Why did you become an anti-fascist?

[Game Girl]

What inspired you to become an anti-fascist? What motivated you into fighting against oppression and hate?

I'll start. My inspiration was actually a member of my family.

My great uncle Albert was a Polish immigrant who moved here years ago. When he was a child, him and his parents were sent to a Nazi concentration camp. I remember he told me about it one day. Of course, he didn't go into great detail, as the memories were painful. But they did alot of horrible things to him. He mentioned something about experiments. I don't remember much about what he told me, but I'm reluctant to research the subject. Purely because I know I'll not like what I find. His mother died while in the camp, but he, his father and all the other prisoners were freed. When he became an adult, he moved to Scotland and married my mothers aunt. They had several children and grandchildren, one of whom I was very close to.

Sadly, great uncle Albert died 2 years ago. But he was very elderly and he wasen't afraid of dying. Despite what happened when he was a child, he admitted he had a good life and was ready to die. He died peacefully in his home, with his family around him.

What was my great uncles crime in the Nazi's eyes? He was Polish. Thats it...Thats when I realised just how cruel Nazi's were and when I learned it wasen't just Jews that suffered. When I learned about neo-nazis/fascists, I immediently hated them. They want to oppress people and force their own ideologies onto others. They will glady wage war and violence to get their view across. A war nobody wants. Thats why I became an anti-fascist. To stop history from repeating itself. To let those thugs know that ANY ideology involving Hitler or Nazis or fascism will NOT be tolerated in a civilised society.

To accept the Swastika in my home would be a grave insult on my great uncles memory. It's a symbol I will NEVER accept. It's a symbol I will gladly burn!

[Sasha]

pretty much the same, jewish bi-sexual lefty with family who fought both in the resistance and spain and a lot of dead family in the camps, it would have been quite surprising if i wouldnt have ended up an staunch anti-fascist

[The Dark Side of the Moon]

well i really don't want to go into great detail, but i used to know someone who also went to a concentration camp.

[Susurrus]

I never really wasn't an anti-fascist, but what really cemented it for me was reading this:http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist...th/bmch28.html It's one thing to have the accounts of survivors and such, which are horrific, but to read the accounts of people in that situation with little chance of survival is another.

[praxis1966]

For me it was a bit different because of where I grew up, the Southeastern US. That led me to anti-fascism not because of Nazis, but because of the Klan, Conservative Citizens' Councils (the modern incarnation of the old white supremacist and segregationist White Citizens' Councils formed during the Civil Rights era), and various neo-Confederate groups like the League of the South. However, I didn't learn of those until adulthood.

On a more visceral level I began to oppose the kinds of attitudes and actions associated with white supremacy at a very young age. I had a very culturally diverse group of friends growing up, indeed as far back as elementary school. I saw these friends, who had slept over at my house, whose parents had fed me, and whom I'd grown very close to abused (often physically) and demeaned as early as the first or second grade in elementary school. White supremacy and racism, therefore, are things that produce a reaction in a way that I don't think a lot of other people of my skin color understand, leastways not here in the US... In a way, it was these experiences I think that led me to revolutionary leftism in the first place. Getting called a "nigger lover" has a way of doing that to you...

[28350]

jewish bi-sexual lefty with family who fought [...] in the resistance

this^

but also it's not exactly radical to declare yourself an antifascist. fascism isn't too political fashionable nowadays, but even so, fascism isn't some ultimate evil against whom we should side with non-fascist capitalists.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I grew up in a country where everyone hates Nazis.

[Vendetta]

Common sense.

[Black Sheep]

A revleft article.Seriously.

[Luisrah]

My father is a communist and fought against the fascist or semi-fascist dictatorship in Portugal. He was arrested and had to endure torture, and he told me all the stories about it.

[Rafiq]

Fascists in Lebanon are assholes

[Kadir Ateş]

For a communist there is only anti-bourgeois.

[Stand Your Ground]

My 8th grade teacher taught me about the Holocaust. So mostly that, but I always disliked discrimination before that. Then I was looking for anti-discrimination forums and revleft popped up lol.

[Susurrus]

For a communist there is only anti-bourgeois.

Not really, many fascists are working class unfortunately.

[praxis1966]

Exactly. Anybody who thinks that the TEA Party, who are about a step and a half from being full bore camicie nere IMO, is made exclusively of corporate fat cats is kidding themselves. Same goes for the Klan, BANA and various neo-Nazi organizations.

[Arlekino]

For me probably personal not nice stories. My Grandmother was killed by Nationalist "Forest Brothers" and links with nazis ,well now actually their are freedom fighters can we see how Baltic States government can show true colours. After the war, seems Stalin did favour for my mother as she told me. As well as transition from kind of Socialism to Neo Liberism hm I don't want to live that kind of society, I see in my own experiences is crap life we all population changed for the worse. So lets hope rebuild better society without fascist.

[Steve_j]

Its inherent to my politics, i am a communist.

[bricolage]

Exactly. Anybody who thinks that the TEA Party, who are about a step and a half from being full bore camicie nere IMO, is made exclusively of corporate fat cats is kidding themselves. Same goes for the Klan, BANA and various neo-Nazi organizations.

I don't think that the was the point they are making, you'd be hard pushed to find any movement which wasn't predominantly composed of the working class, its a simple reflection of demographics. The point about 'anti-bourgeois' is that fascism is a form of the rule of capital but it is not separate from more democratic ones. The history of anti-fascism as a political ideology and ideological movement has been the subordination of class autonomy to social democracy or worse. Dauve goes into this well in When Insurrections Die.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Teh red army pwned the nazis in WWII.

but seriously, ive always had an aversion to it.

[bricolage]

To add, countless members of my mothers family died in death camps, the rest got away by escaping from moving trains, bribing secret police and my grandfather had to rescue his own father from behind barbed wire. After the war some made it to England, David Ben Gurion actually staying with my grandmother, some remained stuck in what was left of Poland, the rest went to what was the British Mandate of Palestine and now live in Tel Aviv. The ones who are alive would all describe themselves as 'anti-fascist', half of them will still wave Union Jacks or vote for Netanyahu.

I fully agree with defending communities, meeting, football terraces if under attack and if far right street movements are marching down your street then yeah stop them. For me though this is just self-defence and the problem arises when anti-fascism is translated into some sort of political movement or strategy which tends to end up either playing by the rules of bourgeois democracy and legitimising some other faction of capital or becoming dead end subcultural gang warfare. Fascism is a product of both crises in capitalism and of class insurgencies, this has always been the case, it will be eliminated when these insurgencies are capable of dealing with these crises, not when leftists decide to 'smash' it.