A-Infos (en) Germany, Trier, Die Platform: Antifascist (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Crisis - Lecture Revolutionary Antifascism ---- As part of the series of 
events for the critical start of the semester in Trier, we held our 
well-known lecture on "Revolutionary Perspectives on Antifascism" on 
Monday, April 26th. It started at around quarter past six, and the 
lecture was over a good hour later. The discussion that followed lasted 
for another hour and a half and brought interesting perspectives on the 
antifascist movement, especially in the context of the waning wave of 
protests against the AfD.
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The wave is over - a reflection on three months of antifascist protests

After three months of widespread protests against the AfD and the shift 
to the right, it is necessary to look at the developments and ask 
ourselves: What has happened? What have we achieved? Where can we go 
now? To do this, in this text we will first document a short chronicle 
of the local protests, describe and analyze the development, reflect on 
our participation and formulate perspectives for the further development 
of the local antifascist movement.

Overview

On January 10th, correctiv published its research Secret Plan Germany 
(1). On January 15th, around 400 people took part in a rally organized 
by the parties and left-liberal organizations in front of the Porta 
Nigra. On January 21st, over 1000 people spontaneously took part in a 
rally against an AfD citizens' dialogue in Kasel. On January 27th, a 
rally organized by the parties took place with good participation. On 
January 28th, Trier's largest rally against right-wing politics to date 
took place with over 10,000 people, this time under the motto "Never 
again is now". Afterwards, a smaller group of 300-400 people made their 
way through the city center with a spontaneous demonstration. On 
February 2nd, over 1000 people again took part in a rally against the 
AfD's list of candidates at the Domfreihof. On February 25th, around 
4500 people took part in a demonstration by the alliance "Never again is 
now!". On March 8th, around 400 people demonstrated under the motto 
Fantifa* against the shift to the right and for feminism. On April 7th, 
around 2,000 people took part in the large demonstration. The development

As the Trier platform, we were surprised, like many others, by the large 
number of people participating in the protests. Of course, all the 
bourgeois parties tried to use this to position themselves in an 
anti-fascist light, while continuing and implementing right-wing 
policies. But we did not let that stop us and tried from the beginning 
to bring militant analyses and positions to the local protests and 
participated wherever we could. Similar to the Antifaschistische Aktion 
Süd, we also see the protests as crisis protests (2), under liberal 
auspices and without a clear social thrust. In this context, we must 
also see the protests as an expression of dissatisfaction with the 
current social developments of impoverishment, war and the dismantling 
of social security systems. The milieu that took to the streets is 
primarily made up of people who would be negatively affected 
economically by the AfD's policies, and who are afraid of further 
decline. We have to acknowledge that there is an ambivalence. On the one 
hand, the protests arise from an existing awareness of the conditions 
and fascistization of society and the state, but at the same time they 
are currently more of a reactionary "everything should stay as it is". 
We can see this, among other things, in the fact that participation has 
declined incredibly quickly, even if we think of comparable protest 
movements in recent years such as the more reactionary Querdenker 
movement or FridaysForFuture. The insistence on maintaining the status 
quo, the leadership of the protests by established forces and their 
working mechanisms, in Trier primarily through Bunte Trier, have 
prevented an independent movement from developing against the right-wing 
normality that begins to take hold in people's everyday lives and 
develops forms of struggle beyond the focus on elections. We must 
acknowledge that various comrades in the alliance's work prevented worse 
things from happening. The fact that no parties were able to appear 
publicly at the large protests in Trier, were not even visible, and no 
national flags were allowed to be waved, is positive and shows the 
support that anti-authoritarian positions currently have in the 
left-wing political scene in Trier. The criticism of the current asylum 
policy by the traffic light government was also given a lot of space, 
but in our opinion was hardly taken up by large parts of those present.

The problem of insisting on a pure rejection of the AfD in terms of 
external image has also been shown in various other activities in recent 
months. The memorial rally for the victims of the attack in Hanau was 
not noticeably larger than in recent years, it was only spontaneously 
mobilized for and many of the other participants seem largely 
indifferent to the fact that the ruling parties ignore racist policies. 
This is clearly evident in the much more independent protest on January 
21 in Kasel. This was much more self-organized and emerged from old 
networks, which led to a much more exciting mix in which German flags 
flew and, above all, the economic and social added value of refugees and 
their labor was used as a legitimation against the racist ideology of 
the extreme right. A class-struggle and social perspective was also 
hardly presented. The weak presence and visibility of trade unionists in 
Trier shows both how little anti-fascism is anchored in the DGB, as well 
as the relatively weak anchoring of the trade unions in Trier. They were 
only visible in isolated cases and were not able to become an 
independent force that took on a leading role. In this respect, we must 
critically ask ourselves how we can get to a similar point as in 
Baden-Württemberg, where anti-fascist activists together with the unions 
were able to mobilize thousands under the motto "Break the right-wing 
wave". Our activities

Although anti-fascism is not one of our core areas of work, we have been 
active on this front for years, both as a local group of the 
anarcho-communist federation, the platform, and as individuals and a 
federation, and have tried to do what we can spontaneously to spread our 
current perspective as far as possible. We believe that overall we were 
clearly visible at the protests. With a high banner, flags, flyers, a 
drum, a coffee and cake stand and a co-organized block at the last 
demonstration, we were clearly visible from afar. Thanks to the many 
years of work and the development of the local group and some very 
active people, it was possible to have a strong external presence. The 
coffee and cake stand in particular gave us positive experiences, 
especially during the colder demonstrations. The surprise of the large 
number of participants at the end of January, which overloaded the 
technology, meant that the stand served as a point of contact for 
questions. We clearly underestimated how eager many people were to learn 
and the few flyers we had were snatched out of our hands within a very 
short time. Both the flyers, which were an abridged and adapted version 
of our declaration (4), and in our speeches we tried to emphasise the 
need for long-term organisation in everyday life, as well as as 
anti-fascists, and to build on the experience of previous anti-fascist 
protests. In practice, this has meant that since the second major 
demonstration by the "Never again is now!" alliance, we have focused on 
setting up and supporting the OAT. The OAT enabled us to present a 
combative position to the outside world at the last demonstration, with 
a focus on creating structures for long-term anti-fascist work. We will 
hopefully see the results of this work in the coming weeks and months. 
The previous lack of an independent, open and continuous anti-fascist 
organization in Trier has been painfully evident. While we have not yet 
been confronted with repression by state institutions, the increased 
visibility has led to repressive behavior by civil actors and the press, 
who have tried to discredit us and our work. At this point in time, we 
can see that this has not worked. Perspective

The growing resignation and decreasing participation numbers are an 
unsurprising consequence of movement dynamics and the takeover by 
established forces. However, it is important not to resign ourselves 
now. Our support continues to go to the OAT, but we will also continue 
to work in other areas to broaden an anti-fascist perspective. This 
year's Feminist Struggle Day in Trier took place under the motto 
Fantifa* to draw attention to the growing right-wing threat. So instead 
of focusing all our energy on the anti-fascist struggle as part of the 
current protests, we are continuing our other work and trying to 
meaningfully link the current events to it (3). Thus, antifascism 
remains necessary as a movement for the self-defense of social movements 
and the rights they have fought for, but it does not take us over 
completely.

The call from the statement "Whether AfD or traffic light government: 
only from below can we stop the shift to the right!" still applies:

"The anti-fascist mass movement remains the most effective means in the 
fight against the fascists. So let us start building it up today. 
Shoulder to shoulder on the streets of our cities and squares of our 
villages." (4)

To continue to discuss the state of the anti-fascist movement with us, 
we cordially invite you to come to the KSJ on April 29th. As part of the 
Critical Semester Start in Trier (Kri.Se), we will be giving a lecture 
on perspectives on anti-fascism and want to talk about it together.

Footnotes

(1) 
correctiv.org/aktuelles/neue-rechte/2024/01/10/geheimplan-remigration-vertreibung-afd-rechtsextreme-november-treffen

(2) antifa-sued.org/analyse-die-eine-welle-mitnehmen-die-andere-brechen

(3) 
trier.dieplattform.org/2024/03/13/antipatriarchaler-kampftag-in-trier-ein-bericht

(4) 
www.dieplattform.org/2024/01/26/ob-afd-oder-ampel-regierung-nur-von-unten-koennen-wir-den-rechtsruck-stoppen/#more-2859

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