Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Interview from, Beating Fascism: Anarchist anti-fascism in theory and practice
Here’s a discussion (late 2005, each in their personal capacity) between somebody from the Kate Sharpley Library, a member of Class War (from the UK) and a North American comrade connected with ‘Three Way Fight’, an anti-fascist web log.
Anti-fascism Now
KSL: What’s your background in anti-fascism?
CW: I got involved with the anti-fascist movement after moving to London in 1992. I saw the ‘Battle of Waterloo’ on TV and thought – I want to be involved in that!
I wrote off to AFA a couple of times, but never got a reply. By that time I had joined Class War, and I just got involved in stuff from there. Usually we would just tag along on events organised by other anti-fascists – usually AFA if it was an action, but we would do our own thing around East London, or tag along with what used to be quite a big group of non-aligned anti-fascists around East London.
By the time AFA was coming to an end in the UK, I was convinced that a range of tactics was needed against fascism, and that direct action would need to be an option in any strategy. I was briefly involved with the No Platform group, and when that petered out I was one of the people who formed Antifa.
3WF: After several years of being active in punk and skinhead circles I came to see that radical anti-authoritarian politics had to be intersecting with a broader layer of people outside of a sub-cultural scene. I started doing Anarchist Black Cross work and got behind the support for an antifascist who was being charged with assault on a Nazi. The Anti Fascist Defense Committee (AFDC) had been created in Minneapolis, Minnesota by various anarchists and anti-racists. Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation was also a key publicizer of the case and defense, with the defendant being a L&R member, as well as having been one of the founders of ARA in the late 1980’s. This defense campaign was around 1993.
With the ABC we were both supporting active militants (like in the case of the AFDC) as well as long time political prisoners (many of whom were Black/New African, Puerto Rican, and Native American/Indigenous). This work was a way to open up dialogue around the whole prison system concept and how ‘law and order’ had, and continues to be, a mechanism for social control, and within the context of the United States, disproportionately affecting poor people and people of color.
The ABC was a positive way of showing radical anarchist politics in motion. By working in united fronts with other groups we would bring our perspectives into the mix and by doing that hopefully contribute to the building of ourselves and our movement by being seen as committed, principled, and serious.
It was around this time that several anarchists and ABC groups started to develop relationships with Lorenzo Komboa Ervin. His book Anarchism and the Black Revolution had a real impact on many class struggle anti-racist anarchists. The fact that Ervin had also been involved with community (and personal) self-defense against White fascist attacks further cemented the link between militant anti-racism, class struggle politics, and revolutionary anarchism.
I had moved to Chicago, Illinois by now and through the ABC was working on different anti-police brutality, anti-prison, and anti-gentrification projects. The work was not necessarily antifascist, but we were always trying to come from a politic that had critical perspectives based on race and class (as well as gender and age).
For some of us, our ABC work started closer collaborations with antifascist projects like ARA. Eventually, the ABC group I had been involved in kinda liquidated itself into ARA. I have been involved expressly with ARA or antifascist politics since then.
KSL: What are the roots of ARA? What have been its most notable successes?
3WF: ARA formed in 1987 when there was a major rift in the skinhead scene between anti-racists and the White Power skins. ARA was created by the Baldies, a multi-racial skinhead crew in Minneapolis. Originally ARA was to be a vehicle to build a larger anti-racist presence to take on the Nazis but it really remained a skinhead movement for the first couple years of it’s life. The reputation of ARA and the Baldies got around the country and you started having ARA and anti-racist skinhead alliances form. The punk press like Maximum Rock and Roll magazine promoted ARA and reported on anti-nazi actions. Actually, MRR is where a lot of us in other parts of the country first heard about the Baldies and ARA, sometime around ’87 and ’88.
By the early 1990’s ARA had morphed into a broader youth oriented movement. It was overwhelmingly anarchist, but had a political openness that prevented it from becoming an exclusionary sect. Also, it was a fighting movement and that really set it apart from much of the left who talked the game but failed to put the boot in.
During the 1990’s ARA started to develop a more popular presence. Different chapters initiated projects ranging from anti-nazi activity, to attacking more institutionalized racism. This later aspect usually materialized as Cop Watch which was a way to monitor and disrupt police in our cities.
I would say that some of the success of ARA was that it was the largest antifascist movement in the US and Canada. During the 1990’s I think it would be fair to say that ARA politicized hundreds of militants and had hundreds more gravitating to it, not necessarily part of a core, but forming the essential periphery. Around 1997 an easy estimate of ARA’s numbers would be 1500-2000 people.
ARA had an uncompromising political edge as well as having a cultural aspect that attracted people. People felt like they were part of a real scene. Militants organized, traveled, and built a movement in a period when there was no internet (wow imagine that – ha!) We had a real network that was based on direct contact and relationships. You could travel to all kinds of cities and there would be an ARA crew to hook up with. More importantly, we were a direct challenge to racist and fascist groups who were trying to organize. Point one of ARA’s unifying plank is:
‘We Go Where They Go. Whenever the fascists are organizing or active in public were there. Never let the fascists have the streets!’
ARA took this seriously. All over the US and Canada from big cities to small towns, if the fascists were active, ARA would organize to shut them down and make it as difficult for them to function as we could. Obviously we had varying success. Sometimes we could smash the fash. Other times we would have to accept a defeat if we were outmanoeuvred and unable to take the ground. Even in those situations ARA tried to make an impact, but sometimes the battle was lost even if the war still went on.
Other instances saw ARA taking on the cops who would be mobilized to defend fascist gatherings. People wanted to get to the fascists and the wall of cops would become one more target of anger. You could have hundreds or thousands of people in some cities come out to protest the fascists. With these numbers you had all kinds of political agendas and perspectives mixing it up. ARA tried to relate to militant and working class anti-racists and ARA’ers would throw themselves into the thick of things. This got ARA recognized by a lot of people. It kinda built a situation where you either loved ARA or hated it, but could never ignore it.
ARA was definitely a big part in making it impossible for some fascist groups from operating. Organizations like the fascist World Church of the Creator eventually could not operate publicly without massive police protection. Even their cadre became targets in their own neighborhoods. I would say that ARA contributed in a big way to the demise of several fascist operations.
KSL: What’re you doing now?
3WF: The US antifascist movement is at a low point currently. For good or bad, groups like ARA follow the same patterns as the fascists. When open fascists are active, so is ARA. When there is no fascist organizing, ARA just kinda flounders. This lack of consistency and the inability to articulate a broader program has lead several militants to step back and rethink our agenda.
I think that fascist groups, like left groups, have periods of growth and action, while also having periods where there is uncertainty over political direction and strategy. What I think is constant is Fascism as an ideology with the potential to pop up and take advantage of situations that have become socially and politically polarized, especially around race, economics and culture. Antifascists need to be developing a broad analysis that considers where the fascist trends could and will emerge.
Unfortunately, most antifascist organizing exists to just engage the fascists on a quasi-military basis. The strategic and more ideological considerations are dealt with on such a minimal basis that sometimes it seems that they are not there at all. I think there is a danger of retreating into our heads and getting so caught up in abstract theorizing that we become do nothing, but there is also a real tendency to just act without an accompanying analysis.
CW: There is a lot to do at the moment. Simply gathering intelligence and being aware of far-right strategy, groups and activists is an enormous task. Anti-fascists in the UK are re-grouping at the moment, at a time when the fascists have never been stronger in this country. We are playing catch up. On a personal level I have spent a lot of time this year studying far-right websites (both UK and US sites) and a lot of time training at the gym – feeding the brain and the body!
KSL: Fascism is shit – is there anything else to say about it?
3WF: I think many people look at fascism and say, ‘What a load of crap. How could anyone really believe that stuff?’ Even many antifascists look at the fascist movement as a joke, violent, but a joke. No doubt the fascist movements have their share of the knuckle-draggers, idiots, and the politically inept, but don’t all movements have these types? I would actually say that in a real fascist movement, the more inept and foolish would be eliminated from the ranks. Fascism prides itself on ability, commitment, and sacrifice.
Fascist movements of the past were popular because they offered a total ideology with accompanying programs for action. Millions embraced fascism not because these people were stupid but because fascism provided a vision for social transformation amidst a time of international crisis. Fascism was able to mobilize masses of people.
I think this is important. The perspective I hold essentially sees fascism as a real movement of ideas that can draw people in and motivate them. It is a ideology and world view we are gonna have to compete with on more than a physical or military level.
CW: Fascism is a dynamic political ideology that seeks to appeal to all classes, to unite those classes within a strong state, under the control of a hierarchical elite. Usually race is a key component of fascism, and it is always staunchly anti-socialist, and opposed to any independent organisation of the working class. Fascism is usually opposed to internationalism, unless that internationalism is based on race.
