Online battles between far right groups and anti-fascists (click here)– or "Antifa" – are now regularly spilling out onto the streets of America. But who are Antifa and what do they represent? Anisa Subedar and Mike Wendling went to the West coast of America to find out for Seriously... podcast Political Violence in America. Here are seven facts you need to know.
1. How long have Antifa been around?
Some Antifa groups date the origins of their movement to fights against European fascists in the 1920s and 1930s. Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, says the modern American Antifa movement began in the 1980s with a group called Anti-Racist Action. Its members confronted neo-Nazi skinheads at punk gigs in the American Midwest and elsewhere. By the early 2000s, the Antifa movement was mostly dormant - until the rise of Donald Trump and the alt-right....
The BBC has no problem addressing extremism. ANTIFA is a movement with no central headquarters or regular meetings. It is an affiliation for those that feel the need to counter the political hatred of the Republicans in supporting White Supremacy/White Nationalism as was displayed at the insurrection.
The intelligence networks in the USA are targets of the same hatred shown ANTIFA because they appear to be biased. There were no ANTIFA arrested during or after the insurrection. The fact there were no ANTIFA demonstrators only means they didn't get the same message from Trump as the White Supremacists did. Normally, ANTIFA will manifest where White Nationalists are gathering. No opposition group to Trump White Nationalists were there that day. That is interesting.
