“Though
the FBI has said it is seeking information on 'violent instigators
who are
exploiting legitimate, peaceful protests and engaging in violations
of
federal law,' it has not issued a public statement since the start of
the
national
unrest singling out antifa.
-- Alexander Mallin, Justice Department Reporter at ABC News (June 3, 2020)
“Antifa, antifa! Antifa
is full of bad terrorists!” I imagine, you, like me, have heard the
president and others call out antifa – Trump, himself, has made
repeated threats to formally designate antifa as a terrorist group.
His attorney general, William Barr, in a statement denounced
"violence instigated and carried out by antifa and other similar
groups,” however, the Justice Department as of June 4 has not made
public direct evidence showing widespread involvement by avowed
antifa supporters in instigating the violent scenes that have
unfolded throughout the U.S.
Are you also like me in
that you really have no earthly idea what antifa is? I decided to
take a look.
Antifa, which is shorthand
for "anti-fascism," say the movement originates with groups
that opposed World War II-era dictators like Italy's Benito Mussolini
and Adolf Hitler. Some antifa groups date the origins of their
movement to fights against European fascists in the 1920s and 1930s.
According to historians, antifa movements in the U.S. can be traced
back as early as the 1970s.
Antifa has attracted more
public attention in recent years both in the U.S. and abroad for its
militant followers' provocations and, in some cases, violent attacks
at political rallies and protests. More people began joining the
movement in the United States after the 2016 election of Mr. Trump,
to counter the threat they believed was posed by the so-called
“alt-right.”
Mark Bray, a history
professor at Rutgers University and author of The Anti-Fascist
Handbook, says …
"It's not one
specific organization with a headquarters and a president and a chain
of command. It's a kind of politics. In a sense, there are plenty of
antifa groups, but antifa itself is not a group."
(Alexander
Mallin. “What is antifa? Behind the group Trump wants to designate
as a
terrorist organization. ABC News. June 3, 2020.)
No one know how many
people count themselves as members. Its followers acknowledge that
the movement is secretive, has no official leaders and is organized
into autonomous local cells. It is also only one in a great many
activist movements that have come together in the past few years to
oppose the far right.
Federal law enforcement
has interpreted the antifa movement as a terrorist group, a group,
which in certain instances, has protests that have devolved into
violence, looting and vandalism. Still, in the several federal cases
brought thus far against those involved in riots or arsons, antifa
has not yet been cited as among the affiliations or inspirations of
the individuals charged.
FBI
Director Christopher Wray
says …
"For us, antifa we
view as more of an ideology than an organization. We have quite a
number though, I should tell you, of properly predicated
investigations of what we categorize as ‘anarchist extremists,'
people who are trying to commit violent, criminal activity that
violates federal law, and some of those people do subscribe to what
we would describe as – to what we would refer to as kind of an
antifa-like ideology."
(Alexander
Mallin. “What is antifa? Behind the group Trump wants to designate
as a
terrorist organization. ABC News. June 3, 2020.)
Antifa has been labeled “far left” – its members' radical views vary. People accuse members of intersecting with communism, socialism and anarchism.
Antifa members campaign
against actions they view as authoritarian, homophobic, racist or
xenophobic. Although antifa is not affiliated with other movements on
the left – and is sometimes viewed as a distraction by other
organizers – its members sometimes work with other local activist
networks that are rallying around the same issues, such as the Occupy
movement or Black Lives Matter.
Antifa
followers are said to lack faith in the ability of federal, state, or
local governments to properly investigate or prosecute fascists who
break the law, especially during shows of force at public marches.
Supporters generally seek
to stop what they see as fascist, racist and far-right groups from
having a platform to promote their views. Antifa believes public
demonstration of those ideas leads to the targeting of marginalized
people, including racial minorities, women and members of the
L.G.B.T.Q. community.
Bray acknowledges many
antifa organizers participate in more peaceful forms of community
organizing, but they believe that using violence is justified because
of their views that if racist or fascist groups are allowed to
organize freely, “it will inevitably result in violence against
marginalized communities.”
Bray says …
“They do different
things at different times in different ways, some of which there is
evidence of them breaking the law. Other times there is not.”
(Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Sandra E. Garcia. “What
Is Antifa, the Movement Trump Wants to Declare a Terror Group?” The
New York Times. June 2, 2020.)
Antifa makes historical
arguments to justify their position. For instance, they ask, what if
opponents of the German Nazi Party had been more forceful in their
opposition in the 1930s, could World War Two and the Holocaust have
been averted?
A 2018 Congressional
Research Service report outlined four "obligations" that
antifa groups typically encourage of their followers, including,
- track the activity of fascist groups,
- oppose their public organizing,
- support antifascist allies attacked by fascists or arrested by police, and
- not cooperate with law enforcement."
Conservative publications
and politicians routinely rail against supporters of antifa, who they
say are seeking to shut down peaceful expression of conservative
views.
Between 2010 and 2016, 53
percent of terrorist attacks in the United States were carried out by
religious extremists – 35 percent by right-wing extremists and 12
percent by left-wing or environmentalist extremists, according to a
University of Maryland-led consortium that studies terrorism – The
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism.
(Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs and Sandra E. Garcia. “What
Is Antifa, the Movement Trump Wants to Declare a Terror Group?” The
New York Times. June 2, 2020.)
Members of the “alt-right”
broadly portray protesters who oppose them as “antifa,” or the
“alt-left,” and say they bear some responsibility for any
violence that ensues. But analysts said comparing antifa with
neo-Nazi or white supremacist protesters was a false equivalence.
Brian Levin, the director
of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State
University, San Bernardino, explains …
“Comparing Antifa to
Mr. Fields’s act – the Charlottesville car attack – is like
comparing a propeller plane to a C-130 transport.”
The New
York Times. August 15, 2017.)
J. J. MacNab, a fellow in
the Program on Extremism at George Washington University says …
“Antifa and black
bloc — the far left of today — engaging in street brawls and
property damage, while reprehensible, is “not domestic terrorism.”
The New
York Times. August 15, 2017.)
Gary LaFree, one the
researchers and the director of the University of Maryland’s
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism, concludes …
“We find that the
right groups and the jihadi groups are more violent than the left.”
The New
York Times. August 15, 2017.)
Antifa is not a discrete
or centralized group, so it’s unclear how the government could give
it a designation as a terrorist organization. That designation
matters for a variety of legal reasons, not least of which anyone in
the United States who lends support to an organization on that list
can face terrorism-related charges.
But defining an act of
terrorism is different than designating an entire group as a terror
organization. Joshua Geltzer, a former senior counterterrorism
official in the Obama White House and founding executive director at
the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at the
Georgetown University Law Center, explains …
“U.S. law does the
1st (defining an act of terrorism). It doesn’t permit the 2nd.
(designating an entire group as a terror organization).”
(Eric Tucker. “What
is antifa? A look at the movement Trump is blaming
for violence at
protests.” PBS News Hour. June 1, 2020.)
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