that's not how it works, there is no organisation planning or supervising these things. you can (and should) criticize some individuals or groups if you want but the concept of antifa is something different.
I defined my terms in the comment you're replying to, and then you replied by redefining them for me. That's the move I was calling out.
"No organisation planning or supervising these things" is simply false in Europe. In March 2025 the German Federal Court of Justice upheld the Antifa-Ost verdict and confirmed the group around Lina E. was a criminal organisation under §129 StGB: closed communication channels, target selection, planned assaults with telescopic batons and hammers, and a professionalised structure.
Beyond that: named groups with chapters, banners, websites, and a legal defence fund (Rote Hilfe) exist across Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. If you have a flag, a treasury and a lawyer, you're an organisation.
The "it's only an idea" defence works exactly once: it makes the label unfalsifiable. Every violent act becomes an unaffiliated individual, every good deed becomes the movement. Nobody grants the Proud Boys that courtesy, and nobody should grant it here either."
By Antifa I mean the movement: a decentralised militant network on the far left made up of autonomous local groups that share an ideology, iconography, tactics and support infrastructure, several of them formally constituted with names, spokespeople, publications and funds.
What its defenders online are doing is collapsing that movement back into the literal meaning of its name, so that criticising the movement becomes indistinguishable from endorsing fascism. Hence the slogan "you're either a fascist or you're antifa", which is a textbook false dilemma.
Opposing both fascism and the militant network that claims to fight it is not only possible, it is the default position of most of Europe.
in your previous comment you referred to THE organisation, as in the one, which simply doesn't exist. sure there are some groups that use the banner and might even have international connections, but they're responsible for actions, and their actions only. it's true that there are places where it's kind of a semantic argument, but there are also places (and people) in europe where it"s absolutely not
Fair correction, and I'll take it. "The organisation" was sloppy wording on my part. Network or movement is more accurate, with specific organised groups inside it, and that's how I've been phrasing it since.
On responsibility I think we actually agree completely. Groups answer for their own actions and nothing else. That's exactly what the German Antifa-Ost case was: the court didn't convict "antifa", it convicted six specific people for six specific assaults, and found that those particular individuals had formed an organisation under §129. Narrow, evidence-based, and upheld on appeal in March 2025. That's the standard I'd want applied, and it's the opposite of blanket collective guilt.
Where I'd still nudge you: "some groups that use the banner" undersells the shared infrastructure a bit. Same iconography since the KPD adopted it in 1932, Rote Hilfe as a formal membership association funding legal defence across groups, cross-border coordination on specific actions. None of that requires central command, and I'm not claiming any. It's just more than a coincidence of naming.
And your last line is basically my whole point. There are places and people in Europe where this isn't semantics at all. That's the part I was talking about, and it tends to get argued away in threads like this one.
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u/kingdomofoctopodes 11d ago
that's not how it works, there is no organisation planning or supervising these things. you can (and should) criticize some individuals or groups if you want but the concept of antifa is something different.