A-Infos (en) Germany, Die Plattform[Trier]: The wave is over - a reflection of three months of anti-fascist protests (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

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 
yourself: What happened? What have we achieved? Where can it 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 anti-fascist movement. ---- Overview ---- On January 10th, 
correctiv published their 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 1,000 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 a good 
turnout.
On January 28th, Trier's largest rally to date against right-wing 
politics took place with over 10,000 people, this time under the motto 
"Never again is now". Afterwards, a smaller group of 300-400 people set 
off through the city center with a spontaneous demonstration.
On February 2nd, over 1,000 people took part in a rally against the 
creation of the AfD's list of candidates at the Domfreihof.
On February 25th, around 4,500 people took part in a demonstration by 
the "Never Again is Now!" alliance.
On March 8th, around 400 people demonstrated against the shift to the 
right and for feminism under the motto Fantifa*.
On April 7th, around 2,000 people took part in the large demonstration.

The development

As the Trier platform, like many others, we were surprised by the large 
turnout in the protests. Of course, all bourgeois parties have tried to 
use this to position themselves in an anti-fascist light, while they 
themselves continue and implement right-wing policies. But we didn't let 
that stop us and tried to bring combative analyzes and positions to the 
local protests from the start and took part where we could.

Similar to the Antifascist Action South, we also see the protests as 
crisis protests (2), under liberal auspices and without a clear social 
thrust. In this context, we must also understand 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 corresponds primarily to people who, 
among other things, would be negatively affected economically by AfD 
policies and who are afraid of further decline.

We have to recognize that there is an ambivalence. On the one hand, the 
protests arise from an existing awareness of the conditions and 
fascisation of society and the state, but at the same time they arise 
from a reactionary "everything should stay as it is" attitude. We 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 current state of affairs, the 
leadership of the protests by established forces and their working 
mechanisms, in Trier to the outside world largely through the Colorful 
Trier, prevented an independent movement against the right-wing normal 
state from developing among the people begins to take effect in everyday 
life and develop forms of struggle beyond the focus on elections. We 
must recognize that various comrades in the alliance work have prevented 
something worse from happening. The fact that no parties were able to 
appear publicly at the large protests in Trier, and were not even 
visible, and that no national flags were allowed to be waved, is 
positive and shows the support that anti-authoritarian positions have in 
the left-wing political scene in Trier at the moment. The traffic light 
government's criticism of the current asylum policy also received wide 
attention, but in our opinion it was hardly taken up by large sections 
of those present.

The problem of insisting on a pure rejection of the AfD in terms of 
external impact 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 mobilized 
spontaneously and many of the others involved seemed to be largely 
indifferent to the ruling parties' ignoring of racist politics. This is 
clearly evident in the much more independent protest on January 21st in 
Kasel. This emerged from old networks in a much more self-organized 
manner, 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 legitimation against the racist ideology of the 
extreme right.

A class struggle and social perspective was also hardly shown. The weak 
presence and visibility of trade unionists in Trier shows both how 
little anti-fascism is anchored in the DGB and the relatively weak 
anchoring of the trade unions in Trier. They were only visible in 
isolated cases and were unable to become an independent force that would 
take on a leading role. In this regard, we have to ask ourselves 
critically how we can get to a point similar to that in 
Baden-Würtemberg, where anti-fascist activists, together with the trade 
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 
anarcha-communist federation, the platform, and as individuals and 
federation and have tried to spontaneously do what we can to spread our 
current perspective as much as possible. We believe that overall we were 
very 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 far away. Thanks to the many years of work and 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 
with an overload of technology meant that the stand served as a contact 
point for questions. We clearly underestimated how curious many people 
were and the few flyers were ripped out of our hands within a very short 
time. Both in the flyers, which were a shortened and adapted version of 
our statement (4), and in our speeches, we tried to emphasize the need 
for long-term organizing in everyday life, as anti-fascists, and to 
build on the experience of previous anti-fascist protests. In practice, 
this means since the second major demonstration of "Never again is now!" 
Alliance, our focus on building and supporting the OAT. At the last 
demonstration, the OAT was able to represent a combative position to the 
outside world 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 lack of an independent, open and continuous 
anti-fascist organization in Trier has become painfully apparent.

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, which have tried to discredit us and our 
work. At this point we can see that this did not work.

perspective

The growing resignation and declining participation numbers are an 
unsurprising consequence of movement dynamics and the takeover by 
established forces. But it's important not to give up now. Our support 
continues to go to the OAT, but we will also continue to work to broaden 
an anti-fascist perspective in other subject areas. This year's Feminist 
Fight Day in Trier took place under the motto Fantifa* to draw attention 
to the growing right-wing danger. 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 connect current 
events with it (3). Antifascism remains necessary as a movement for the 
self-defense of social movements and the rights we have fought for, but 
it does not completely take us over.

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

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

In order to further 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 start of the semester in Trier (Kri.Se), we are giving a 
lecture about perspectives on antifascism and want to talk about it 
together.

Footnotes

(1) 
correctiv.org/aktuelles/neue-rechte/2024/01/10/geheimplan-remigration-vertriebung-afd-rechtsextreme-november-treffen
(2) antifa-sued.org/analyse-die-eine-welle-take-the-othere-break
(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

https://trier.dieplattform.org/2024/05/02/die-welle-ist-zuende-eine-reflexion-von-drei-monaten-antifaschistischer-proteste/
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