![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A Thought on Antifa
Aug. 17th, 2017 10:28 amIf you know me in person, I apologize. I'm going to tell a story that I'm sure you've heard from me before. I think I heard the original on NPR some time ago.
It was a profile on Christiania, the weird city-state-anarchy in Denmark. It started in 1971 as an occupation of an abandoned military property. It has been a functioning, reasonably stable anarchy for more than 40 years. It is neither the paradise anarchists hoped for, nor the hell-hole that everyone else assumed it would become. It exists in strange symbiosis with Denmark. Here is my favorite story about Christiania.
A couple of dude-bros (or, as we called them back in the day, skinheads) went to Christiania to buy drugs. Christiania, being an anarchy, is a pretty good place to buy illegal pharmaceuticals. The dude-bros went decked out in the regalia of their people which included jackets with large Confederate flags on the back. I am unpersuaded by Americans who argue that flying the Stars and Bars is a matter of heritage, rather than racism, but in Europe, there is absolutely no ambiguity or plausible deniability. The Confederate flag is frequently deployed as a stand-in for Nazi symbols in places where those icons are outlawed.
It was a profile on Christiania, the weird city-state-anarchy in Denmark. It started in 1971 as an occupation of an abandoned military property. It has been a functioning, reasonably stable anarchy for more than 40 years. It is neither the paradise anarchists hoped for, nor the hell-hole that everyone else assumed it would become. It exists in strange symbiosis with Denmark. Here is my favorite story about Christiania.
A couple of dude-bros (or, as we called them back in the day, skinheads) went to Christiania to buy drugs. Christiania, being an anarchy, is a pretty good place to buy illegal pharmaceuticals. The dude-bros went decked out in the regalia of their people which included jackets with large Confederate flags on the back. I am unpersuaded by Americans who argue that flying the Stars and Bars is a matter of heritage, rather than racism, but in Europe, there is absolutely no ambiguity or plausible deniability. The Confederate flag is frequently deployed as a stand-in for Nazi symbols in places where those icons are outlawed.
Some of the residents of Christiania took it upon themselves to beat the ever-living snot out of the skinheads, and toss them over the city line. The dude-bros said, roughly, "Why the hell did you do that? I thought you guys were anarchists." To which the anarchists said, approximately, "That's why, you idiots."
I am afraid of violence. I am not physically fit, and have a low tolerance for pain. I am fond of my reasonably comfortable life. In a reasonable world, I would pay my taxes, and my taxes would pay for cops to protect me, and everyone else, from violence. As we can see in Charlotteseville (and especially when contrasting it to Durham), this is not the case. Which leaves...the Antifa. Who stood up, and put their bodies physically in the way of the actual, real-live, terrifying Nazis. And so here we are. Is this dangerous? Oh my god, yes. Civil violence is terrifying, and it can spin out of control. But the institutions, with their checks and balances and accountability...are not accountable. Not functioning. They murder with impunity, assault without accountability, and any discussion of "both sides" has to start with the fact that the state is on the same side as the Nazis. And so, Antifa.
