Antifa

The first three quarters of this book are a challenge. I don't have a whole lot of experience with non-fiction books (but I am trying!), but my most recent non-fiction read made an exceptional effort to be engaging and narratively-driven. The Anti-Fascist Handbook is not that kind of book. Mark Bray is doing the overwhelming task of trying to document over a century-long history of anti-fascist resistance, and even though he chose only to cover the West (specifically Europe, the United States, Scandinavia, and with important emphasis on Greece and Syria), it is a task indeed. At least the first half of the book is a breathless account of antifa's roots and history, and I had to focus to absorb as much of it as I could.

Then we get into recent history and the relevant uprisings of fascism that have been occurring in the past fifteen to twenty years. That was the part where I started to get stress pains behind my jaw. I won't lie, I am one of those people that, in the past two years, Googled the best countries and cities for American ex-pats more than once. But reading about where and how and when fascists have been gaining ground makes you kind of feel like there isn't going to be anywhere to go. Which leaves us with our best option - to stand and fight. While I wish there was more here about how fascism takes root and grows, the emphasis here is intentionally on how to resist. This is not a handbook in the strictest sense of the term, but Bray makes an effort to educate anyone who is willing to listen on the best ways to fight fascism.

If you need ammunition against the guy in your circle who likes to say “Well if these guys can punch Nazis, why can't I punch you for disagreeing with me too?” this book will give you that. If you are sick of listening to people say things like “So much for the tolerant left!” or “It's that big of deal, detention centers are not concentration camps” then this book is what you need. Antifa is not new, wherever there has been fascism there has been anti-fascist action. There have been over a century of organizations, tactics that have been tried and tested for decades. The people today who are pulling black hoods over their faces are not the first, and they're not doing it carelessly. They're doing it because it is part of something that works.

The value of those first couple of chapters in which antifa's history is carefully documented is not just to give context for what's happening now, but to show you all the names of fascist leaders and fascist groups that you have never heard of. Oswald Mosely was gaining influence in the U.K. at the same time of Hitler and Mussolini, but you probably don't know his name. Nor should you - antifa groups of the time made sure you didn't. The last section of this book where Bray breaks down and analyzes antifa's tactics, history and current relevance in the cultural parlance is rich with fantastic stuff. I wanted to highlight and quote all of it. He discusses the true complexities of freedom of speech in regards to the way people discuss it when we talk about deplatforming fascists, about how this conflict is not a thought experiment and fascism and white supremacy is more than just an “opinion.” This is a deeply necessary book, not an easy one to read - both emotionally and intellectually - but one that possesses powerful information and a path of for fighting for the future.