Antifa – a convenient weapon of the radical left
The race riots are a perfect opportunity for the extreme left, which explicitly declares that its goal is to revolutionize society. Antifa is growing into an armed weapon of left-wing extremism in both the US and Europe.
Piotr Włoczyk
“Protect Texas Kids” is an organization founded by conservative parents from this largest state in the American South who seek to protect children from trans-activist indoctrination. At the end of April, the group decided to hold a protest in Fort Worth, one of the largest cities in Texas, in front of a restaurant that hosted a show by so-called drag queens. Despite the obvious sexual overtones, there was no age limit – some of the adult spectators brought their children with them. The protest was peaceful until the appearance of several masked individuals, dressed in black and equipped with specialized tactical vests and helmets. Parents from “Protect Texas Kids” were attacked with pepper spray as well as the Police, who arrived to intervene. The Antifa members put up fierce resistance, one of them almost lost his life trying to reach for the officer’s gun, but eventually the black-clad rioters had to surrender.
This is just one of the many situations in recent times where Americans have been following media reports with disbelief showing well-organized Antifa militias that are quite literally fighting to revolutionize the US. Antifa continues to grow and become more and more threatening, after the ultra-violent race riots on the streets of American cities in 2020, when this far-left organization realized that violence pays. Especially when much of the left of the political scene is sympathetic to the slogans put up by Antifa.
Vandals’ Guide
“Why We Break Windows: The Effectiveness of Political Vandalism,” is the title of one of the “guides” to the ideology of American Antifa. In it, its authors explicitly argue that violence is an excellent method for bringing about social change. “To smash a shop window is to contest all the boundaries that cut through this society: black and white, rich and poor, included and excluded,” reads the “Why We Break Glasses” guide. “Most of us have become inured to all this segregation, taking such inequalities for granted as a fact of life. Breaking windows is a way to break this silence, to challenge the absurd notion that the social construct of property rights is more important than the needs of the people around us.”
The pamphlet was first issued in 2014 in a wave of protests following the murder of black 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, at the hands of white police officer Darren Wilson. Brown’s death led to riots that lasted several weeks, with American Antifa playing first fiddle. Burning stores and cars was a visible sign that Antifa, along with Black Lives Matter activists (the organization was founded a year earlier) were implementing a plan to fight “inequality.” It meant nothing to those protesting against Brown’s death that the prosecutor decided not to charge the policeman, since everything pointed to the fact that Brown was the aggressor and the policeman fired in self-defense. Brown has permanently entered the pantheon of black victims of “systemic racism” in the US.
When Wesley Bell, a Democratic Party man sympathetic to Black Lives Matter, became the new prosecutor in 2019, one of his first decisions was to try to open Brown’s murder case. However, it quickly became apparent that it was impossible to charge the police officer, and Bell had to – to the fury of Black Lives Matter activists – announce that the case was closed for good. This, however, did nothing to change BLM and Antifa’s attitude toward Brown’s murder.
“Like blood in water”
As Andy Ngo shows in his book Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy on the road that culminated in the protests following George Floyd’s death in Mineapolis, Antifa, and BLM repeatedly took up the banner of “victims of police brutality” who were not victims at all, but aggressors. In the background, one can see the riots, perfectly prepared by the extreme left, which are designed to heat up supporters of the overthrow of the existing social order in the US and draw “ordinary” Americans into the riots.
“Antifa knows what effect breaking windows, destroying businesses, and fires have on the mentality of the crowd. Each of these acts is like blood in water. It can turn protesters into arsonists in an instant.” – writes Andy Ngo.
This American journalist of Vietnamese descent learned Antifa’s brutality firsthand. On June 29th, 2019, Ngo was attacked by Antifa in his hometown of Portland while covering a demonstration by the far-right organization Proud Boys. Antifa militants decided to break up the Proud Boys march, but during that attack, Ngo also became a target. As he later reported, he was recognized by the Antifa fighters, and all the punches and kicks were meant as revenge for his previous video reports of riots organized by Antifa. Ngo ended up in the hospital with a hematoma in his head, and has since spray-scrawled slogans on walls such as: “Kill Andy Ngo,” have become a permanent fixture on the landscape during protests involving Antifa.
“The process that leads from breaking windows to mass looting and destroying buildings is not always as spontaneous as one would think,” writes Ngo. “In fact, the riots in Minneapolis and other cities show what Antifa’s street warfare plans really look like and how its activists manipulate crowds to do what they want.”
Ngo has become, over the past few years, a recognized expert by the American right on the activities of Antifa and BLM extremists. Republicans have invited him to Congress for hearings where he has reported on what he has seen with his own eyes, mingling with the far-left rioters who have set fire to the streets of major American cities. Democrats, in turn, downplayed Ngo’s alarmist tone and reduced Antifa to a group of zealots who, driven to the extreme, are trying to stop the “march of fascism” by force.
The subject of Antifa was taken seriously by Donald Trump, who announced in 2020, at the height of the unrest in American cities, that he intended to declare Antifa a terrorist organization.
“The violence unleashed by Antifa – such as throwing sharp and flaming objects at police and setting cars on fire – is dangerous to the lives of citizens and to the very foundations of our Nation. These violent acts undermine the rights of peaceful demonstrators, result in the death of citizens, take away their freedom and destroy their property, especially the most vulnerable.” – reads a special declaration issued by the Trump administration just before it handed over power to Biden. In the end, however, Trump did not manage to complete the procedure to officially delegalize Antifa. It’s hard to expect Biden, who has repeatedly signaled that he understands the anger of the far left, to take on Antifa extremists in earnest.
Breaking arms without a problem
The organization, which Ngo is screening on American soil, is also well known in Europe, where, incidentally, its history began. The first Antifa fighters were, after all, German communists who decided to clash with the Nazis in the streets with guns in their hands.
Antifa has no single headquarters, even at the national level it is a formless organization without a rigid structure. This anarchist trait is a special reason for its members to call it home. In Poland, too, Antifa periodically reminds us of itself and its extreme radical demands. Most recently, it was loud during the verbally and physically violent protests of the 2020 Women’s Strike, when radical feminist and pro-abortion groups tried to stir up civil unrest.
“These are people with a very wide range of views that sometimes almost contradict each other – from liberalism to anarchism. What unites us all is opposition to fascism,” explained an anonymous member of Polish Antifa in a 2020 interview with the Onet portal. Although its activists emphasize that they work for the community and brawls are not at all their main occupation, they completely openly admit that violence is an official part of their strategy:
“In this wide range of tactics we use, there is sometimes violence as well. It doesn’t mean bluntly screwing up, but it always means that we will defend the people they attack. (…) We are currently protecting women’s protests, no one asked us to do so, we simply can’t be passive observers. (…) Antifa is also represented by completely random bystanders in the crowd who understand that if fascists are launching an attack, their arms need to be broken, and they have no problem with doing that.” – explained a Polish Antifa activist to Onet.
American cities on fire
Andy Ngo focuses his book on two cities that have particularly felt the wrath of the American far left: Portland and Seattle. Ngo reported on the course of the riots in both places, getting right to the center of the riots, where Antifa fighters dressed in black could be seen.
The first city Ngo went to was Seattle. There, the extreme left set up an occupation zone in June 2020, which was abbreviated as CHAZ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone). After the city’s Democratic leadership decided to pardon the protesters and withdrew the police from downtown, Antifa, along with BLM activists and other far-left organizations, set up a “police-free” zone there, which was to become an oasis of freedom and equality for three weeks (at least that’s how Seattle’s “anti-racist” demonstrators portrayed it).
Watching video footage of CHAZ, one’s eyes are struck by the hateful slogans painted on the walls against the police (including the acronym “ACAB,” or “All Cops Are Bastards” – “All Cops Are Pigs”), the tarps stating that a particular business has been taken over by “the people,” or the disturbing-looking messages at the CHAZ border aimed at people who would enter the zone – “You are now leaving US territory.”
U.S. law enforcement officials watched in disbelief at the subsequent news of the surrender of Seattle police, who, on the orders of the Democratic mayor, left the police station located in the area that later became known as CHAZ. The police’s waving of the white flag had tragic consequences. Ironically, in a place that was portrayed as a zone of peace where all minorities can live safely, thugs killed two people. Both victims were black.
In a wave of anti-racist protests, Seattle’s Democratic leadership decided to slash the police budget by 18%, severely weakening the law enforcers’ ability to fight crime. This step, however, was a far cry from the demands of the BLM movement, which called for the police to be stripped of half their funding.
Twin organizations
Andy Ngo points out in his book how connected Antifa and Black Lives Matter are in terms of their community of interests.
“Although BLM has slightly different goals from Antifa (for example, it is more straightforward in its promotion of communism rather than anarcho-communism), the two ideologies intersect and influence each other so much that they are actually one entity. In Portland and Seattle, they are one and the same. The same people show up at events organized by these groups. This cross-fertilization has proven to be very beneficial for both organizations. Antifa got legitimacy from the mainstream because of this, and BLM got the support of a volunteer fighting force.” – Ngo writes.
If anyone thinks that the BLM movement is only about fighting racism, they should familiarize themselves with the work of its main “ideologue.” Patrisse Cullors is one of the founders of the BLM movement and a lecturer at Prescott College in Arizona (she teaches there about so-called “social justice”). In April 2019, Cullors wrote an article in the Harvard Law Review in which she was very candid about the true goals of her movement:
“Our goal is not only to abolish the prisons, police, and army that are brandished in the name of ‘public safety’ and ‘national security.’ We also need to demand reparations and reparative justice and incorporate this into our vision of social order in the 21st century. According to the co-founder of BLM, America is “the world’s most dangerous perpetrator of human rights crimes.” Her prescription for a new social order would essentially mean the collapse of the state: “Abolition means no borders. Abolition means no border guards. Abolition is the absence of customs and immigration services,” Cullors postulates.
Unfortunately, the extremist demands of Antifa and the BLM find a growing response in the growing far-left wing of the Democratic Party. Its biggest star is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic congresswoman who is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). The latter party openly supports Antifa and its anarcho-communist demands.
However, while Ocasio-Cortez and the far-left wing of the Democrats can count on the sympathy of Antifa and BLM, the same cannot be said of the Democratic mainstream. Even Joe Biden is, for these activists, an imperialist and a man who preserves a racist system.
This was perfectly evident when, on the day of Biden’s inauguration, Antifa militants trashed Democratic Party headquarters in Portland and Seattle. At the time, the far-left extremists carried large banners with the words “We don’t want Biden – we want revenge” through both cities. Below it was a drawing of an AK-47 along with the words: “For the police killings, for imperialist wars, for fascist massacres.”
“Antifa, its far-left allies and useful idiots have convinced the public that patriotism is synonymous with racism and fascism,” writes Andy Ngo at the end of his book. “I reject such thinking and urge all decent people to do the same. This book is not only about Antifa, but it is also, in a way, a letter of thanks to the nation that took in my parents, poor refugees from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and allowed them to become citizens like everyone else. Antifa wants to destroy American exceptionalism as well as the state itself. Unfortunately, it must be admitted that they have had some success in this context. Those who are deceived by their slogans of ‘anti-racism,’ ‘anti-fascism,’ and ‘equality’ should see how these demands have been implemented in practice throughout history. It always ended up in a sea of ashes, blood, and ruins.”
