Michael Staudenmaier: Anti-Fascism

— Barrie Sargeant

Fascism has few adherents in this country. However, with the attention paid to the National Front as a result of last year's anti-racist march in Wellington, it is worthwhile finding out how conditions are in countries with more experience of the phenomenon. The following are excerpts from a recent impromptu interview conducted by Barrie Sargeant with visiting American-based anti-fascist activist Michael Staudenmaier.

Q: Can you start by telling me who you are and what your background and interests are?

A: Sure. My name is Michael Staudenmaier. I'm an anarchist from the United States and anti-fascist. I've been involved in a wide range of anarchist and specifically anti-fascist stuff over the years, including in particular Anti Racist Action, which is sort of an amorphous network of different groups all across North America that believes in direct action against fascists. And so that has been my main outlook for anti-fascism, although the particular Anti-Racist Action I was involved in, in Chicago, has been kind of dormant for the last year. So, on that front I'm not necessarily the most current person.

That's my easiest version of my background. I've written about fascism and anti-fascism as well. So I can tell you some stuff that might be interesting. And I'm working on this essay for this book on 'Anarchism in an Age of Globalisation' which will be specifically about emerging fascisms and anti-fascisms in a globalising world.

Q: Could you possibly tell me a bit about the historical phenomenon of fascism and what your take on it is as an ideology?

A: For me the most important thing about fascism that I think a lot of people miss whether they are liberal or radical politically, is the notion that fascism is on its own an independent threat to the capitalist functioning of the world. And so in that sense I often think it is useful to think of a three cornered fight both historically in the 1920's and 30's and also today and in the future. Capitalism is the 800 pound gorilla in the room and then in one corner you have a fascist movement and then in a third corner you have an unfortunately very small right now, anti-fascist and anarchist etc. radical left movement. And in that context I view both the Left and the fascists as being potentially revolutionary and interested in radically restructuring the capitalist system. It still runs the show but has to deal with both of these.

In a current context one thing I think is very interesting is that this point in time is perhaps the first time since the 1930's and 40's — since World War II — where capitalism in most of its forms on a global scale views people that are fascist as a greater threat to capitalist hegemony than it views the radical left. In the U.S. certainly, fascist organisations have taken far more state repression in the last 5 years than anybody other than, say, the Moslem Left in the U.S. They are the only other faction that's taken as much state repression. That shows that in the U.S at least, groups like the National Alliance which is the largest fascist group in the U.S. with probably around 2,000 members, groups like that are coming in for a lot more attention from the state than any piddling little anarchist group is. Even though there are in amorphous terms probably 10,000 anarchists in North America, they are not organised the way the fascists are. So anyway, that three cornered fight is one key element of how I understand fascism.

Another would be to say that the ideology of fascism has historically been aligned with a sort of hard-line social conservatism. We talked earlier a little bit about the sexual obsessions of fascists, and one phrase I have used before is 'atrophied patriarchy' both in personal life and in the macro scale of politics. That this is a man's world and it's a straight man's world in particular. That foregrounds the politics of the fascists and on top of that there are all sorts of other things that come and go. Historically white supremacy has been a key element of fascism but I'm not convinced that it's always been the case and I'm definitely not convinced that it's going to be the case in the future. In fact the essay I'm writing is largely about fascism in Latin America. Its not white fascism in Latin America, as much as things that look like fascism looked in Europe but in a context of Latin America where white supremacy is structured very differently. But you know there have been things like my brother's book on the Green wing of the Nazis and the discussion we had earlier about Nazis organising around 'support' for the Palestinians. Things like that which are frighteningly close to traditional Left positions are now also positions taken by some Nazis but their spin on it is that we need a more authoritarian, a more oppressive, a more patriarchal society to deal with these problems and if we had that then everything could be fixed. To me that sort of repressive authoritarian patriarchal structure is the crux of what fascist ideology is about.

I want to make it clear that I'm unorthodox in some ways at least in the U.S in terms of how I think about what fascism is now, as being different from what it was before. I think a lot of people are still interested in thinking of the Nazis as being primarily brainless thugs who are led by Hitler-loving freaks. I think that was not necessarily ever really true and I think its even less true now as time goes on. If you look at a lot of Nazi websites people like Metzger are much more interested in trying to make linkages with the legacy of somebody like Che Guevara than they are with Adolf Hitler. To them Hitler was, you know, maybe this interesting historical figure but he is useless now as an organising tool. And the Nazis are nothing if they are not serious skilled organisers, at least in the U.S. I don't know if that is true here.

So in that context these people are saying “What are the things we can organise around?” and now in the U.S and on a global scale, you can see organising around issues like Israel-Palestine. It's a key one and it creates all sorts of interesting alliances and sort of strange bedfellows, because you have a situation where a lot of fascists in the U.S. came out more or less in support of the September 11th attacks, saying you know the World Trade Centre was the capital of Jewish economic control of the world and it's a good thing that they all died. That also sort of provides some convenient linkages with groups like Al Qaida to the extent that Al Qaida is a functional group any more. Groups of that sort are, I think, more akin to sort of an historical legacy and trajectory of fascism than they are to simply some very conservative Moslem theocracy. They have that element as well, but I think groups like Al Qaida are forward looking organisations at the same time that they are sort of nostalgic for the past. That is another key element of how we should understand fascism. This sort of dialectic between nostalgia and progress. That they are very nostalgic for this vision of an old world but they also know that on one level that old world cannot be re-created. We can't go back to it and we have to move forward with that as our vision, towards this sort of authoritarian, patriarchal, repressive society.

And I think that the hope for a militant anti-fascism is precisely the allure of freedom as a concept, the allure of cultural variation as a practice, the allure of foods of various ethnicities, music from various backgrounds, things like that. I think most people in the world are more interested in that or it's a more attractive concept in life, than the concept of repressive, authoritarian, patriarchal rigid society. And that I think is what anti-fascists really have to build on, that notion that there is a cultural battle being fought in addition to the occasional military skirmishes in the streets when you have demos. And I think anti-fascists really have to focus on that, the cultural end of things as well. Making sure we are building a culture out of anti-fascism that is inclusive, that is welcoming, is positive in its outlook, that's not built exclusively on sort of anger and rejection and hate. Although those elements also have their place.

Q: So do you think that's being successfully done at the moment?

A: Not nearly as much as I would like to see. In most places in the U.S. anti-fascism is sort of a sub-cultural phenomenon in the punk scene, often in the hip-hop scene in the U.S. and also in the skinhead scene to the extent that still exists. It does in some places in the U.S. have a sort of Left and Centre skinhead system, it's separate from the Nazi skinhead system.

But to me that's the great problem with anti-fascism on a world scale. Everywhere that I look, everywhere that I know about, anti-fascism is largely split into two camps. One is politically bankrupt because it is specifically liberal and says what we need to do is stop fascism by reinforcing liberal institutions in the First World by voting Democratic in the U.S. or by buying more, you know consumption and voting are the main elements there. The other version of anti-fascism is a very limited and marginal militant anti-fascism, which has the right ideas and has usually a very good practice, but is so marginalised that it doesn't know how, at least yet in most places, to reach out and build cross cultural alliances, how to build a popular culture that says this is something open to everyone, you don't have to wear a black mask and carry a baseball bat to beat up skinheads in order to join.

That doesn't happen enough in my opinion, but there are definitely glimmers of hope in lots of places. I think more and more are realising if anti-fascism is going to be successful it has to be revolutionary. That is liberal anti-fascism is never going to stop fascism because fascism breeds on the resistance to the same capitalist system that the Left is also built in resistance to. So it has to be revolutionary and it also has to be cosmopolitan and open rather than being narrowly sub-cultural and you know “Fuck off if you don't like our music or dress like us” or whatever. And so I don't see enough of that, but its there in bits and pieces in different places.

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