Tabitha Korol
Antifascism, a worthy cause
by Tabitha Korol and Kevin O'Neil
FacebookTwitter
By Tabitha Korol
February 10, 2020

We can all fight for a cause, but "The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

They began as idealists, working to save the French-Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus who'd been falsely accused of conspiring with the Prussian army. The Dreyfus Affair of the mid-1890s and early 1900s was the impulsion for people to unite in support of the rights of the individual before a military authority that was rightly seen to be draconian and dismissive. A worthy cause, yet the case divided France into the anti-Dreyfusards, fascist, Jew-hating ultranationalists, and the "Dreyfusards," the anti-fascists who formed associations and humanitarian consensus to gain his exoneration.

Today's anti-fascists, "Antifa," miss the point if they see themselves as successors to the Dreyfusards. The latter were inspired by love of the individual, a positive inspiration, whereas Antifa is motivated by negative hatred for the establishment and the abuse of the individual who happens to disagree with them.

Defining the term fascism has proven notoriously difficult. There were German antifascists in the early 1900s who joined the Jewish working class to fight for dignity and better wages, and Italian antifascists who fought against Benito Mussolini's Fascist Party and Hitler's growing influence. There were also Spanish antifascists both before and during Spain's civil war, with writers Orwell and Hemingway among their ranks.

But there are sufficient differences between the various fascist regimes that make it virtually impossible to identify a commonality. However, most leading scholars agree that all fascists support the violent revolutionary overthrow of the state's entire government to be replaced with a totalitarian system that diminishes the value of the individual to a mere component of the whole. Any difference of opinion is seen as fair game to be silenced.

Antifa are a burgeoning collection of discontented militant-leftist groups who, convinced that white supremacism was responsible for chattel slavery and the Holocaust, are allied in their attempt to overthrow "white" western government by any means available, including violence.

British political theorist Roger Griffin, author of "The Nature of Fascism," wrote, "Fascism is a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is ... palingenetic," which means that a "rebirth" would follow the demolition of the existing political order. By this scholarly definition, Antifa's own methods and goals fulfill the criteria – not of anti-fascism – but of Fascism!

After interviewing 61 current members in 17 countries, Mark Bray, author of "Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook," asserts that militant antifascism is a "reasonable, historically informed response to the fascist threat that persisted" after World War II and into recent years. They argue that every fascist or white-supremacist group has the potential of being the start of Mussolini's original hundred or Hitler's first fifty-four members of the German Workers' Party. Hence, they believe they have a righteous obligation to stop what they regard as fascist "violence, incivility, discrimination, and speeches that stimulate further white supremacy, oppression and genocide."

And fascism, real fascism, must be opposed. Edmund Burke's statement was never more apposite, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

In "The View from My Window: The Ethics of Using Violence to Fight Fascism," Elie Wiesel recalled familiar riots while he was watching one play out below his fifth-floor window in Berkeley. It brought to mind the millions of people who fought fascism throughout Europe, and he suitably wondered at what point resistance to fascism may be justifiable.

A very sobering question! And whatever the "point" is at which action is justified, one thing is certain: we must be able to define fascism and be convinced that the group we oppose is truly fascistic.

Not only had Wiesel witnessed real fascism at work, but had suffered from it, and lost both parents and a sister to the Nazis. He recalled the brave month-long resistance of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto when the Nazis came to liquidate it, April 19, 1943. More than fifty-six thousand Jews were killed, very few escaping. This is the face of real fascism.

America is not Warsaw; neither is it remotely similar. We are not ruled by an authoritarian power, and our laws are not for the subjugation of the individual, but for his/her protection. Antifa must ask themselves if they are even capable of actually recognizing true Fascism.

Columnist Mark Thiessen wrote in the Washington Times (6.30.17) that Antifa was the "moral equivalent of neo-Nazis." The statement may or may not be prescient, but it will not be the first time in history that a movement that began as an ideological liberator abandoned reason and descended into violence and incoherent rage. In the famous words of Goya, "The sleep of reason produces monsters."

If Antifa truly aspire to being worthy successors to the antifascist groups of history, they must urgently learn the meaning and methods of fascism and be prepared to come to some very disturbing conclusions.

Tabitha Korol
https://tinyurl.com/y7e6z63d

© Tabitha Korol

 

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)

Click to enlarge

Tabitha Korol

(Editor's Note: Tabitha Korol Zuckerman passed away on January 14, 2022. Her obituary can be read here. She was preceded in death by her husband Sheldon Zuckerman on December 20, 2021.)

Author of "Confronting the Deception," Tabitha Korol began her political career after 9/11, with letters to the editor and essays, developing a readership and earning two writing awards along the way. Her work appears on Academia.edu, Christian Action Network, Conservative News and Views, Dr. Rich Swier, iPatriot, Liberty News & Views, LobbyistsforCitizens.com; Published Reporter, Renew America, Ted Belman, The Noisy Room, Trevor Loudon's New Zeal, Virginia Christian Alliance, WebCommentary, and others. Korol revised David Silberman's book of Holocaust survivors' accounts, "And You Saw That," for publication, and edited David Pristash's book, "Essay on Moral Philosophy in Western Civilization." She also proofreads/edits a monthly city magazine.

Subscribe

Receive future articles by Tabitha Korol: Click here

More by this author

 

Stephen Stone
The most egregious lies Evan McMullin and the media have told about Sen. Mike Lee

Siena Hoefling
Protect the Children: Update with VIDEO

Stephen Stone
Flashback: Dems' fake claim that Trump and Utah congressional hopeful Burgess Owens want 'renewed nuclear testing' blows up when examined

Pete Riehm
Like our Commander-in-Chief, America is clueless, feckless, and powerless

Selwyn Duke
Did anti-white, DEI bias steal a state final spot from a white basketball team?

James Lambert
It’s time to get a Republican (like Steve Garvey) elected to the U.S. Senate in CA. It’s been 30 years!

Linda Goudsmit
Chapter 10: Objective reality is required for a free society

Michael Bresciani
Gay is OK, but trans for kids is on the skids – Have Americans now become judges of evil thoughts?

Linda Kimball
Nihilism…all that exists is matter and energy: The worldview that caused the collapse of Christendom and Protestant Amer

Peter Lemiska
China doesn’t need a Trojan Horse – It has Joe Biden

Rev. Mark H. Creech
Revelation Chapter 22: Getting beyond doubt, Billy Graham’s example

Paul A. Byrne, M.D.
2024 International Gift of Life Walk – NYC

Cliff Kincaid
Biden’s bloody revolution for America

Victor Sharpe
Senator Schumer enters the annals of Shame

Linda Kimball
Prayer against evil, insane Babylon
  More columns

Cartoons


Click for full cartoon
More cartoons

Columnists

Matt C. Abbott
Chris Adamo
Russ J. Alan
Bonnie Alba
Chuck Baldwin
Kevin J. Banet
J. Matt Barber
Fr. Tom Bartolomeo
. . .
[See more]

Sister sites