A page member recently sent us this article from the Anti-Defamation League, and we would like to take this opportunity to correct – again – some misinformation. We have no reason to believe this misinformation was created deliberately – i.e. that it is disinformation – but it’s still factually erroneous and needs correction.
https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/who-are-antifa
“The anti-fascist protest movement known as antifa”
We are not a movement. We are an idea – and a poorly labeled one, born of propaganda, but clearly we’re going to have to work with it. AntiFa is a concept. That concept is opposing fascism.
“antifa activists have aggressively confronted”
No, we haven’t.
“These violent counter-protesters are often part of “antifa””
No, they aren’t. Violence is the tool of fascists. We are anti-fascists.
“Most antifa come from the anarchist movement or from the far left”
No, they don’t. “AntiFa” is anti-fascist. If you are not a fascist, you are anti-fascist. We are housewives, students, grandparents, fathers, sons, and daughters. We are capitalists, communists, socialists and every other “-ists” except “fascists.” If you oppose fascism, you are “anti-fa.”
“The antifa movement began in the 1960s in Europe, and had reached the US by the end of the 1970s”
Neither statement is true. The ideological roots of anti-fascism are found in every document throughout human history that opposes authoritarian and totalitarian rule. The earliest prominent use of the label of “anti-fascism” was by Benito Mussolini in the late 1920s, and while there is no canonical evidence to make it certain, the great likelihood is that the word was coined originally as a propaganda tool by fascists. The goal of this phrasing is to manipulate public sentiment through language; by labeling opposition to fascism as “anti-fascism,” “fascism” is positioned semantically as the norm while opposition to fascism is consequently, and automatically, positioned as a fringe resistance element.
Nothing could be further from the truth – fascism is anti-human. The only reason we’ve chosen to embrace the label at all is for the sake of debunking and deconstructing well-intended but poorly researched and poorly written screed that simply repeats fascist propaganda verbatim and without critical examination. Fighting against the misnomer a hundred years after it entered public consciousness is Quixotic; instead, we choose to “take it back,” as some other groups have done with similarly degrading and dishonest slurs.
Anti-fascists have always been here in concept. When Italian dictator Benito Mussolini coined the term “fascism” during the early days of the first world war, “anti-fascism” came into existence as a concept – and as a propaganda label (see above) shortly thereafter.
“Today, antifa activists focus on harassing right wing extremists both online and in real life”
Activists who assume the antifa label focus on opposing fascism. That is not harassment; it is defense against harassment. We strongly denounce the use of this propagandist, blame-shifting frame by the ADL – an organization who one should reasonably expect would be just as opposed to fascism as we are, but apparently they aren’t as they choose to frame this as a matter of fringe radicals “harassing” the poor fascists. Be aware of these techniques of disinformation; the more of this article we read, the more concerned we are that the disinformation being propagated in it is no mistake but a deliberate attempt to mislead.
“This is why most established civil rights organizations criticize antifa tactics as dangerous and counterproductive.”
This is also not true, and we invite “most established civil rights organizations” to go ahead and let us know if it is, so we can set the record straight and get the defenders of democracy and human dignity on the same page. We must note again our disappointment and distress at a group whose entire purpose is, ostensibly, to fight against disinformation, engaging in such transparent tactics of manipulation. “Most civil rights organizations” is as meaningless a phrase as “some people are saying.” It’s a cheap trick to establish a false sense of commonality.
“Antifa have expanded their definition of fascist/fascism to include not just white supremacists and other extremists, but also many conservatives and supporters of President Trump.”
This is a flat-out lie. We don’t “expand definitions.” If the behavior and ideological speech of a given actor fits the definition of fascism, they are fascists. If that’s a problem for “President” Trump or anyone else, the solution is to stop acting like fascists.
“Another concern is the misapplication of the label “antifa” to include all counter-protesters, rather than limiting it to those who proactively seek physical confrontations with their perceived fascist adversaries.”
Nobody connected to our organization has never “proactively [sought] physical confrontations with their perceived fascist adversaries.” It becomes clear as we read this that it’s frankly anything but information but instead an egregious hit piece that serves only as right-wing agitprop in support of fascism…which again, in context, is mind-boggling. This isn’t even an error in phrasing; it’s a deliberate inversion of reality.
The truth is, we could go on in this vein with every sentence in this outrageously misinformative propaganda piece. We are absolutely stunned at the deliberate misrepresentation of our values and our purpose, coming from an ostensible “anti-defamation” organization.
We make no demands on the ADL: We simply present these brief rebuttals to their long and entirely fictional propagandist screed by way of condemning it in the strongest possible terms.
We have been sitting here, on this page, out in the broad daylight, for nearly three years. NOT ONE TIME has ANY representative of the media, the government, or any other group or movement ever reached out to us one time.
This kind of radically dishonest and disingenuous misinformation is a large part of that failure, and a large part of why we created this page shortly after the 2017 Charlotte protests.
The Anti-Defamation League owe us all an apology, and their credibility as a civil rights organization is absolutely suspect until they move to correct the propagandist disinformation they are spreading.
Anti-Fascism is anti-fascism, and that’s all that it is.
