antifainternational:

Why do you feel that violence is ever the answer it should be a last resort and only used when all else is failed. If you were less violent you would probably have normal everyday people join and not just extremely far far left people

Dear Totally Real Tumblr User Who Is Not In Any Way A Far Right Bot Or Troll Even Though Their Tumblr Consists Solely Of One Re-Blog Made This Month, 

(pictured: artist’s illustration of irishsugartits)

First of all, violence is pretty much always the last resort used by anti-fascists, when all else fails and the threat of fascist violence to their communities is still present.  And by “violence” we mean self-defence.

Anti-fascists don’t really like to have to physically defend their communities, which is why probably 99% of anti-fascist work doesn’t involve “violence.”  But we also understand that fascists & far-right bigots very much favor violence over nearly anything else.  Political violence is one of the defining traits of fascism, so we need to be prepared to defend ourselves and our communities from that.

There is a 100-year history of anti-fascists employing only non-violent means to resist fascists.  In most of those examples, it ended with the fascists simply murdered the anti-fascists.  Perhaps the most famous group of antifa pacifists were The White Rose, a student group that formed in Munich in 1942 and used peaceful means to resist the nazis.  The nazis arrested them all and executed them less than a year later.

Just last month, three fascist terrorists were arrested for plotting to go to the home of two anti-fascists and murder them and their entire family.  Within a couple of days, three more fascists from the same terrorist group were arrested for planning a mass shooting in Richmond, VA. 

Still the calls for anti-fascists to lay down and peacefully interact with the terrorists threatening our communities though, huh?  Well, you’re not alone - some people do think it would be best if we hugged it out with the people trying to murder us.  The role of pacifism in anti-fascism is something we debated right here on this tumblr a few years ago.

But to insist that anti-fascists must abide by the tenets of fascism?  That’s something else entirely and seems to come from a place of enormous privilege - one where you’re not ever going to be targeted for murder by fascists and far-right bigots and so you feel like you have a right to dictate to the people who are targeted by fascists the tactics they’re allowed to employ to stop from being murdered.  

If you’re equating anti-fascist self-defence of themselves and their communities with the fascist violence & terrorism they are defending against, you’re committing a grave false equivalence logical fallacy - one that’s made all the worse when you compare the scale of violence.

Last year we documented 576 acts of violence committed by fascists & far-right bigots that killed 373 people and injured 1156 other people. 

Fascists and extreme right bigots were responsible for every extremist killing that happened in the U.S. in 2018. 

73% of all terrorist attacks that killed people in the U.S. between 2002-2017 were committed by the far right.  Fascists and far-right extremists have murdered 2x more people in the U.S. than so-called “jihadists” since 9/11. 

In Europe, you are 5x more likely to die in a terror attack committed by a fascist/far-right extremist than you are in a terror attack inspired by ISIS.

If it’s politically-motivated violence that concerns you, then clearly your calls for pacifism would do the most good if you directed them at the side committing the lion’s share of the violence and literally all of the most-severe violence - the fascists/extreme right bigots.  

We wish you the best of luck with that.