Research Paper on Antifa Group

Introduction

The American government experiences many challenges in passing and implementation of the federal policies. In most cases, the government faces stiff opposition from the public that harbor some ill-intentioned groups. However, the government prejudices some groups that participate actively in the opposition activities like the Antifa group. The Antifa group is a composite of the anti-fascist military who are self-styled in the United States of America. One principal feature of this conglomerated movement is their strong opposition to fascism by a direct act of direct participation (Warren, 2017).

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Some of the immediate acts are through the participation in protests by application of militant protest methods by damaging property and inducement of physical violence. As a result, appear to be anti-capitalist, military left and predominantly far-left like communists, socialists, and anarchists. This group state and aim at fighting the white supremacist and far-right ideologies directly than using political ideologies. The word Antifa was adopted from the German usage despite the existence of various fascists groups in America during the fascism commencement. The term Antifa only came into the public knowledge as a term in English in 2017 (Baider & Constantinou, 2017).

History

The Antifa group traced its part of anti-fascism tradition in America in the 1920s and 1930s when the leftist militants engaged in battles concerning the pro-Nazi organization in the US. These pro-Nazi organizations included the Friends of New Germany. The lineage of the Antifa community can be traced to the Weimar Germany despite having no organizational connection. The first antifascist group was 'Antifaschistische Aktion' described Antifa in Weimar in 1932 by the Germany Communist Party. The violent confrontations with the elements of fascism continued sporadically after the Second World War and before the modern Antifa development. The politics of the modern Antifa can be dated to the resistance of the Xenophobia waves, the emergence of the white culture dominance in power and the neo-Nazi skinhead infiltrations in Great Britain's punk scenario in the 1970 and 1970s. Due to the prominence gain of the neo-Nazism in Germany, teams of leftists include anarchists, revolutionaries punk fans and migrants organized groups of self-defense and commenced the revival of the street-level demonstrations of the anti-fascists. According to Peter Beinart, a Columnist wrote that the late 80s incited the left-wing anti-fascist in the US to follow suit despite initially calling their group Anti-Racist Action abbreviated as ARA since the American citizens were more familiar with the racism fight than fighting fascism (Tedford, 2014).

Mark Bray the author of Antifa through his book of The Anti-Fascist Handbook approved the Anti-racist Action as the modern Antifa group precursor in Canada and the United States of America. These sightsaw activists with a popular skinhead and punk rock bands in the late 80s persued the neo-Nazis Klansmen and other assorted supremacists who belonged to the white race. Besides, the Antifa group tried not to recruit their fans into their activities since their motto was that "we go where they go." An example is when the skinhead Nazis handed a leaflet to a punk concerning the" correctness of Hitler," the ARA ware available to show them the door.

Another vivid illustration was the fascists pinned Alberta's Edmonton with the racist poster, the ARA group would remove them and post the anti-fascism slogans. In 2002, there was a disruption of a speech by Mathew Hale, the head of World Church of the Creator, Pennsylvanian supremacist group. This led to the arrest of pf 25 people due to the brawl. Other anti-fascist groups in the United States have additional genealogies like in Minneapolis and Minnesota where Baldies groups were formed to fight the neo-Nazi groups directly mainly (Baider & Constantinou, 2017).

Activities and Ideologies

The Antifa group has no formal organization and structure since it is composed of free leftist groups. As a result, the group either form free support like NYC Antifa or opt for independent operation. They typically organize protests via the social media platforms like emails and websites while some activists have a built peer-to-peer networks or even choose for the application of encrypted services of texts like the signal that is an organizing strategy. In addition to this, the numbers of the Antifa population cannot be established accurately, the movement has up ticked since the presidential elections of 2013, and an approximated number of 200 groups with varying sizes exist in the United States. These activists involved in such movements subscribe to many ideologies. They include the socialists, anarchists, and communists besides some social and liberal democrats (Baider & Constantinou, 2017).

According to some researchers, Antifa groups conduct and participate in violent actions since they have a belief that elites in the country have control of the government and the media. Therefore, these live and violent acts of protests meant to pass a message head-on against the elites who they regard as racists. The goal of Antifa group is in advocating for anti-fascism like in Charlottesville than rejecting and turning the police or state to a halt. The direct action idea is the core of the Antifa movement.

Some of the Antifa group members said that the slogan of the Antifa is that "we go where they go" where hate speech is not a free speech. The argued that when an individual endangers people with their statements and actions behind their expressions, such individuals are not supposed to have any right of doing that. As a result, they validate their violence with shutting such people down since they believed that the fascists and the Nazis should have a mouthpiece in the daily affairs of the society.

An anarchist website contained a manual posted that warns against just accepting people eager to fight and further notes that physical defense and confrontation against the fascists is a necessary component of the fascist's activities despite not being the most crucial part (Cunningham Warren, 2017). Antifa engages in mutual aid apart from other activities in the society. These mutual aids are like disaster response like the case of Hurricane Harvey. The Antifa groups work with religious groups like churches and other interfaith communities in the cities in the country to create a New Sanctuary Movement that aims at expanding and continuing the practice of refugees and immigrants space provision that consisted of an outright cooperation refusal (Winn & Goven, 2018).

In 2017, the Antifa group was linked with the anarchist movement by the Homeland security and preparedness of New Jersey. In September the same year, there was an allegation that the website obtained confidential reports and documents dating the 2016 homeland security and FBI who believed that some anarchists were the causatives of violence that occurred at a public rally targeting a range of individuals. As a result, Homeland security mentioned this as domestic terrorism despite the activities of the Antifa has risen since the start of Trump regime especially in the recruitment part. According to the politico, an American article, there is no ability to penetrate through the organization's structure and reported a deemed conduct that was suspicious and terrorism- activity indicative (Cunningham Warren, 2017).

Another tactic used by the Antifa group in fighting the white-dominated government is through active and public identification with the white supremacists. The next line of action is the firing of such employees from their jobs and apartment eviction. In addition to this, the Antifa members aim at disrupting white-related rallies (Winn & Goven, 2018).

Noble Street Violence and Protests

The black block activists along with the Antifa groups were among the American population that protested against the 2016 presidential elections. In addition, this group also participated in the 2017 Berkeley protests that were against the alt-right speaker Milo Yiannopoulos whereby the group gained a lot of mainstream attention. This was by the reporting and coverage of their protests by the media that were throwing of Molotov cocktails and smashing the windows that resulted in $ 100000 worth of property destruction (Winn & Goven, 2018).

Two groups described as anti-fascist in April 2017 and the social Direct Action Alliance, after hearing the Multnomah County's participation in the 82nd Avenue of Roses parade, they threatened to interrupt the process. In addition, the organizers of the even received many emails of threat that prompted the organizers to cancel the ceremony due to concerns about the safety of people. The Antifa group and other autonomous groups surrounding it refused that they did not participate in the threatening of the organizers. Another instance of Antifa violent act of participation was in the Berkeley protest that its members joined the group of about 2000 counter protests to attack a handful of Trump supporters who were demonstrating against Marxism. President Trump referred to the protesters who were outside his rally in August in Arizona as Antifa (Roche, 2017).

Antifa - Why Is Not a Terrorist Group Yet?

There has been a criticism of the Antifa actions on protests by the democrats and republicans who condemned the violence that occurred in Berkeley. As a result, the discussions suggested that Antifa should be labeled as a terrorist group that has led to the arrest of Antifa protestors for damage to property and assault by use of deadly weapons. However, the Antifa group is as any other social group found in the American societies (Warren, 2017).

The main difference that makes Antifa unique from other groups is the ideology and believes they have besides their violent expression of their opinions concerning fascism and racism. Antifa is a group that plays a key role in assisting the government to eradicate racism; it becomes hard for the authorities to declare the group as a terrorist group. In addition to this, the group lacks an organized system that makes it hard for the Homeland Security to penetrate through and capture the leaders, unlike terrorist groups that have an organized system of leadership. There have been no public declarations that Antifa is a terror group because of their ideologies, and they organize their violent protest only when there is an issue to address (Winn & Goven, 2018). Terror groups on the other side vandalize and kill people for no apparent reason besides the religious alignment of their target victims. It will be hard to declare Antifa a terror group shortly since this group advocates for the rights of other minority groups in the American society.

The Antifa group continues to increase in this Trump regime than any other. The group only destroys property; they neither loot nor kill innocent lives but instead advocate for their rights and fight individual cartels who have control of the media and the government. Declaring Antifa a terror group the way Homeland security and the FBI will lead to problems to the American societies. It is the responsibility and duty of the government to ensure there are inclusivity and fair treatment of all races that make the United States of America rather than making only the white race to dominate in almost everything (Roche, 2017).

Conclusion

The Antifa group is a conglomeration of small independent groups that have a common belief of being antifascists. This group has played some roles in public protests to ensure there is no loss of innocent lives of their members. In addition, the use of the corded medium of information transmission makes them a unique group in the United States. Despite the word Antifa being an...