[News] Changing the narrative, from BDS to antifa

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://mondoweiss.net/2017/09/changing-narrative-antifa/


  Changing the narrative, from BDS to antifa

Nada Elia - September 1, 2017
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The confluence of fascism and Zionism 
<http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/birds-feather-1463289527> is 
becoming more obvious by the day, with alt-right leader Richard Spencer 
describing himself as a “white Zionist,” while the Zionist Organization 
of American invites Steve Bannon as a speaker at its annual gala 
<https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/bannon-to-speak-at-zoa-gala/538197/>. 
  And as the two forms of racial supremacy merge seamlessly together, 
the Palestinian struggle for human rights and dignity can set the model 
for discursive changes, the rejection of racism as status-quo, no matter 
how powerfully endorsed by the state and its militarized apparatus, and 
an understanding that together, we are greater than the sum of our parts.

Indeed, Palestinians immediately noticed the eerie similarity between 
the current administration’s discourse, which insists that there is 
“blame on both sides,” and posits a fake symmetry between fascism and 
protests against hatred, and our own experience being described as 
terrorists, anti-Semites, a depraved people who do not value life, and 
deserve, indeed provoke the violence being inflicted upon us.

Yet over the decades, with our painstaking determination to educate 
about the historical context, and thus expose Israeli abuses, and with 
the principled commitment of the BDS movement to envision and lay the 
groundwork for a genuinely egalitarian society unfettered by ethnic or 
gender privileges, we have finally chipped away at the long-held belief 
that “the conflict is thousands of years old,” and “the Palestinians 
want to throw the Jews into the sea.”  Today, most people know the 
“conflict” is an anti-colonial struggle, and that Palestinians once 
included Jews, Muslims, and Christians, until Israel created the “Jewish 
nationality,” and stripped Palestinians of any rights in their ancestral 
homeland, now become “the Jewish state.”

BDS in particular has bought together a broad base of activists 
globally, who have successfully broken through the once unquestioned 
Zionist narrative of Jewish victimhood at the hands of anti-Semitic 
Arabs, and the need for a Jewish supremacist state.  We have educated 
millions about the reality of Israeli racism and apartheid, and we have 
shown the world that there is an alternative to the corrupt “peace 
process” that still pretends to seek to achieve two states, even as it 
poisons that possibility by creating toxic “facts on the ground.”  And 
as our base has grown to include millions of BDS supporters and 
activists globally, we have also shown that BDS is an inclusive strategy 
that embraces and empowers each and every one who is opposed to 
settler-colonialism, racial supremacy, and the violation of any people’s 
human rights.

Today, as anti-fascist protesters are described by the mainstream as 
“violent thugs,” and as Americans are being told that racism is part of 
the fabric of this country and can therefore never be completely 
eliminated, the struggle for Palestinian rights offers an alternative 
vision: we don’t have to accept injustice, even when the system is set 
up, has always been set up, to perpetuate it.  We may be called 
terrorists, “thugs,” our tactics and strategies may be unpopular, but we 
can prevail, and rather than settle for “pacification” through extreme 
oppression, we can aspire to genuine peace—an outcome of justice and 
equality.  After all, Israel, just like the US, is a country founded on 
genocide and settler-colonialism, with the aim of establishing and 
maintaining the superiority of one perceived ethnicity.  And if we can 
question and challenge that fundamental injustice in one country, we can 
question and challenge it in another.

Indeed, the protests against alt-right rallies last month in Boston, MA 
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/08/19/protestors-counterprotestors-gather-around-boston/IUaev6rwHP0qhbbcZhKa3I/story.html> 
and Berkeley, CA have proven one thing beyond refute: when we come 
together, we win.  We have not (yet) ended fascism, nor are we even 
changing the fascists’ views.  But we are winning because we are 
reclaiming our cities, our campuses, our parks, as we show the fascists 
that they are unwelcome, forcing them to cancel many of their planned 
events 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/08/26/a-pro-trump-group-canceled-its-rally-but-san-francisco-prepared-for-violence-anyway/?utm_term=.641b399aee58>, 
and retreat back to the margins and the “dark web,” where they belong. 
  And we have secured our victories with our numbers.  The 40.000 
protesters in Boston did not see eye-to-eye on everything, my bet is 
that they actually disagreed on many issues, even as they came together 
to reject fascism in their city.  And so did the hundreds who protested 
in the Bay Area, and who included anti-police activists, Black Bloc 
activists, anarchists, atheists, faith leaders, disability rights 
activists, and thousands of activists and organizers who, until the 
night before, would certainly have not described themselves as “antifa,” 
and are likely still puzzling about the label.  Indeed, multiple 
articles have been written in the past month attempting to define what 
“antifa” is, and the term still feels alien to many who are protesting 
fascism.   The confusion is likely due to the fact that there was an 
“antifa” group active long before the recent overt displays of fascism 
all around the country, whereas many anti-hate protesters are only now 
taking to the streets, as they realize the uniqueness and urgency of the 
moment.  Donald Trump’s election, and his many outrageous statements and 
actions since January, have so emboldened the alt-right that they no 
longer feel the need to cover up in sheets and hoods, but walk around 
instead in “casual Friday” outfits, knowing most will be back at their 
desks by Monday.

Yet “antifa,” short for “anti-fascism,” is the broad umbrella that will 
protect us today.  Because at this juncture in US politics, the 
protestors are rallying and forming alliances based on their common 
opposition to fascism, rather than the causes closest to individual 
hearts, whatever these are:  BLM, indigenous sovereignty, immigrant 
rights, combating Islamophobia, etc.  We are not abandoning these 
causes, indeed, every one of them represents an aspect of anti-fascism. 
  And we must refuse to be defined as “violent,” “thugs,” and we 
certainly must watch out for attempts to be labelled “terrorists,” as 
one currently circulating petition 
<https://www.change.org/p/president-of-the-united-states-declare-antifa-a-terrorist-organization> 
would have it.  We must refuse the false equivalency of “many sides,” 
and “fine people on both sides.”  At this moment in the US, there can 
only be two sides:  fascists, and anti-fascists.  There is nothing 
“fine” about fascism.  And the anti-fascists, the “antifa,” are the ones 
protecting the communities that are targeted, threatened by the 
fascists: blacks, immigrants, Muslims, Jewish, LGBTQ+, and progressive 
whites.

The “antifa” are the ones who put their bodies on the line in 
Charlottesville, Boston, and Berkeley, to defend the actual and 
potential victims of fascist violence. “We would have been crushed like 
cockroaches if it were not for the anarchists and the anti-fascists,” 
Cornel West 
<https://www.democracynow.org/2017/8/14/cornel_west_rev_toni_blackmon_clergy> 
said of the confrontations that erupted in Charlottesville.  Sara 
Kurshner, of the National Lawyers Guild, expressed a similar experience 
<http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/08/28/berkeley-counter-demonstration-organizers-defend-antifa/> 
at the protest in Berkeley:

“Our experience on the streets was that we were defended by people who 
came — as anti-fascists — to do that,” Kurshner told Democracy Now. 
Tur-Ha Ak, of the Anti-Police Terror Project, also told Democracy Now: 
“We don’t apologize for any of it. Do not come here with any of it. Do 
not!” adding about fascism that “It is unwelcome. We have a right and an 
obligation to self-defense, period. Point blank.”

At this critical moment in US politics, the anti-fascist umbrella must 
be broad, encompassing, as we say no to state-sanctioned racial 
supremacy.  This too can be a lesson learned from the Palestinian 
struggle, and from BDS being the call with the broadest base amongst 
Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and the global diaspora. 
  As it intersects with struggles for decolonization, anti-racism, 
indigenous sovereignty, anti-incarceration, and anti-Zionism/fascism, 
the struggle for Palestinian human rights is the central defining 
struggle of the mid-twentieth century to the present, and reflects many 
of the struggles within the US.  Thus from Gaza to Ferguson, and from 
BDS to antifa, the Palestinian struggle can show the beauty of 
resistance as we model and enact the change by coming together, to 
challenge and confront the greater common foe.

-- 
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