Antifascist

From Montréal Antifasciste Tiohtià:ke (Montreal), February 27, 2020 – Montréal Antifasciste declares our complete and unconditional solidarity and support with the people of the Wet’suwet’en nation in their ongoing resistance to Canadian colonialism, as well as with all those who have taken action in support of the Wet’suwet’en following the invasion by the RCMP. While there have been blockades across the illegal country of “Canada”, we would like to specifically mention those established by members of the Mohawk Nation in Kahnawake and Tyendinaga, the latter of which having been attacked by the colonial police on February 24th, the former currently under threat of another colonial injunction. We are an antifascist group, and as such we often end up focusing on people who the mainstream of society consider marginal losers, at best. Yet we do so knowing, as the poet Aimé Césaire explained, that fascism bears a direct relationship to colonialism. Writing about Europe and the rise of Hitler, Césaire noted that the crimes of Nazism were simply the crimes the European powers had inflicted on colonized peoples, come home to roost. This is true here in Canada, where the far right builds on a history of colonial violence against oppressed nations around the world, but first and foremost against the nations of people who are Indigenous to these lands. ...

We haven’t been all that interested in the trial up to this point. All we’re seeing is a court circus out of all proportion to the action that led to the charges. We are entirely aware of the fact that our perspective on the issue will differ from that of the media (which is a party to this little affair), the “justice system,” and the generally held liberal position of Québécois society. That’s why we thought it wise to explicitly formulate out position [for additional information, media can visit https://montreal-antifasciste.info or contact us at alerta-mtl @ riseup.net] ...

On Friday, November 28, the black metal festival La Messe des Morts took place at Théâtre Paradoxe. Three neo-Nazis were spotted on site or had announced their intention to be there on social networks. One of them, Pascal Giroux, received quite a beating upon leaving the theater. Pascal Giroux is openly a neo-Nazi militant since the golden age of boneheads in Montreal. Recently he had joined the islamophobic group Soldiers of Odin, and he participated in all their actions, until their dissolution in 2018. In pictures, he can be seen wearing a Section Saint-Laurent shirt and an SOO hoodie, posing in front of a Black Sun flag and protecting the house of neo-Nazi Phillipe Gendron in 2018, during an anti-racist demonstration. ...

Vincent Cyr, resident of Rue Sainte-Anne in Varennes is a dangerous neo-Nazi and member of the organization Atalante Quebec. Vincent sometimes boxes in Parc de la Commune with his Nazi friends. He regularly participates in Atalante’s activities in Montreal. On the night of Monday, December 11, 2019, 1000 flyers were distributed on his street, in his neighborhood, at bus shelters and in front of key locations in the town. Because people like him hide and the population needs to know. ...

Whatever the interested parties may say, their neofascist/identitarian/national revolutionary/anti-communist/Nazi lineage is as clear as the Stompers/Légitime Violence/Atalante connection. The tattoos, fashion statements, musical tastes, and antics of the known Atalante members give some indication of their political orientation, and their sympathies are entirely and uncontestably “neo-Nazi.” In September, Montréal Antifasciste published an article revealing where some of the key activists in the neofascist group Atalante Québec work. The objective was, as always, “exposing the fascists to their communities, colleagues, employers, families, and neighbours, from whom they generally hide the real nature of their activities […] because the projects they are involved in in their personal lives endanger both their immediate colleagues and the general public, most particularly racialized people, Muslims, Jews, queers, and leftists.” ...

In May 2018, the tenacious efforts of Montréal antifascist militants led to the exposure of a an alt-right chatroom on a Discord server meant to serve as the launching pad for the “real-life” activities of a group of militant neo-Nazis in the Montréal area. [1] A series of articles published in the Montreal Gazette forced two of the key organizers of the group into exile: Gabriel Sohier Chaput, alias “Zeiger,” and Athanasse Zafirov, alias “Date” (also sometimes “LateOfDies” or “Sam Houde/Hoydel” ). Zeiger was not only a central figure in this little Montréal-based group but was also part of an international network that developed from 2015 to 2018; notably as a prolific producer of content for The Daily Stormer website, as a moderator of the Iron March chatroom, and as a key propagandist for the explicitly National Socialist and accelerationist tendency of the alt-right movement. There is a warrant for his arrest in Québec, and he is currently in hiding. Meanwhile, “Date” (or “LateOfDies”), who seems to have been gradually radicalized, beginning in the “Pickup Artists” scene personified by the misogynist Roosh V , was a key organizer in the local and national alt-right milieu; exceptionally as a leading organizer of the pan-Canadian gathering held in Ontario in July 2017. He relocated to California in 2018, where he is comfortably ensconced in the doctoral program at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, in spite of our article that exposed him and his new life. ...

David Campbell is an antifascist comrade who has been imprisoned for events that unfolded at the protest of a New York City far right event on January 20, 2018. The event, “A Night For Freedom,” was organized by the misogynist and racist activist Mike Cernovich with the participation of Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and the white nationalist Canadian podcaster Stefan Molyneux. It was part of an ongoing process of consolidating an “alt lite” political scene: i.e. racist, misogynist, and full of conspiracy theories and race and gender pseudoscience, but not actually neo-Nazi. ...

This White Nationalist is Still Employed by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Thanks to the diligent efforts of antiracist militants and a local network of antifascist sympathizers, Montréal Antifasciste is in a position to confirm that the independent candidate who ran in LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, Julien Côté (Lussier), is a longstanding white nationalist activist, an active participant in a number of alt-right (neo-Nazi) chatrooms, a key alt-right organizer in Montréal and across Canada… and an employee of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. ...

Voting is not really our thing, but we do recognize that this is a time when more people are speaking about politics and policies, including many that will have a real impact on many people’s lives. This time around (not for the first time) the Conservatives are contending with a national party to their right, as Maxime Bernier’s People’s Party of Canada fields candidates across the country on a populist platform with climate denial and anti-immigrant sentiment as its key planks. ...

The following text was written by the CLAC, the IWW and Montréal Antifasciste and was distributed at the Montreal climate demonstration on September 27, 2019. It can also be downloaded to print here . 1. GOVERNMENTS WON’T SAVE US Those who benefit from poisoning the land and exploiting people you care about won’t be reformed. They’ll make it seem like they hear your voices and occasionally put on grand spectacles to temporarily appease your anger. They’ll encourage you to channel your anxiety into pointless practices that only reinforce individualism. So while some of us compete to take shorter showers or to reduce our trash output, government officials, universities, and corporations shamelessly invest in more pipelines, host uncritical academic conferences, or fly jets to fancy meetings where empty promises are made. ...

In December 2018, Montréal Antifasciste published a dossier on the neofascist organization Atalante , tracing the group’s history as well as the trajectory of some of the individuals at the heart of the project, specifically, members of the Québec Stomper Crew gang and the band Légitime Violence. A series of follow-up articles have focused on the activities of a number of people within Atalante’s sphere of influence. ...

Definitions and Characteristics As an organization that initially emerged out of experiences activists had trying to shut down far right demonstrations and events in Montreal, Montréal Antifasciste has focused on movements and organizations that promote exclusionary beliefs and policies more drastic than the “mainstream” right-wing agenda. This is obviously not a theoretically rigorous approach, just a pragmatic one, and we are aware that there are many circumstances where it might not be appropriate. Furthermore, for reasons having as much to do with capacity as anything else, we have not publicly targeted movements that currently engage in little or no public activities in our city – for instance, the anti-abortion movement or the broader Catholic Right – even though we try to keep them on our radar. ...