182669/original/file-20170820-20193-1btibs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182669/original/file-20170820-20193-1btibs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182669/original/file-20170820-20193-1btibs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182669/original/file-20170820-20193-1btibs9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thousands of Nazi storm troops demonstrate in a Communist neighborhood in Berlin on Jan. 22, 1933. Thirty-five Nazis, Communists and police were injured during clashes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The left takes the heat</h2>
<p>In the court of public opinion, accusations of mayhem and chaos in the streets will, as a rule, tend to stick against the left, not the right. </p>
<p>This was true in Germany in the 1920s. It was true even when opponents of fascism acted in self-defense or tried to use relatively mild tactics, such as heckling. It is true in the United States today, where even peaceful rallies against racist violence are branded <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/08/09/542468258/whose-streets-follows-unrest-in-ferguson-mo-after-michael-browns-death">riots in the making</a>.</p>
<p>Today, right extremists are going around the country staging rallies just like the one in 1927 in Wedding. According to the civil rights advocacy organization the Southern Poverty Law Center, they pick places where they know <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20170810/alt-right-campus-what-students-need-know">antifascists are present</a>, like university campuses. They come spoiling for physical confrontation. Then they and their allies spin it to their advantage.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182854/original/file-20170821-4952-szjzc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/182854/original/file-20170821-4952-szjzc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182854/original/file-20170821-4952-szjzc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182854/original/file-20170821-4952-szjzc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182854/original/file-20170821-4952-szjzc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182854/original/file-20170821-4952-szjzc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/182854/original/file-20170821-4952-szjzc8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A demonstration on the University of Washington campus where far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was giving a speech on Friday, Jan. 20, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Ted S. Warren</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I watched this very thing happen steps from my office on the University of Washington campus. Last year, a right extremist speaker came. He was met by a counterprotest. One of his supporters <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/couple-charged-with-assault-in-shooting-melee-during-uw-speech-by-milo-yiannopoulos/">shot a counterprotester</a>. On stage, in the moments after the shooting, the right extremist speaker claimed that his opponents had sought to stop him from speaking “<a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/how-the-shooting-at-the-uw-protest-of-milo-yiannopoulos-unfolded/">by killing people</a>.” The fact that it was one of the speaker’s supporters, a right extremist and Trump backer, who engaged in <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/couple-charged-with-assault-in-shooting-melee-during-uw-speech-by-milo-yiannopoulos/">what prosecutors now claim</a> was an unprovoked and premeditated act of violence, has never made national news. </p>
<p>We saw this play out after Charlottesville, too. President Donald Trump said there was violence “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/trump-press-conference-charlottesville.html?_r=0">on both sides</a>.” It was an <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-american-guernica-82567">incredible claim</a>. Heyer, a peaceful protester, and 19 other people were intentionally hit by a neo-Nazi driving a car. He seemed to portray Charlottesville as another example of what he has <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/full-transcript-donald-trump-nomination-acceptance-speech-at-rnc-225974">referred to elsewhere</a> as “violence in our streets and chaos in our communities,” including, it seems, Black Lives Matter, which is a nonviolent movement against violence. He <a href="https://theconversation.com/charlottesville-and-the-politics-of-fear-82443">stirred up fear</a>. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/07/28/trumps-speech-encouraging-police-to-be-rough-annotated/?utm_term=.2c5a86d63007">Trump recently said</a> that police are too constrained by existing law.</p>
<p>President Trump tried it again during the largely peaceful protests in Boston – he called the tens of thousands who gathered there to protest racism and Nazism “<a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-boston-march-20170819-story.html">anti-police agitators</a>,” though later, in a characteristic about-face, he <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-boston-march-20170819-story.html">praised them</a>. </p>
<p>President Trump’s claims are hitting their mark. A CBS News poll found that a majority of Republicans thought his description of who was to blame for the violence in Charlottesville was “<a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-divided-over-trumps-response-to-charlottesville-cbs-news-poll/">accurate</a>.” </p>
<p>This violence, and the rhetoric about it coming from the administration, are echoes – faint but nevertheless frightening echoes – of a well-documented pattern, a pathway by which democracies devolve into dictatorships. </p>
<h2>The Antifa</h2>
<p>There’s an additional wrinkle: the antifa. When Nazis and white supremacists rally, the antifa are likely to show up, too. </p>
<p>“Antifa” is short for antifascists, though the name by no means includes everyone who opposes fascism. The antifa is a relatively small movement of the far left, with ties to anarchism. It arose in Europe’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144215579354">punk scene in the 1980s</a> to fight neo-Nazism. </p>
<p>The antifa says that because Nazism and white supremacy are violent, we must use any means necessary to stop them. This includes physical means, like what they did on my campus: forming a crowd to block ticket-holders from entering a venue to hear a right extremist speak. </p>
<p>The antifa’s tactics often backfire, just like those of Germany’s communist opposition to Nazism did in the 1920s. Confrontations escalate. Public opinion often blames the left no matter the circumstances.</p>
<h2>What to do?</h2>
<p>One solution: Hold a counterevent that doesn’t involve physical proximity to the right extremists. The Southern Poverty Law Center has published <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/20170810/alt-right-campus-what-students-need-know">a helpful guide</a>. Among its recommendations: If the alt-right rallies, “organize a joyful protest” well away from them. Ask people they have targeted to speak. But “as hard as it may be to resist yelling at alt-right speakers, do not confront them.” </p>
<p>This does not mean ignoring Nazis. It means standing up to them in a way that denies them a chance for bloodshed. </p>
<p>The cause Heather Heyer died for is best defended by avoiding the physical confrontation that the people who are responsible for her death want.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82645/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurie Marhoefer receives funding from the German Academic Exchange Service and the University of Washington. </span></em></p>We have an ethical obligation to stand against fascists and racists in a way that doesn’t help them.Laurie Marhoefer, Assistant Professor of History, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/690142016-12-01T01:54:45Z2016-12-01T01:54:45ZDonald Trump is no Mussolini, but liberal democracy could still be in danger<p>Observers continue to draw parallels between President-elect Donald Trump and the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. But the similarities – <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/22/is-donald-trump-a-textbook-narcissist/?utm_term=.e0059e4b0a77">narcissism</a>, opportunism, <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2016/11/06/trump-and-authoritarian-propaganda/#4b27f3561283">authoritarianism</a> – coexist with sharp differences. One came from a working-class, socialistic background and saw himself as an intellectual and an ideologue. The other is a billionaire real estate magnate with a pronounced <a href="http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-08-02/policy-expert-explains-how-anti-intellectualism-gave-rise-donald-trump">anti-intellectual</a> streak.</p>
<p>A more important question is not whether Trump is an American Mussolini, but if American democracy is as vulnerable to fascistic erosion as Italian democracy was. <a href="http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/102220457/public-intellectuals-we-need-you-four-lessons-from-max-ascoli-intellectuals-lj-s-foreign-relations">My research</a> on how Italian immigrants helped shape U.S. foreign policy toward fascist Italy reveals that Italians exiled by Mussolini believed America was also in danger.</p>
<p>The warnings issued in the 1920s and 1930s by <a href="http://unz.org/Pub/Search/?ContentType=Article&Author=gaetano+salvemini&Action=Search">Gaetano Salvemini</a> and <a href="http://unz.org/Pub/Search/?ContentType=Article&Author=%22max+ascoli%22&Action=Search">Max Ascoli</a> seem particularly salient today. In a vast number of published books, journal articles, newspaper op-eds, public speeches and radio addresses, as well as in the 1939 founding of <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/morrow-felix/1943/06/italy.htm">the Mazzini Society</a>, Ascoli and Salvemini argued that Americans need to recognize the fragility of democracy. </p>
<p>Salvemini was an Italian politician and historian who fled Mussolini’s regime in 1925 and emigrated to the United States. In 1933, he began a career at Harvard University. Ascoli was a Jewish Italian professor of political philosophy and law. Forced into exile in 1928, Ascoli came to the United States in 1931 with the aid of the <a href="http://thenewschoolhistory.org/?page_id=79">University in Exile at the New School for Social Research</a>.</p>
<p>Once in the United States, the two scholars explained to Americans that fascism overcame Italy not by revolutionary storm, but by the “clever” hollowing out of Italy’s democratic institutions. Democracy, they warned, can be used against itself.</p>
<h2>‘We want to rule’</h2>
<p>Mussolini legally seized control of the Italian political system in 1922 amid economic crisis and political instability. Italians had lost faith in the ability of feuding political parties to restore order. This left an opening for an authoritarian leader who marched on Rome with <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520046436">no elaborate agenda</a>: “Our program is simple: We want to rule Italy.” </p>
<p>Ascoli and Salvemini pointed out in their writings that Italian fascism emerged from a <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1019175">relatively stable system</a> of liberal democracy. The fascists repeatedly emphasized their commitment to democracy – or rather, a commitment to what they regarded as “the purest form of democracy,” one in which the state protected its decent, hard-working citizens against excessive individualism – that is, individual rights and liberties that are valued more than the state. In “<a href="http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm">The Doctrine of Fascism</a>,” coauthors Giovanni Gentile, the “father of the philosophy of fascism,” and Mussolini declared fascism to be “an organized, centralized, authoritarian democracy.”</p>
<p>Not until Mussolini had been in power for several years did he begin to articulate and elaborate a distinctive fascist ideology. Immediately after constitutionally taking power, albeit with considerable use of intimidation, he started eroding liberal democratic institutions and ideas. He did so by legally and often indirectly attacking the freedoms on which Italian democracy had been based.</p>
<h2>Muzzling the press</h2>
<p>Mussolini exploited the freedom of the press as he was rising to power. In 1914, he had founded the newspaper Popolo d'ltalia. Ascoli <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1022352?seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents">said</a> the paper “stopped at nothing, not even at personal scandalmongering” to beat its enemies. After seizing power, Mussolini and his lieutenants – most of whom were businessmen with no experience in government – persuaded pro-fascist industrialists to purchase a number of Italian newspapers. Doing so ensured the papers promoted the agenda of the new government. </p>
<p>Newspapers that were not bought were “fascistized” under an obscure Italian law that <a href="https://www.unz.org/Pub/Nation-1927jan12-00034">authorized the government</a> to “take emergency measures when necessary to maintain public peace.” In December 1924, the government invoked the law to quiet its critics. Claiming that the anti-fascist press had the potential to disturb the public peace, the Mussolini regime was thus <a href="https://www.unz.org/Pub/Nation-1927jan12-00034">authorized</a> “to take any measures they thought fit to muzzle it.”</p>
<p>Within five years of Mussolini’s March on Rome, the opposition press was effectively silenced. “The passage of the Italian press from a regime of legal freedom to one of tight control,” <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1022352?seq=12#page_scan_tab_contents">commented</a> Ascoli, “bears witness to the cleverness that the fascist leading group displayed in seizing fortunate occasions. The present condition has been reached without too much violence and even without the enforcement of very drastic laws.” </p>
<p>Italians found themselves living in a country with <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1997-11-01/rise-illiberal-democracy">democratic institutions</a>, but without reliable sources of information with which to judge official pronouncements.</p>
<p>Salvemini and Ascoli also drew attention to the restrictions placed on intellectual freedom. They saw Italian intellectuals as complicit in their own muzzling. Liberal intellectuals had been caught off guard and were <a href="https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/358">unprepared and bewildered with the intolerance of fascism</a>. Many of Italy’s leading intellectuals not only failed to defend liberal democracy, but went over to the other side, as evidenced in 1925’s “Manifesto of the Fascist Intellectuals.”</p>
<h2>Democracy without freedom</h2>
<p>Italy’s schools and universities, which had for centuries promoted free thinking, were quickly replaced with a system that emphasized professional training and embraced the mission of strengthening nationality through the <a href="https://archive.org/stream/nationalisminita00marr#page/2/mode/2up/search/common+culture">“cultivation of a common culture.” </a></p>
<p>This switch was not unopposed, but teachers and university faculty protested in a piecemeal fashion. The refugee scholars described how Italian academics failed to recognize the severity of the threat posed to their principles and livelihoods. Ascoli <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1022352?seq=18#page_scan_tab_contents">explained</a> that “in its legalistic aspect, academic freedom has not been radically affected in Fascist Italy, but the individual professors have been morally and intellectually reconditioned so as to become, each one for himself, an obedient self-censor in the interest of the regime…”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Italian citizens were being persuaded to equate nationalism with the fascist program. Before Mussolini took power, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=odN4AAAAMAAJ&dq=%22italian+fascist+activities+in+the+united+states%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22the+term+Italianism%22">observed</a> Salvemini, “one was able to feel Italian and at the same time Catholic, anti-Catholic, conservative, democratic, monarchic, hostile to royalty, socialist, communist, anarchist, and what not…” But after 1922, concluded Salvemini, “The Fascist party became Italy, and the term Italianism came to mean Fascism… Many innocent people swallowed this deceit hook, line and sinker. They were patriots who were unable to disentangle one from the other the notions of nation, state, government, and party in power.” </p>
<p>As exiles, Salvemini and Ascoli devoted themselves to warning Americans that their country was <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=fxVbAAAAIAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=democratic+tools+">as vulnerable as Italy</a> to “the method of using democratic tools and emptying them of democratic goals.” </p>
<p>“Once political freedom is eliminated,” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Na4qAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22fall+of+mussolini%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22instruments+of+democracy%22">wrote</a> Ascoli, “the instruments of democracy can be so used to multiply the power of the tyrannical state. This constitutes the essence of fascism, that is democracy without freedom.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69014/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kimber Quinney is a member of the California Faculty Association and the California State League of Women Voters.</span></em></p>Two Italian scholars who fled fascism in the 1920s urgently warned that American democracy was vulnerable to the same gradual erosion as in Italy. Their message still rings true today.Kimber Quinney, Assistant Professor, History Department; Campus Coordinator for the American Democracy Project, California State University San MarcosLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/634692016-08-04T13:00:10Z2016-08-04T13:00:10ZIn Spain as in Syria, people fight in foreign wars for many reasons, or sometimes none at all<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133081/original/image-20160804-493-xdfg1j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=53%2C104%2C2256%2C1613&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Orwell (tallest, centre) in Huesca, Spain in 1937.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hoover Institution Archives/Harry Milton Papers</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The death of 22-year-old Dean Carl Evans, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-36959218">second British man to be killed fighting the Islamic State in Syria</a> after <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/konstandinos-erik-scurfield-family-pays-tribute-to-the-first-british-soldier-killed-by-isis-10085854.html">Konstandinos Erik Scurfield</a> was killed last year, should prompt us to wonder why he and others would choose to travel to the frontline and involve themselves in the bloody civil war of a country other than their own.</p>
<p>Trying to understand the motivations of foreign fighters such as Evans has invited historical comparisons, particularly with the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-disturbing-parallels-between-syrias-civil-war-and-spain-in-the-1930s-9096762.html">International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War</a>. Richard Baxell, historian of the British Battalion of the International Brigades, has <a href="http://discoversociety.org/2015/01/03/on-the-frontline-british-volunteers-in-the-spanish-and-syrian-civil-wars">argued against making generalisations</a> about their motivations. Suggestions of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/jun/28/mi5-spanish-civil-war-britain">ideological naivety or extremism alone</a> can be particularly misleading.</p>
<p>Journalist George Monbiot has used the history of the International Brigades to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/10/orwell-hero-terrorism-syria-british-fighters-damned">argue against prosecuting returnees from Syria</a>. But to understand the problems faced by those returning from both conflicts revolves around not just why they fought, but who they fought for.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133085/original/image-20160804-505-w6cq94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/133085/original/image-20160804-505-w6cq94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133085/original/image-20160804-505-w6cq94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133085/original/image-20160804-505-w6cq94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133085/original/image-20160804-505-w6cq94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133085/original/image-20160804-505-w6cq94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/133085/original/image-20160804-505-w6cq94.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dean Carl Evans, 22, from Berkshire, who was killed fighting alongside the Kurdish YPG.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ragihandina YPG</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How history judges</h2>
<p>Few of those volunteering for the International Brigades had any understanding of the situation in Spain which led to Franco’s coup in July 1936. Most were <a href="http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj84/durgan.htm">working-class activists motivated by anti-fascism</a>, not Stalinist stooges. Equally, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-peter-kemp-1501984.html">those volunteering for Franco</a> had little idea of the politics in Spain, and typically went for adventure, not anti-communism. The war in Spain was seen by those who went not as a domestic civil conflict, but part of a growing global war against fascism – or communism.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most famous of those that fought in Spain is George Orwell. For the eight months he was in Spain, Orwell didn’t fight with the International Brigades but instead with POUM, a tiny <a href="https://libcom.org/history/international-volunteers-poum-militias">anti-Stalinist militia</a> that he joined largely by chance. Later, intending to join the larger International Brigades, he was instead caught up in fighting in Barcelona in 1937 between his comrades and Stalinist factions – supposedly fighting on the same side against Franco. Disillusioned, he left the country. </p>
<p>Reflecting on his time in Spain, he wrote in his memoir <a href="http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/by-orwell/homage-to-catalonia/">Homage to Catalonia</a> that in retrospect he would rather have joined the anarchist militias than either of the other groups. Not out of political sympathies, but because they were the largest force in Catalonia where he fought. Orwell, like others, wanted to travel to Spain because of its international significance, but even he <a href="http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj62/newsinger.htm">had little idea how things would play out on the ground when he arrived</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JlvfDS0FlT8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>The same is true in Syria. Those supposedly motivated by radical Islam do not necessarily fight for ISIS, but can end up in <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/29/iraq-and-syria-how-many-foreign-fighters-are-fighting-for-isil/">a range of different Sunni- and Shia-led rebel groups</a>. As was the case for those like Orwell en route to Spain, the different paths volunteers take into Syria can affect which organisation they join.</p>
<p>Most volunteers from the West fighting in Syria against Islamic State are ex-servicemen, often <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2846023/Former-British-infantryman-joins-Kurdish-fighters-Syria-defending-beleaguered-town-against-ISIS.html">informed by experiences in Afghanistan or Iraq</a>. Others certainly are adventurers and are motivated by the thrill of danger. Most <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/magazine/meet-the-american-vigilantes-who-are-fighting-isis.html?_r=0">travel individually or in small groups</a>, rather than through organised recruitment networks. </p>
<p>In fact a commitment to fight radical Islam is perhaps the only unifying feature of these Western volunteers. Most, like Evans and Scurfield, end up in the <a href="http://thekurdishproject.org/history-and-culture/kurdish-nationalism/peoples-protection-units-ypg/">Kurdish YPG</a>, People’s Protection Units, which openly welcomes Western recruits. Recruits are often unaware of the domestic politics of the region they are entering. Those motivated by more conservative or right-wing anti-Islamic views find themselves increasingly at odds with the radical Kurdish leftists in the YPG – with the result that <a href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/christian-foreign-fighters-deserting-kurdish-ypg-syria-because-theyre-damned-reds-1976493133">many leave</a>.</p>
<p>Our view of the war is shaped by those aspects that become most visible through the media. The YPG are the best-known rebel group fighting ISIS in Syria, partly due to the deaths of the two Britons fighting for them. The anxiety over the intentions of returning volunteers of a Muslim background gives this aspect prominence. Together this reinforces the idea of a war where combatants are either for or against Islam, rather than the far more <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/12/understanding-syria-from-pre-civil-war-to-post-assad/281989/">complex reality of Middle Eastern and international politics</a>.</p>
<p>Orwell returned from Spain in 1937, but the civil war raged until 1939. In Homage to Catalonia, Orwell to some extent punctured the myth that the conflict was merely the ideological fight against fascism – for some it was the fight against communism, documenting the complexities of Spanish politics and the strife that flared between groups supposedly fighting on the same side. Ironically, by the time of the book’s publication in 1938, the world did indeed face a fight against fascism with the rise of Nazism in Germany leading Europe into World War II.</p>
<p>As noted by writer <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/news/homage-to-latakia/">Michael Petrou</a>, it is the failure of international powers to intervene that has led to the war in Syria, just as non-intervention facilitated the rise of Franco. The desire of individuals to act when presented with the inaction of the international community explains the allure of the conflict to idealists, mercenaries and adventurers alike.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63469/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Lambert is affiliated with the International Brigades Memorial Trust in Britain and the Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica in Spain.</span></em></p>Comparisons of foreign volunteers in Syria to the International Brigades of Spain are apt, but not for the reasons you think.Michael Lambert, PhD Researcher, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/624052016-07-22T10:07:57Z2016-07-22T10:07:57ZWhy calls for ‘unity’ are not enough: Look at the 1930s and 1940s<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130803/original/image-20160717-2141-7lsavt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Preaching unity in 1948 on the Freedom Train</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Freedom_Train_Postcard_(19078943832).jpg">US National Archives and Records Administration </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. is in the midst of a tepid economic recovery following a catastrophic downturn, but millions of Americans continue to feel left behind. Some turn their anger on corporations and Wall Street. Others target nonwhite immigrant workers. A charismatic media personality with a populist message attacks religious minorities. Conservatives denounce the president and his allies for flouting the Constitution and steering the United States toward socialism. Meanwhile, many on the left warn that fascism is taking root in America.</p>
<p>This may sound like 2016, but in fact it describes the U.S. toward the end of the Depression decade.</p>
<p>The parallels between the two eras aren’t perfect, but in the late 1930s – as today – political rancor, social division and the threat posed by “alien” ideologies sparked widespread unease. And just as politicians and commentators <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/07/13/us/politics/ap-us-campaign-2016.html?_r=1">in recent weeks</a> have called for “unity” in the face of political and racial strife, so too did their counterparts <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A06EFD9133FE23ABC4B53DFB7668382629EDE&legacy=true">in the late 1930s.</a></p>
<p>These earlier Americans acted on their words.</p>
<p>During the late 1930s and 1940s, an array of American elites from business executives and government officials to clergymen and Hollywood tycoons launched a variety of efforts to build civic unity and national consensus. These efforts continued into the early 1960s. </p>
<p>Indeed, such campaigns are one reason that <a href="http://www.basicbooks.com/full-details?isbn=9780465061969">many Americans today</a> think of the immediate postwar decades as a golden age of harmony and concord.</p>
<p>As a historian who <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inventing-the-american-way-9780195392401?lang=en&cc=us#">has looked closely</a> at these midcentury efforts to cement national cohesion, I believe that while they offer a model, they also offer a warning.</p>
<h2>A nation divided</h2>
<p>In November 1936, Americans went to the polls and awarded Franklin Delano Roosevelt a second presidential term. It was one of the most lopsided elections in U.S. history, with Roosevelt winning <a href="http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/nov-3-1936-franklin-roosevelt-re-elected-in-landslide/?_r=0">almost 61 percent</a> of the vote. </p>
<p>Any sense of unity that the election provided, however, rapidly unraveled <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/freedom-from-fear-9780195144031?cc=us&lang=en&">in the face</a> of a new economic downturn, a Supreme Court crisis and emerging divisions in the Democratic Party. </p>
<p><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inventing-the-american-way-9780195392401?lang=en&cc=us#">The late 1930s</a> were marked by sit-down strikes, violent repression of workers, and attacks by vigilante groups on Jews, Catholics, racial minorities and leftists. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131282/original/image-20160720-31129-f8ake7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131282/original/image-20160720-31129-f8ake7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131282/original/image-20160720-31129-f8ake7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131282/original/image-20160720-31129-f8ake7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131282/original/image-20160720-31129-f8ake7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131282/original/image-20160720-31129-f8ake7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131282/original/image-20160720-31129-f8ake7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Picket line at 1937 strike in Flint, Michigan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/1995">Walter P. Reuther Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005516">Father Charles Coughlin</a>, the charismatic “radio priest” whose economic populism had attracted an audience of millions (<a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/18405/voices-of-protest-by-alan-brinkley/9780394716282/">one in 10</a> American families with a radio tuned in regularly), turned in 1938 openly and stridently anti-Semitic. Coughlin’s followers and members of other newly formed anti-Semitic groups held mass rallies, stockpiled weapons and beat up Jews. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Communists, preaching a mix of class and racial equality, made inroads in the labor movement, among artists and intellectuals, and in minority communities. <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/6698.html">They could claim 82,000 members and many more sympathizers</a> by the close of 1938. </p>
<p>All this alarmed American elites across the political spectrum.</p>
<p>Those on the left saw in union-busting, red-baiting and surging intolerance evidence of what <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inventing-the-american-way-9780195392401?lang=en&cc=us#">The New York Times and others called</a> “an American brand of fascism.” Those <a href="http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1938/10/17/page/12/article/american-communism-in-the-new-deal">on the right believed</a> trade unionists, leftists and, above all, New Dealers were ushering in “state socialism.” </p>
<p>Members of both groups urged Americans to unite around “shared” national values, although they often disagreed on precisely what those values were.</p>
<p>Temporary unity came with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and U.S. entry into World War II. But <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inventing-the-american-way-9780195392401?lang=en&cc=us#">in 1943</a> – and again in 1946 – the U.S. was rocked by massive strikes, race riots and other forms of social unrest. </p>
<p>One of the worst wartime race riots occurred in Detroit in June 1943. By the time federal troops were called in to quell the riot, 25 blacks and nine whites lay dead. Nearly a thousand people had been injured. </p>
<h2>Unity campaigns</h2>
<p>U.S. elites responded to this turmoil with numerous initiatives designed to promote social harmony and consensus. They were aided by a new infrastructure of institutions – some public, others private – that emerged immediately before and during World War II. </p>
<p>For instance, during the war, the <a href="https://nccj.org/our-story">National Conference of Christians and Jews</a> preached interfaith tolerance in military installations and USO canteens from Norfolk, Virginia to Nome, Alaska. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131510/original/image-20160721-32628-1yksc6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131510/original/image-20160721-32628-1yksc6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131510/original/image-20160721-32628-1yksc6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131510/original/image-20160721-32628-1yksc6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131510/original/image-20160721-32628-1yksc6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131510/original/image-20160721-32628-1yksc6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131510/original/image-20160721-32628-1yksc6t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=299&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Institute for American Democracy, Poster, 1945.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://digitalcollections.mcmaster.ca/institute-american-democracy-poster-1945">Local History & Archives, Hamilton Public Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the war, the NCCJ and several other groups worked with the newly formed <a href="http://www.adcouncil.org/About-Us/The-Story-of-the-Ad-Council">Advertising Council</a> on a long-running public service campaign dubbed “United America.” Using radio spots, car cards and other forms of advertising, they urged Americans to “keep America strong” by “isolating and quarantining group antagonism,” not only between religious, racial and ethnic groups, but also between management and labor. </p>
<p>The Advertising Council played a key role in the most ambitious “unity” campaign of the era, the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inventing-the-american-way-9780195392401?lang=en&cc=us#">Freedom Train</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130802/original/image-20160717-2153-1ilt3ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130802/original/image-20160717-2153-1ilt3ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130802/original/image-20160717-2153-1ilt3ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130802/original/image-20160717-2153-1ilt3ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130802/original/image-20160717-2153-1ilt3ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130802/original/image-20160717-2153-1ilt3ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130802/original/image-20160717-2153-1ilt3ef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Freedom Train gets a visit in Los Angeles, February 1948.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Freedom_Train,_LA_%2748.jpg">Los Angeles Daily News</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Between September 1947 and January 1949, a red-white-and-blue locomotive carried more than 120 original documents and artifacts – ranging from Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence to the flag planted at Iwo Jima – through hundreds of cities in all 48 states.</p>
<p>The train’s journal was coordinated with hundreds of local celebrations dubbed patriotic “revival meetings” and a nationwide media blitz. Conceived in the attorney general’s office, organized by movie and advertising executives and financed by America’s largest corporations, the Freedom Train portrayed a nation that was <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/inventing-the-american-way-9780195392401?lang=en&cc=us#">unified, consensual and inclusive</a>. </p>
<p>This veneer of unity, however, concealed a behind-the-scenes contest over America’s core values. </p>
<p>Which documents should be included in the exhibit? How should they be interpreted? Should a train displaying the Emancipation Proclamation allow segregated viewing in stops below the Mason-Dixon line? Even the word “democracy” – which had both political and economic overtones – was ultimately deemed too controversial to be used in slogans and press materials.</p>
<p>As these examples suggest, “unity” campaigns often promoted civility rather than real social change.</p>
<h2>The ‘race problem’</h2>
<p>After race riots exploded across the country in 1943, hundreds of cities, states and community organizations set up committees designed to defuse racial, religious and ethnic tensions. </p>
<p>The “Civic Unity Movement,” as this campaign was called, focused attention on the “race problem” in America and achieved some real gains. The Toledo board, for instance, persuaded local hospitals to hire black nurses. </p>
<p>Too often, however, these groups shunned tactics that risked increasing tensions by antagonizing racists. In Chicago, for instance, black efforts to move into neighborhoods claimed by whites led to hundreds of racial incidents – vandalism, arson bombings and full-scale riots – between 1944 and 1949. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131283/original/image-20160720-31117-1u8ef8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/131283/original/image-20160720-31117-1u8ef8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131283/original/image-20160720-31117-1u8ef8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131283/original/image-20160720-31117-1u8ef8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131283/original/image-20160720-31117-1u8ef8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131283/original/image-20160720-31117-1u8ef8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/131283/original/image-20160720-31117-1u8ef8x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A car burns in Detroit riot 1943.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://reuther.wayne.edu/node/13076">Detroit News, Walter P Reuther Library, Wayne State University</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet, as historian <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3627598.html">Arnold Hirsch</a> has shown, these events were barely covered by the city’s metropolitan dailies. City unity commissions convinced Chicago’s white-owned newspapers that covering such episodes would only fan the flames of racial unrest. This helped to sustain an image of racial harmony and consensus that was often at odds with events on the ground.</p>
<p>Such unity-building efforts did help to discredit open prejudice against both religious and racial minorities. For the most part, however, they failed to address the structural inequalities of race and class that have haunted this nation for decades. </p>
<p>By marginalizing dissenters and casting all who disrupted national unity as somehow un-American they shored up existing power structures and left intact the social and economic status quo. </p>
<p>By the mid-1960s, the resulting tensions could no longer be contained. <a href="http://www.eisenhowerfoundation.org/docs/kerner.pdf">A new round of race riots</a> in Los Angeles, Newark, Detroit and other cities called attention to America’s continuing economic and racial inequalities. This is a lesson that our current national leaders would do well to remember.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wendy Wall receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has also received grants from a number of archives and foundations, including the Social Welfare History Archives at the University of Minnesota, the Rockefeller Archives Center, the Gilder Lehrman Foundation, the Hagley Museum and Library, and the Harry S. Truman Library Institute.</span></em></p>Previous efforts to cement national cohesion offer a model but also, says a historian, a warning.Wendy Wall, Associate Professor, 20th century American history, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/556892016-03-04T15:22:02Z2016-03-04T15:22:02ZThe political leaders taking a lead from their mothers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113746/original/image-20160303-9493-19j5xel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=112%2C160%2C2768%2C1633&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Delivering life lessons.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/merille/3479029602/in/photolist-6iqWi1-wbQzV4-7WzJPj-5NRjvg-4Vua83-o4a6VH-7ZJoDA-ro44WT-5UH7v7-zCpAqa-gL6ECy-4bvYbu-6Js8XR-64DxSU-bpY1Rh-iT58Z-Dd4ayB-9VHCUh-qCKNi7-6HGXtD-rArigR-m4Jdsh-a96NpL-6XF8t8-9Jb3AU-9S8XRU-5VAWrf-rceUmT-6ayNc2-4R69d9-iNv2mT-4Tm8Gb-d4t59Y-mDrW1-kUVSd-DjNryJ-5RYiK-kzLcv2-aFUGft-5NVzmS-boxoZJ-m2W6Uf-9cvQRr-p5rjhw-9J8ceV-9sBocB-bXz5rq-bDPSVM-AGonUA-bkPkYB">Eduardo Merille/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When it comes to politics, maybe every day is Mothers’ Day. A recent exchange in parliament between Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Prime Minister David Cameron about potential advice their mothers might have given them on the NHS, reminded us how they play a key role in inspiring children’s deeply held beliefs, and their political views. </p>
<p>It does seem that a mother’s behaviour, actions and words are particularly able to imbue children with ideals, an understanding of reality, and have a profound effect on their life choices. In the <a href="http://copac.jisc.ac.uk/search?isn=9780719563393&rn=1">biography of Winston Churchill’s mother Jennie Churchill</a>, the author Anne Sebba tells us how he became Jennie’s great project, and how the two had an intense mutual dependency. Despite Jennie dying suddenly in 1921, Winston had acquired from her an unshakeable faith in his own destiny, an indomitable passion, and his emblematic belief that life had to be lived to the full. </p>
<p>More recently, a biography of Barack Obama’s mother written by Janny Scott, a New York Times reporter, shows how Ann Dunham was the dominant influence on the young <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10400627-a-singular-woman">US president’s life</a>. She had a major effect on his moral beliefs, and instilled in him a sense of public service, or even as Obama described it to Scott, a sense of “naive idealism”. In the book, he credits his mother “for what is best in me.” </p>
<p>So when Corbyn and Cameron traded jibes about their mothers’ likely advice to their now-powerful sons, it shouldn’t have sounded odd at all. At the <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmhansrd/chan119.pdf">weekly session of Prime Minister’s Questions</a>, Cameron was told to ask his mother about the state of the National Health Service, and this is what followed:</p>
<p><strong>Cameron:</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ask my mother? I know what my mother would say. She would look across the dispatch box and say, ‘put on a proper suit, do up your tie and sing the national anthem’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Corbyn:</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we are talking of motherly advice, my late mother would have said: ‘stand up for the principle of a health service free at the point of use for everybody.’ That is what she dedicated her life to, as did many of her generation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We don’t know, of course, if this is word-for-word what their mothers would have said; what we do know is that these sentences reflect an image of two very different mothers. Indeed, the mothers of both men are women with a great civic sense and what looks like a heartfelt dedication to public service, but from very different perspectives. </p>
<h2>Enter the mothers</h2>
<p>[Mary Mount Cameron](http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Mary_Fleur_Mount_(1934), born in 1934, is the daughter of Sir William Mount, whose ancestry can be traced as far back as William the Conqueror. She is a retired Justice of Peace, a volunteer magistrate, who her son says <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/7849717/Magistrates-Court-where-David-Camerons-mother-worked-is-axed-in-costs-savings-plan.html">carried out her public office</a> with dignity and understatement. </p>
<p>She used to tell her children stories about the cases she was deciding upon, like the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/7849717/Magistrates-Court-where-David-Camerons-mother-worked-is-axed-in-costs-savings-plan.html">Newbury bypass protest</a> or in Cameron’s words, about “Swampy up his tree”, referring to a well-known eco-protester. As a magistrate, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/peterhenley/2010/08/closing_mrs_camerons_magistrat.html">one of her biggest challenges</a> was to deal with women who were staging protests at the <a href="http://www.feministtimes.com/reflections-greenham-11-december-1983/">feminist peace camp at Greenham Common</a>, and she is known to have sent some to prison.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-AQDOjQGZuA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Battle of Cable Street.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Corbyn’s mother, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/11859396/How-underachieving-Jeremy-Corbyn-is-on-the-verge-of-surprising-everyone.html">Naomi Josling</a> (1915-1987), was a maths teacher, and had attended university, a rarity at the time. She was involved in the left-wing politics of the thirties, and she is said to have met her husband at a committee meeting in support of the Spanish republic against Franco’s fascist rule. </p>
<p>She took part in 1936 in the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15171772">Battle of Cable Street</a>, stopping Blackshirts marching through the East End area of London. Interestingly she is also known for providing volunteer assistance to the women at Greenham Common, making a 50-mile round journey on her scooter to deliver food. Perhaps providing support to some of the same women who were to be convicted, by magistrates like Mary Cameron.</p>
<p>At the time their fate was crossing at Greenham, little did these two strong, admirable and socially committed women know that their sons would one day trade blows over their imagined advice. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113748/original/image-20160303-9503-3r53qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113748/original/image-20160303-9503-3r53qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113748/original/image-20160303-9503-3r53qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113748/original/image-20160303-9503-3r53qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113748/original/image-20160303-9503-3r53qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113748/original/image-20160303-9503-3r53qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113748/original/image-20160303-9503-3r53qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113748/original/image-20160303-9503-3r53qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Greenham Common Peace Camp in 1984.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/goforchris/3378376785/in/photolist-69x4HB-69Bg85-w3LkPf-72P7gq-72K9rx-72K98H-72K9FK-7mDLDT-8rqWsQ-8rnQ5X-8rqWG1-8rqWeW-8rqX95-8rqXEL-8rnRec-8rqYdw-8rqXmo-8rqXQ9-8rnQEa-9grzzW-coFwGN-obdnZ4-6kCZVx-cqbUSd-coFQXq-6kD2Kr-9NrLb9-aJPSjF-y4fRic">Christine McIntosh</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>British alternatives</h2>
<p>That imagined advice reflected two different visions of what it means to be politically and socially committed.</p>
<p>One reflects a more formal image, of being well presented and singing the national anthem, an image symbolic of public schools and the establishment. The other is marked by a vision of free healthcare to all, more aligned with the democratic and inclusive British spirit. Ultimately both women would have provided very British ideas and values, however divergent. </p>
<p>There is some significant evidence that shows how mothers influence children’s beliefs. Since the 1970s studies have shown that mothers are dominant in terms of predicting children’s ethical, moral and political beliefs. In their <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Psychology_of_Religious_Behaviour_Be.html?id=tJ4PtqEssQkC&redir_esc=y">1997 book</a>, Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi and Michael Argyle explain how mothers have a greater effect than fathers on religious beliefs, while fathers have a greater effect on children’s attendance at religious events.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113749/original/image-20160303-9490-f66rhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113749/original/image-20160303-9490-f66rhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113749/original/image-20160303-9490-f66rhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113749/original/image-20160303-9490-f66rhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113749/original/image-20160303-9490-f66rhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113749/original/image-20160303-9490-f66rhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113749/original/image-20160303-9490-f66rhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113749/original/image-20160303-9490-f66rhu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Beliefs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/adavey/2865416319/in/photolist-5nd1rD-7LJ1jS-5kETh8-6nab5G-8uy6LG-a44Lmz-61rkPi-b4GTMD-7pzL6g-9PAsmW-96Gc4f-9AQHsp-9xUR9c-9678np-qZgUfQ-cWuRaN-7q2Cey-8TNRY-8NoJ42-94pumB-b33CX6-aP3TSa-7JvuZz-6RGkNH-aP3TSM-54cgmm-o8Bzjd-oyJAkZ-cEt3pL-annePc-8skZ98-cWuTMf-jFQZ5G-aCAdji-saVbb1-aa8bae-qz2147-t5UEtD-o7cxEh-annePg-kwtNDj-oGg24L-z9MG8b-Dc1XFy-bcvYPk-9kQud6-a8gxJi-7txnEp-5F3Ezc-atyTo2">Alan/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This can be explained by the fact that mothers are deemed to have more frequent and intense exchanges with their children, therefore imprinting how children make sense of reality and of social norms. In <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x0sjz">their 2015 book</a>, M. Kent Jennings and Richard Niemi also found that kids picked up an understanding of party differences more easily from mothers. </p>
<p>In the serendipitous events of the early 1980s, when Mary Cameron and Naomi Josling where both politically committed but on opposite sides of the Greenham Common Peace Camp, they were giving strong signals to their sons. So strong perhaps that their political DNA would lead them to confront each other in parliament one day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55689/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zahira Jaser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mothering Sunday comes just once a year, but mum’s help build the landscape of politics all year long.Zahira Jaser, PhD Fellow Researching Leadership and Followership, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/146132013-05-24T05:50:03Z2013-05-24T05:50:03ZTit-for-tat extremism only fuels more hatred and violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/24362/original/f9nfr9vd-1369324426.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mindless violence: the mosque in Gillingham, Kent, which was attacked after the Woolwich killing. A man is in police custody on suspicion of racially-aggravated criminal damage</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gareth Fuller/PA Wire</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many people in Britain would have had nightmares last night. The news that a serving British soldier was hacked to death on the streets of London and the graphic images broadcast and printed by the media filled the majority of the public with horror, disbelief and anger.</p>
<p>This was clearly the case with the Muslim Council of Britain which, within hours of the attack, <a href="http://www.itv.com/news/london/update/2013-05-22/muslim-council-of-britain-statement-on-machete-murder/">publicly condemned</a> the murder of the young soldier, stating: “Muslims have long served in this country’s armed services proudly and with honour. This attack on a member of the armed forces is dishonourable and no cause can justify this murder.”</p>
<p>Likewise, the <a href="http://www.namp-uk.com/">National Association of Muslim Police</a> declared, in no uncertain terms, that: “these acts are not the acts of a Muslim and are condemned in Islam” and reiterated: “Islam is a religion of peace.”</p>
<p>Yet according to the English Defence League, these rejections of political violence by Muslim organisations in Britain hide the real face of Islam. EDL leader Tommy Robinson declared: “Islam is not a religion of peace, it is fascist and it is violent. We support our troops but enough is enough, this has to end.” </p>
<p>This is not the first such inflammatory statement by Robinson. Some years ago at a Tower Hamlets demonstration he claimed: “The Islamic community will feel the full force of the EDL if we see any of our citizens killed, maimed or hurt on British soil ever again.”</p>
<h2>Rise of the ‘new far-right’</h2>
<p>These statements are the reason academics are increasingly willing to describe the EDL and similar anti-Muslim movements as a kind of “new far-right”. The traditional stock-in-trade of far-right groups historically was a biological racism and white supremacism that is largely absent from EDL demonstrations and online discourse,</p>
<p>But white supremacism is not the only form of racism. A cultural prejudice characterising all Muslims as potential jihadists is palpably <a href="http://www.demos.co.uk/projects/thefarrightineurope">on the rise in Europe</a> and the US – and Britain is not immune. In fact it raises the spectre of a complicity between extremes that harms community cohesion and increases the risks for the vast majority who reject political violence and extremism from wherever it arises.</p>
<p>One recent incident of what Teesside University’s new <a href="http://www.tees.ac.uk/sections/news/pressreleases_story.cfm?story_id=4221&this_issue_title=January%202013&this_issue=236">Centre for the Study of Fascism, anti-Fascism and post-Fascism</a>, has called “tit-for-tat” extremism occurred when a jihadi Islamist gang <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22344054">plotted to blow up</a> an EDL demonstration in Dewsbury in June 2012. The attempted use of bombs by these Islamist extremists was specifically targeted at the EDL but, in incidents such as these, innocent bystanders are often injured too.</p>
<h2>Facebook-era fanatics</h2>
<p>Surely it is a concern that Tommy Robinson was able to mobilise hundreds of EDL supporters so rapidly after the Woolwich attack. As scholars have long noted, this movement is a <a href="http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jakewallissimons/100218266/the-far-right-edl-is-using-twitter-and-facebook-to-exploit-the-woolwich-terrorist-attack/">child of the Facebook generation</a>, adept at using social media to galvanise action. That is what happened in south London and led to clashes with the police in the hours after the attack.</p>
<p>Sadly that will not be the last of these tit-for-tat incidents where extremes on both sides raise tensions in our communities, invoking fear among people who would normally reject political extremism.</p>
<p>Among the many issues raised by Woolwich, this tit-for-tat extremism should not be underestimated. Extremists, who are all too willing to condemn whole groups (be they Muslims or British soldiers) on the basis of single acts of violence are more alike than they might realise.</p>
<p>It may just turn out that extremists need each other to fuel their own hatred and natural inclinations to violence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/14613/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Feldman works for Teesside University.</span></em></p>Many people in Britain would have had nightmares last night. The news that a serving British soldier was hacked to death on the streets of London and the graphic images broadcast and printed by the media…Matthew Feldman, Reader, School of Arts and Media, Teesside UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.