On a cool winter night in Los Angeles, dozens gathered to protest the Trump administration's attacks on the arts and the recent federal immigration raids in southern California. But these protestors didn't carry signs or chant in front of a government building they recited poems such as Antifa Tea Party and Love in Times of Fascism. They performed anti-fascist improv to a small but lively crowd at The Glendale Room, a library-themed theater, as part of the monthly show Unquiet: A Night of Creative Resistance.
Gerry Gable, who has died aged 88, was one of the most formidable and persistent figures in the postwar fight against fascism and the extreme right in the UK. He combined activism, investigative journalism and clandestine intelligence-gathering in a way that reshaped how anti-fascism was practised in Britain and far beyond. As the founder of Searchlight, the investigative anti-fascist magazine, he played a central role in exposing, disrupting and ultimately weakening generations of fascist and neo-Nazi organisations.
I've long been a fan of Sweden-based MachineGames' take on Wolfenstein , which transforms B.J. Blazkowicz's one-man war on occult-powered Nazis into a grisly and moving narrative about the strength of family and communities while finding oneself amidst endless conflict. Wolfenstein 2 showed the importance of resisting the narrative that fascism can and will win. If I have one concrete hope for a potential sequel, it's that it doesn't ease up on the gas.
We're standing in the Fleet Street offices of MayDay Rooms founded over a decade ago as "an archive, resource and safe haven for social movements, experimental and marginal cultures and their histories". Its holdings form a vast paper topography of refusal over 100,000 flyers, bulletins, pamphlets and minutes tracing the history of the anti-authoritarian left. Much of the material is British but threaded with transnational currents: together they form a living diagram of insubordination as it travelled the world.
Experts have told the Guardian the same anti-fascist groups the US state department recently named as foreign terrorist organizations and accused of conspiring to undermine foundations of western civilization barely qualify as groups, let alone terrorist organizations, and pose no active threat to Americans. The whole thing is a bit ridiculous, said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, which tracks extremist movements worldwide, because the groups designated by the administration barely exist and certainly aren't terrorists.
Pop music may have been central to the New Left, but today's listeners are mostly reduced to hunting for Easter eggs, finding anti-Trump messaging in the likes of octogenarian Neil Young's tossed-off anthems. The eager critical embrace of Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, based on a 1990 Thomas Pynchon novel steeped in the backwash of curdled 1970s left-wing militance, serves chiefly to underscore the film industry's studious disregard of the way America lives now.
Bethany laughed, said that is silly, but that yes, according to the definition of it, the protestors were certainly Antifa. Obviously, if you look at the definition of it, Antifa, anti-fascist I've spoke to a couple of veterans who said that's literally what they fought against. They are anti-fascist. So I think I should be proud to say that the people out here are Antifa, Bethany said. We don't agree with the fascist government.
As President Donald Trump prepares to further unleash a rapidly expanding surveillance state against the administration's critics, recent legal struggles from activists who document and protest Trump's mass deportation campaign may be a preview of what's to come as part of a broader effort to silence dissent. Trump made headlines on September 22 with an executive order declaring "Antifa," short for anti-fascist, a domestic terrorist organization.
It wasn't penned as a romantic farewell, but "Bella Ciao" meaning "goodbye beautiful" in Italian is a song that has come to symbolize a parting with oppression. When the phrase was discovered etched on an unspent bullet casing linked to the man accused of killing conservative US activist Charlie Kirk, it wasn't just some cryptic clue. It was a refrain bearing history, drawn from a century-old Italian protest song, which has long been a global tune of resistance.
Theirs was a small-P political household. His dad was a social worker, his mum worked for various charities. She was from Mauritius, and now on the telly, the National Front were saying they were going to send people who weren't born in Britain home in six months. I was petrified that my mum was going to get sent home. The ambient racism of 70s and 80s Britain permeated everything. I just remember being scared, Lowles says.
Unfired cartridges found with the gun that officials say was used to kill Charlie Kirk were engraved with a variety of messages, authorities said Friday, including many that suggest a familiarity with anti-fascist symbolism and the insider slang of video games and online culture that pervade the lives of young Americans. Many of the messages, described by Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah at a news conference announcing the arrest of Tyler Robinson, 22, adopt the flippant, sarcastic, in-jokey chatter often found on online message boards and in-game chats.
This summer, ATA's Anti-Fascist Film Series emphasizes successful resistance against fascism, showcasing films that highlight the restoration of democracy through historic events.
