Antifascist

Greetings, comrades! We are the Ukrainian anti-authoritarian volunteer network, “Operation Solidarity”. Since the first days of escalation by Russia, we have taken part in the resistance against the invasion, as have the majority of Ukrainian anarchists and anti-authoritarian left activists because we believe that this war is imperialist and usurping. This is not a war of “de-nazification”, as the Kremlin claims. The problems of the far-right in Ukraine exist as they do in many European countries, but their scale is highly exaggerated by Russian propaganda which exploits antifascism. Life in Ukraine is incomparably more free than it is in Russia, which has only become increasingly fascistic during the course of this escalation. ...

Warning: This article includes screenshots of chat room conversations and visual elements of an antisemitic and racist nature. White Lives Matter (WLM) is a neo-Nazi initiative that over the past year has spread to a number of areas in the US and Canada, as well as to New Zealand, Australia, the Netherlands, and elsewhere in the world. The network’s first documented action was a series of decentralized demonstrations on May 8, 2021. The low turnout for these events led some observers to conclude that the undertaking had failed, but that optimistic assessment proved premature, as the network continued to grow, with an increasing number of actions over the past year. ...

The following call to action originally appeared in Russian on avtonom.org , the platform that emerged from the Russia-wide anarchist network Autonomous Action. Our Russian colleagues report that, under a new law introduced this week, those who are found guilty of spreading misinformation about the invasion of Ukraine can be sentenced to years in prison. This apparently includes those who simply refer to the invasion as a “war,” rather than a “special operation,” as Putin’s government has insisted on doing. In this context, demonstrators show tremendous courage taking to the streets. ...

Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, a popular movement demanding an immediate end to vaccine mandates and other restrictions on daily life has shaken the Canadian state to its core. Its calls have deeply resonated with members of settler-colonial society in which public health measures and other forms of collective solidarity are seen by some as an affront to individual freedom and an undue hindrance on capitalist enterprise. While the movement is now facing the brunt of a massive wave of state repression, from which it is unlikely to recover, the contradictions it has exposed are only set to get worse.

Thinking Through the Threats and Opportunities as a Far-Right Initiative Gains Momentum Opponents of vaccine mandates have established protest encampments in Ottawa and elsewhere around Canada, blockading several routes crossing the United States border. Far-right organizers and former police officers have prominent positions in this movement, and police have taken a relatively hands-off approach thus far; it appears likely that the model currently being tested in Canada will appear elsewhere around the world shortly. In the following extensive report, our correspondent in Montréal explores the sequence of events that led up to these developments, reviews the agendas of the various forces vying for control, and reflects on what we can do in a situation in which the far right has gained the initiative. ...

We were more than 150 on Saturday morning gathered to oppose the far right, which is currently riding the wave of anger at health measures to advance its political agenda. Among the demonstrators we were confronted with, if the most widely waved flags were those of Canada, others were raising high flags of the Front canadien-français, a far-right ultra-nationalist collective with a Catholic heritage [ note: we are told that the flag in question, the Carillon-Sacré-Coeur, is not the flag of the Front canadien-français. The flag dates from the early 20th century in Ultramontanist circles. The FCF was a small group created and dissolved in recent years that appropriated this flag, like various right-wing nationalists. - MTL CI]. The extreme right-wing populist of the People’s Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier, was also present. ...

Your browser does not support the audio element. On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with two anarchists involved in the Punch Up Collective , a group which is currently mobilizing in Ottawa, the capitol city of so-called Canada, in the midst of an ongoing far-Right protest occupation made up of several hundred vehicles in the downtown area. During our discussion we talk about the far-Right leadership of the protests, their history of organizing similar convoys and their involvement in a variety of racist and reactionary groups, and how the public, the police, and the State are all responding to the demonstrations, as law enforcement has been giving the convoy free reign of the streets and residents report hundreds of incidents of harassment, targeted violence, and racist intimidation. Meanwhile, anger is growing not only at the convoy, but at police and the failure of the State to respond, as people begin to self-organize and take action. We also look at how the Conservative Party is coming out in support of the convoy; hoping to use it as a wedge to gain more power and influence. ...

We took the train downtown to avoid getting caught in the traffic jam of the protest itself. I’ve spent the ride alternating between preparing myself for what we’re about to see by mentally going over all of the things I should expect to see and hear in the next few hours at the convoy protest and distracting myself by contemplating whether or not I like Ottawa’s new transit system. I haven’t been to downtown Ottawa since before the pandemic. I know what stop we’re going to but it is unmistakeable anyway, a wave of people dressed in Canadian flag capes, maskless and bearing protest signs prepares to dismount just as we do. I remember using a similar tactic to find the right subway stop to get to Zucotti Park in 2011. There are so many surface-level similarities between here and there that I can’t help but feel a pang of the jealousy and perhaps even empathy with the protestors that I’ve been experiencing all week, watching their moment unfold and remembering moments where I have felt joy, camaraderie and anticipation of the kind that I imagine they are feeling this week. ...

[ Special collaboration between Montréal Antifasciste et Québec Antifasciste ] Since 2018, Montréal Antifasciste has been documenting the activities of the neo-fascist group Atalante , a group that for the most part operates in Québec City. Since its Facebook page has been closed in August of 2021, it has lost much of its visibility and now seems to be in decline, regrouped around its core militants. Nonetheless, its members and sympathizers remain present and active in our communities, and the possibility that they could recruit new people pushes us to call for vigilance and to continue to keep the pressure on them. That is why we still think it is necessary to continue to expose Atalante members, particularly those who we know have been involved in acts of violence. ...

This piece is a belated response to “You Can’t be Anti-State & Pro-Lock-down” , which is itself a response to our “Anarchy, Lockdown and Crypto-Eugenics” (a critique in turn of “On the Anarchist Reponse to the Global Pandemic” ). The state has blood on its hands. Anarchists know this. Police killings are normalised - it takes riots to be noticed. Mass death beyond fortress Europe is all too usual, even as it intensifies. But it is unusual for the West to dispose of its own citizenry on such a large scale, and to do so with such a steady manner. In the UK, the pandemics’ mass of dead bodies is the greatest since the second world war.[ 1 ] And yet, at this very moment, we hear comrades slip into apologetics. They excuse the state and its economy of death. They wash the blood from its hands and blame “nature” in its place. Yes, we attack the curfews, the policing, the evolving surveillance and disciplinary techniques. We wouldn’t expect anything less. But some anarchists enter new topics; in the same breath, they shout for the freedom of business, of pubs and retail, the return to schools, the reopening of Churches. Their rallying cry: “Anti-lockdown”! The existential threat faced by the disabled and the elderly is simply an inconvenient footnote to liberal rights. ...

Since its foundation, Montréal Antifasciste has received all sorts of messages from antifascists hoping to support our work and/or posing questions and sharing the fruit of their research and observations. It is much rarer for far-right extremists to communicate with us, except in the form of childish insults. On June 18, 2018, someone using the name “Lola Parisi” sent us an e-mail from the address moosque1@hotmail.fr . In September 2018, the same person also contacted us several times by Messenger using the pseudonym “Marie Dubois”. ...

“Boycott China” stickers are going up in the zone between Atwater and Peel – and perhaps elsewhere in Montréal! We do not know who is doing it, but we sometimes see these stickers accompaned by other stickers that say FUCK TRUDEAU or that call for the liberation of Hong Kong. We are among those who remove and cover up these stickers. We do not know for certain the intentions of the people who put up these stickers. However, we have the following analysis: ...