Saturday, February 26, 2022

Antifascism Survey

What kind of antifascist are you?  Take this little survey and find out.

There are networks of people in many parts of the world who identify as Antifascists.  This means different things for different people, however.  In Germany, where being against fascism is especially popular, most antifascists identify more or less with the strain known as Anti-Imperialist.  But there's a significant off-shoot of the Antifascist phenomenon that took bloom in the early 1990's, and is generally known as Anti-Deutsch, or Anti-German.

These two strains of Antifascism both exist in the United States in 2022.  To my knowledge, the different tendencies don't even have names in the American context, and a lot of people seem to be talking past each other, though they all identify as Antifascist.  This survey is intended to help people think about which ideological tendency they more closely identify with.

Respond to each of the following statements with 1-5, with 1 indicating "I strongly disagree" and 5 indicates "I strongly agree."

"As an antifascist in the US, I think..."

  1. We need to strive towards building a broad-based, inclusive movement that aims towards achieving an egalitarian society, which will do a lot to lessen the popularity of fascist ideas.
  2. It's important that anyone else who is in any way part of this movement be ideologically pure, or else we don't have safe spaces within which to operate.
  3. We should oppose militarism and imperial wars, which for those of us in the US, especially, means opposing US military occupations of other countries, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Cuba.
  4. Antisemitism is a big problem on the left, and must be rooted out and exposed, so that anyone displaying antisemitic tendencies is as deplatformed as possible.
  5. Apartheid should be opposed, whether we're talking about institutional racism and mass incarceration in the United States, or racialized systems of settler-colonialism in US client states such as Israel.
  6. If people are criticizing Israeli apartheid, it's probably an indication that they are antisemites.
  7. Police infiltration of the left and anarchist movements in the US has historically been a big problem, and probably is now, too.
  8. People who speculate about police infiltration of left and anarchist movements are probably conspiracy theorists who are up to no good.
  9. In order to build a strong and effective movement, we have to support each other, be inclusive, and have a lot of tolerance for our many differences.
  10. It's very important that everyone within antifascist spaces is respected and feels safe, so anyone who makes others feel uncomfortable should be excluded from antifascist spaces.
  11. It's very important to communicate with people who might be attracted to fascist political thinking, including in public spaces, in the process of doing good antifascist popular education.
  12. If you publicly communicate with a member of the right, you are platforming that person's views, and should forever be associated with those views and deplatformed.
  13. People who have far right views can sometimes radically change their perspective, when antifascists who are good, empathic communicators take the time to try to reach them.
  14. People with far right views aren't safe to be around, and we shouldn't engage with them, unless it's in the process of trying to shut down one of their events.
  15. It's important to be tolerant of others, and strive to only discuss differences in nonconfrontational, sympathetic circumstances, to keep things from getting divisive.
  16. When someone transgresses, they should be called out for their mistake on Twitter, and we have a duty to remind everyone of this transgression frequently.
  17. If someone mentions that a particular billionaire is Jewish, there are a lot of different reasons why this might come up.
  18. If someone mentions that a particular billionaire is Jewish, it is probably an indication of antisemitic tendencies, and this person should be treated with suspicion.
  19. If someone discusses demographic differences within US society, such as those between different races, religions, and ethnic groups, there are a lot of legitimate reasons to do this, and no inherent reason to be suspicious of such a conversation taking place.
  20. If someone discusses demographic differences within US society they are probably antisemites, trying to back up the fascist notion that Jews secretly run the world.
If your responses to the odd-numbered statements tend towards "5," while your responses to the even-numbered statements tend towards "1," you're quite likely a typical, ecumenical antifascist of the anti-imperialist variety.  

If your responses to the even-numbered statements tend towards "5" and your odd-numbered responses tend towards "1," you might like to join a troll farm, become an Israeli settler, or, preferably, get some help.  Feel free to reach out to me, if you want, we can talk.

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