I’m concerned as to whether or not violence actually affects anything positive. I get that it’s supposed to scare them into shutting up, but it doesn’t seem to be having that effect. It seems to be helping their victimhood act. I get that people should know better than to fall for that act, but the fact is that they apparently don’t, so we need to take that into account strategically. It would obviously be to their benefit to pay fake rioters to do violence. Should we then do that for free?

antifainternational:

This is a hotly-debated question among anti-fascists and anti-racists.  Here’s the way we believe this question should be approached: if you discovered that there was a gang of fascists was in your community recruiting members and publicly organizing, what could you do about it?  Here are the range of options:

1) Ignore them and hope they just magically go away.

The problem with this, of course, is that it does not work.  History has very clearly shown us that ignoring violent racist extremists doesn’t make them go away; on the contrary, it gives them license to intimidate, attack, and eventually murder the people belonging to groups they’ve targeted – racialized people, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, religious minorities, etc.  This is because fascists take your total disregard of their presence as a sign that you agree with them.  It also lets the people they target know that no one will defend or support them.  As novelist Joy Kogawa put it, “if there’s just one thing that history teaches us, just one thing, it’s that bystanders and perpetrators are both on the same side.“ 

2) Report them to the authorities.
  
People that believe this is the way to address fascists in their communities are often extremely disappointed with the result.  The authorities aren’t going to do anything to stop fascist plans until they have injured or killed somebody.  To our mind, that is far, far too late.

There are other problems with relying on the authorities to solve fascism and racism as well.  The old saying “cops and the Klan go hand-in-hand” doesn’t just come from police going out of their way to protect fascists and racists while viciously attacking those brave enough to confront fascists.

It also comes from decades of evidence of police involvement as members of fascist and racist groups themselves.   Some notorious examples of this include:

– the police in Greensboro, North Carolina colluding with the KKK to allow them to shoot up an anti-racist demonstration, killing five people;

– this asshole:

– this police department/KKK Klavern in Florida;

Then there are things like the time when the Canadian spy agency funneled money and intelligence to one of the main organizers of the neo-nazi Heritage Front, allowing it to grow into the largest white supremacist group in the country.  Or the time when Germany’s intelligence agency, which had been paying money to neo-nazi organizers, became aware of a neo-nazi gang’s serial murder plot and instead of stepping in, actively obstructed and tampered with the police investigation.  The neo-nazi gang would go on to murder nine immigrants and one police officer along with committing two bombings and fifteen bank robberies.  

Finally, there is the fact that in most cities, racialized people are more likely to be killed by police than by any other group of people.  So no, 2) is not a great option.

Which brings us to:

3) Take up some form of passive protest against them.

The favorite choice of liberals everywhere!  But the problem with pacifism is that it only works when the opposing side has a conscience.  Fascists not only lack that, but they actively fetishize and valorize violence as a legitimate political mechanism, a preferred political tactic, and a philosophical principle that builds group cohesion and commitment.  So bravo to liberals for deciding to do something about fascism but they quickly discover that they have to then choose whether or not they wish to be the victims of fascism, because opposing fascists necessitates self-defence.  Liberals that don’t understand this wind up making the same mistakes of people like the White Rose Society.    

So what’s left, then?

4) Expose, oppose, and confront them whenever they appear and defend yourself and your community as necessary.
 
This is the tactic the majority of antifa choose.  It’s also the one that has, to our mind, the most effective over the last seventy years or so.  There’s abundant evidence of that to be found in examples like The 43 Group, Anti-Fascist Action, The Torch Antifa Network, The Anti-Fascist Network, and dozens more.  

Finally:

5) Hunting down and killing fascists.  

Which, to our knowledge, is very illegal in most places.

So Anon, which do you think is the right option to choose when fascists are publicly organizing and recruiting in your town?