As I recall, John Rosenthal used to alert us to his writings on race and law, but it’s been a long while since we last heard from him. He has now forwarded us a link to his current Brussels Signal column “German government promotes ‘terrorist’ Antifa with ‘guides for Antifa thugs.’” He reports (links omitted):
While some European countries have hastened to follow US President Donald Trump’s example in designating so-called “Antifa” as a terrorist organisation, Germany is not one of them. In fact, the German government actively promotes Antifa.
Thus, as first disclosed by German journalist Stefan Frank on the Achse des Guten (“Axis of Good”) blog, last year the German government funded a full-fledged, as the title of Frank’s piece puts it, “guide for Antifa thugs”. The description alludes to the Antifa movement’s well-known proclivity for violence. The brochure itself is titled Nazis Hate These Tricks: 20 Reflections on How to Combat Right-Wing Extremism. It was funded, believe it or not, by the German Ministry of Family Affairs – or, per its full title at the time, the Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth – as well as one other German public agency.
He comments:
[T]he very title Nazis Hate These Tricks: 20 Reflections on How to Combat Right-Wing Extremism reveals the main problem with contemporary so-called “Antifa”. The original anti-fascists from the 1930s, whose name and flag contemporary Antifa have appropriated, were, of course, combatting real fascists, ie, people and organisations who called themselves fascists or, more precisely, in the German case, Nazis. These real Nazis, moreover, famously included the Nazi party’s own dedicated “thugs”, in the form of the Schutzabteilung or SA: The infamous “brown shirts” who used violence to intimidate, or even eliminate, the party’s political opponents and other perceived “enemies”.
Contemporary self-styled “anti-fascists” have adopted the same street-fighting tactics, but to combat people and organisations that they call “fascists” or “Nazis”, even though those so identified by Antifa do not identify as fascists, much less Nazis, themselves – and, incidentally, as a rule do not themselves, unlike Antifa, employ violence as a political tactic.
I thought readers might find the column relevant and of interest — whole thing here.
