Translated by b9AcE to the best of my ability, from the original text in Swedish as of 2019-09-07. Any errors are to be presumed mine, not antifa’s.
As made apparent by the text, it represents the state of matters at the fifth anniversary in 1998, which is now over 20 years ago.
A similar text was published for the 25th anniversary, but while it contains pictures, it is much shorter and therefore the older text was chosen for translation.
Introduction
One of the younger social movements in Sweden is the anti-racist movement. As a social movement it began to emerge in the early 80s, as an extension of the waning leftist- and solidarity-movement of the 70s. The anti-racist movement thus emerged in a new era, to meet a different kind of problem than those the leftism of the seventies had countered. The left and the social movements were weakened, a right-wing surge began to make itself noticeable, unemployment increased and immigration from outside Europe had begun for real. Racism surfaced as a new problem in society on the political agenda.1980-1987
Around 1980 racist graffiti and racist deeds caused strong reactions. Out of the protests against an arson attack against an immigrant-owned convenience store in a suburb of Stockholm was founded Stoppa Rasismen [“Stop the Racism”], which grew as a genuine grassroots movement. The organization came to tie together different immigrant groups and leftist organizations in a broad and diverse rainbow-coalition. Apart from raising awareness about racism in Sweden, Stoppa Rasismen also worked against deteriorations in the right to asylum and against the State’s racism. The foundational idea of Stoppa Rasismen – an idea they carried on from the leftism of the seventies’ united front-strategy – was to create a broad union to counter and isolate racism in society. As Stoppa Rasismen managed to gather a number of organizations under their umbrella and also didn’t hesitate criticizing the State asylum- and refugee-policies they were treated as a threat by the Social Democrats, which responded by starting its own State-supported anti-racist organization, “Rör inte min kompis” [“Don’t touch my buddy”]. From Stoppa Rasismen’s sister-organization in France, the grassroots initiative SOS Racisme, the Social Democrats took the “Rör inte min kompis”-symbol (a hand making the stop-signal). By the “Rör inte min kompis”-campaign the State tried to take over the initiative in the new anti-racist struggle and lead it away from tracks critical of the system onto a safer and more liberal “everyone should be nice to each other”-track. The State’s anti-racist campaign created a large interest for anti-racism in society and gathered a number of names of interested but when the campaign year was over the lid was shut and the new anti-racist interest was thereby smothered in its cradle. The “Rör inte min kompis”-campaign took ground from Stoppa Rasismen. But meanwhile Stoppa Rasismen themselves had a difficult time handling grassroots involvement: through the forming of a national association the focus was moved from the local initiatives and came to tie up a large part of the force in a countrywide organization and bureaucracy. In retrospect one could conclude that the transformation to a national association occurred way too early and came to be more a burden than a boon for Stoppa Rasismen.The street as forum
The right-turn went through at many levels of society. It broke a leftist-liberal hegemony at the start of the 80s and did not only take place in the political discourse and in public but also substantially in society through a mobilization, an organizing of reactionary rightist forces which worked against the positive changes which the left had achieved. From during most of the post-war years having been isolated into small nazi sects or anti-communist groups the extreme-right in the early 80s began trying to make themselves visible in the streets. The street is a substantial physical space which must be conquered to be able to create a political movement. Primarily it is about creating “spaces”, free zones, where the movement’s opinions can be tolerated without being attacked, to then advance the positions and push out others. But every step the extreme-right took out onto the street met resistance. Meanwhile they started slowly moving to the right the limits as to which opinions were considered as acceptable. An early free zone where the extreme-right could seek “tolerance” was the apolitical “screw everything”-part of the punk movement which existed next to the larger leftist strain. From the apolitical oi/skins-scene nazism surfaced in the early 80s, in direct political conflict with the leftist-punks. Another free space became the football firms, a “violent” male world where nationalist symbols could be combined with racist opinions. But also among the firms the racists met resistance, from those that wanted to keep the firms apolitical or open for everyone, regardless of skin color. Through the nazi-skins the racist extreme-right got protection, which was necessary to take the real step out onto the streets. From the very beginning they met tangible resistance. The first BSS [“Bevara Sverige Svenskt”, racist “Keep Sweden Swedish”] meeting 1980 in Södertälje [city in south of Stockholm County] ended in chaos and in Stockholm an entire city block was blocked around a BSS-demonstration, when the fascists attempted to demonstrate on May Day 1984. The demonstration by NRP [“Nordiska rikspartiet”, nazi “Nordic Realm Party”] in Växjö 1985 was aborted by VPK [“Vänsterpartiet Kommunisterna”, “Left Party – the Communists”] members, which chased off the nazi-skins. (Everyone have probably seen the photo of the lady which slams a bag in the head of a flag-carrying Nazi.) In Gothenburg a fascist meeting in the People’s House was aborted by a broad counter-demonstration. The part of the left which was first affected by and feel the neo-nazism was the anarcho-punk scene. Here both the physical proximity and the political conflict was present. Nazi attacks took place against festivals such as Glädjetåget, premises like the book café “Svarta Månen” on Götgatan [street] in Stockholm and house squats like Skaraborgsgatan [street]. The attacks against the anarcho-punk scene, which during the early 80s was pacifist, forced self-defence, and anti-fascism became militant and confrontational. As an example of the change is the Gärdesfesten [festival in Stockholm] 1986/87, when nazis which came to beat punks themselves got beaten and chased off by festival visitors. The anarcho-punk scene hit back. In 1986/87 Bevara Sverige Blandat, BSB [“Keep Sweden Mixed”, anti-racist] was formed as a loose action-group by anarcho-punks as response to BSS and Framstegspartiet’s [the “Progress Party”, right populist turned xenophobe] stickers and graffiti campaigns. BSB came to sometimes function as a radical youth organization of Stoppa Rasismen.1987-1990
Around 1986/87 a minor surge in the nazi-skin scene occurred. With more nazi-skins the violence on the streets increased and the fascist parties started getting more cocky. The summer of 1986 Ronny Landin was battered to death by nazi-skins at the Nickstabadet [bath] in Nynäshamn [town, Stockholm County] and in society the neo-nazi and racist violence began being discussed for the first time. When Sverigepartiet [the “Sweden Party”, right-extremist] in 1987 started handing out fliers at the tunnel in T-Centralen [Stockholm subway’s Central Station] every weekend, Stoppa Rasismen responded by organizing blockades, which mostly were peaceful but sometimes lead to more tangible confrontations. The climax was reached on November 30th of that year, when upwards a thousand people succeeded in blocking and stopping Sverigepartiet’s torch march at Östermalmstorg [city square, Stockholm]. November 30th, the day of Charles XII’s death, had through the years become the day when the fascist sects dared crawling out of the sewers. Since the beginning of the 80s there had been confrontations between nazis and leftist demonstrators on that day. With November 30, 1987, the nazi boom was broken. Antifascist demonstrations and an opinion against the racist acts of violence (for example the Ronny Landin murder) had contributed. After 1987 Stoppa Rasismen let go of much of the antifascist work and instead prioritized the struggle in defence of asylum and against discrimination. Meanwhile an organized anarchist movement started growing in Sweden. This happened around demonstrations, house squats, women’s cafés and music festivals. In the antifascist struggle Stoppa Rasismen still had the main responsibility for organizing events like November 30th, but in practice the anarchist movement filled an increasingly important role when it came to mobilizing for the events.A unifying struggle in the country for the anarchist/autonomous movement became the Shell-resistance, aimed at Shell’s involvement with the apartheid-regime in South Africa. In May 1989 nazis which had traveled to Stockholm made a failed attempt to stop an anarchist demonstration against apartheid. The house squats, which increasingly had developed into a conflict with the police, had given us practice in defending ourselves if it was needed.
1990-1995
Around 1990 there was movement again in the brown swamp. After the fall of the Berlin Wall the room for the left had decreased. For the election 1991 Ny demokrati [“New Democracy”, populist/xenophobe party] made its debut and around the country we were shook by deeds against refugee housings, mass media “heavily launched” Vitt Ariskt Motstånd, VAM, [“White Aryan Resistance”, WAR] and the so-called Laser-man harried and spread fear. The new thing with VAM was not the racist violence, we had seen that previously, but the launching of a neo-nazi ideology. Instead of the Sverigepartiet-skinheads TV and newspapers pumped out pictures of theatrical nazi-demonstrations with masked and uniformed explicit nazis. For half a year, from autumn 1991 to spring 1992 a brief but broad antifascist movement grew forth. It became half a year packed with antifascist demonstrations, an immigrant-strike and as a peak of all this 10000 people participated in three different demonstrations in Stockholm on February 8, 1992. It felt as if people started speaking up. The right-wing wave had gone too far.The founding of AFA
When it became clear that Stoppa Rasismen did not intend to arrange any counter-demonstrations against the fascists’ march on November 30th 1991 an antifascist working group was formed in Stockholm at the initiative of a group of anarchists. The spontaneously formed group had as a goal to prevent the march through a massive blockade of Charles XII’s square [central Stockholm], which also was successful. The working group for the first time used the name Antifascistisk Aktion [Anti-Fascist Action, antifa, AFA]. In Lund [southern Sweden] militant antifascists on the same day hindered the nazi Charles XII-manifestation with the aid of stones and barricades. November 30th 1991 came to be a date known countrywide as a symbol for struggle against racism and fascism. In spring 1992 it became apparent that the antifascist mobilization had been effective, the nazi movement had been hit by a severe setback. Meanwhile the cops had apprehended the Laser-man and the VAM bank robbers. By the antifascist success the antifascist movement started deescalating its activities. Stoppa Rasismen had lost its steam, and the national association slowly deflated. The left’s antifascist interest declined and media’s spotlight on the extreme-right went out. The winter 1991-1992 was characterized by spontaneous coalitions and it was difficult to establish a continuous cooperation. During a countrywide anarchist meeting in March 1992 we met and formed ties with other radical antifascists from various parts of Sweden. Several antifascist working groups were formed among anarchists and autonomous in various places around the country. Working groups which eventually turned into practice as action groups. In March 1992 we together with local residents chased off the French history-revisionist Faurisson and his VAM-bodyguards and ruined their meeting which was planned to be held in Enskededalen just south of Stockholm. On November 30th 1992 militant antifascists clashed with the police in Stockholm in an attempt at reaching the nazi-demo and managed to chase a group of nazis over half the town. In Lund a peaceful blockade with a militant image was held, which once again stopped the nazis’ demonstration.Increasingly many around the country started adopting a militant method of confrontation to stop the nazis. It was made apparent for example at the Hultsfred festival summer of 1993 when the new wave of Ultima Thule-skins which had shown up, were chased off. After that antifascists ensured to keep the summer rock festivals free zones where nazis were not welcome.
In September 1993 around twenty different antifascist groups from all of Sweden gathered and decided to form the countrywide network Antifascistisk Aktion. The name AFA was partially borrowed from the English radical left’s antifascist organization AntiFascist Action and partially from the German proletarian self-defence organization Antifascistische Aktion which existed in the 1930s. In parallel with the formation of AFA in Sweden, arose AFA in Denmark and Norway.
The discussions within the left
The development of events between 1991-93 has become a very much discussed conflict issue within the left and came to shape and affect the newly formed AFA-network’s political practice. Why did the broad short term antifascist movement which emerged 1991/92 collapse? For a few months “rainbow coalitions”, broad anti-racist alliances between leftist groups, immigrant organizations and general humanist initiatives were organized, which held manifestations in several towns in Sweden. But all the coalitions became short term and the number of participants was declining at anti-racist demonstrations. Among a large part of the left and anti-racist groups the blame for this was placed at the militant and confrontational antifascism. It was claimed that violence and hot headlines about fascists and antifascists being “essentially the same” scared off the common people from demonstrations and manifestations. AFA gave another explanation. In our opinion what happened 1991/92 was a response to the fascists’ own escalation. That there was a fracture between the more broad “rainbow coalitions” and a militant context was not so strange. Since the militant groups organized themselves the antifascist movement had broadened its field of work. There were various forms of antifascism/anti-racism and people could choose to participate in the events that suited them. The coalitions that have been formed have always been short term, and often only gathered around one issue or prepared one demonstration and then ceased work. Often a broader antifascist mobilization has emerged after various events, such as neo-nazi murders, when many wanted to express their anger at the racist violence. These demonstrations have gathered a lot of people, like the demonstrations after the murders of Jimmy Ranjbar, Peter Karlsson, John Hron or the attacks against homosexuals in Linköping 1997. But it has always ended at a few large demonstrations, no continuous organizing has been born from these quickly called together coalitions. It has been an antifascism which only is brought up around November 30th or when media puts its spotlight on the extreme-right. There was also another discussion within the antifascist movement about coalitions as a strategy and how one should form an antifascist political line. A large part of the leftist and anti-racist movement has claimed that the goal is to create widest possible breadth in the coalitions in order to isolate the extreme-right. As a leftist group this has meant putting aside one’s own politics and joining up behind liberal and system-preserving slogans.AFA and other extra-parliamentarian leftist groups have instead emphasized the importance of building an antifascist opposition. It is lethally dangerous to – while the extreme-right tries to put on being a radical society-opposition – ally with the “establishment” and let the extreme-right gather the discontent against the society we live in. An antifascist movement must be built upon critical society-opposition and try to give answers to the social questions that are asked in society. Practically speaking however, AFA has been rather pragmatic in the matter. Most of the time AFA has spent at creating a profile for an antifascist opposition, but has at various occasions under own (or other) name gone into and been the driving force in the organizing of broad antifascist coalitions.
1993-1995
AFA was formed to create a cooperation for the militant action groups which worked continuously with antifascism and AFA’s position became to construct a substantial resistance throughout the country,to confront fascism both ideologically and physically.Successful campaigns
The countrywide cooperation took the expression of shared campaigns and traveling around to each others’ events.The autumn 1993 and spring 1994 came to be a baptism of fire for the AFA-groups (which mostly were completely newly formed). One of the first campaigns came to be aimed at the nazi-demonstrations in general and the Sweden Democrats’ election campaign in particular. In a number of towns the AFA-groups were confronted with police and fascists, which gave both direct and indirect results. The direct result was that several fascist demonstrations were stopped and fewer fascists dared to participate. But indirect results were that the costs for the State to protect fascist demonstrations increased and that the Sweden Democrats lost their respectable facade. AFA’s actions also showed that it was possible to resist and they broke the demonizing image within the left of the fascists as being unconquerable fighters. The campaign “Nazifritt Södermalm” [Nazi-free Södermalm, south-central Stockholm] can be given as an example of AFA Stockholm’s more successful campaigns. During 1995 we started a campaign against the nazi-shops Asgård and Last Resort and the Fryshuset’s skinhead-barrack [YMCA founded activity center which housed skinheads in south-central Stockholm]. The campaign broke a defensive position of the wider antifascist movement in Stockholm. The campaign made concrete goals, to close the premises, and we then worked pragmatically and broadly to reach this goal. Larger demonstrations aside town square meetings were organized, posters were put up, lectures were held for other organizations, information about the premises were given to media, the nazi-premises were constantly sprayed, the locks to the shops were glued and action groups smashed them. The campaign coincided with an increased debate around Fryshuset’s skinhead-activities. The Nazi-free Söder campaign is a clear example that our idea, that a diversity of tactics complement each other, work in practice. The work produced results and today all those premises are closed. Another campaign which AFA initiated early was aimed against Ultima Thule, the viking rock, and the nazi “white supremacist-music”. The white supremacist-music, following the success of Ultima Thule, resurrected the asleep nazi-movement. In a campaign to prevent the nazi-music from gaining a foothold and new fora AFA worked at having the nazi-records removed from record stores. The campaign was successful and was performed using a variety of tactics, ranging from activists informing record stores and handing out flyers, to sabotage and stolen nazi-records. Since the press and confrontations increased at nazi-demonstrations, the white supremacist-music lead to the fascists organizing concerts instead. The concerts were often held in secret, and could be held under police protection and became significantly safer to attend for the nazis than the demonstrations.
Both more narrow and more broad than previous movements
Concerts early turned out to be more difficult for us to stop than demonstrations. The concert activities were less sensitive to sabotage, or at least more difficult to get at with sabotage. Instead it became important to create a more broad political pressure to get an end to the concerts. The “secret” concerts forced AFA to become better at gathering information and we began to more than previously use media to release information which could lead to the concerts being cancelled.By AFA’s emphasizing antifascism we have chosen both a more narrow and a more broad designation than the previous anti-racist movement. More narrow because we focus on fighting the fascist movement. In the anti-racist movement the fight against the fascist groups was a small part of the activities, the rest of the activities was about creating places for swedes and immigrants to meet och to counter both discrimination and the State’s racism. But we also use antifascism as a more broad term than anti-racism. We started a discussion about which components and which power structures a fascist movement was tied to. The sexism, homophobia and racism, which manifest in their ultimate forms in fascism, are structures which permeate our entire society. The fascist movement does not exist within a vacuum – it is connected to and is a part of a larger right-turn. But at the same time it is not the right-turn’s only expression, but is rather an expression it takes on the street, in concrete mobilization. There is an interplay between the right which moves the lines on the street and physically threaten people, and the right-turn within politics which harshens refugee policies and projects immigration as a society problem. With this analysis we have also worked with issues which have been outside a strict antifascist field but we have deemed as important parts of reactionary mobilization and right-turn. One such area, which several AFA-groups have chosen to prioritize, is a work against the increased distribution of porn within society and we have done so through attacking porn-shops and other institutions which have been spreading sexualized oppression of women.
Another example is the campaign ahead of the EU-referendum [on membership] which was initiated alongside the antifascist work. Nordic action-nights against “Fortress Europe” were organized and Yes to EU’s propaganda-center was beset by over 100 actions. The rationale behind the campaign was the racist and restrictive refugee policies which is built into the EU’s police-cooperation and closed external borders as well as the fact that the no-side only got a fraction of the yes-side’s resources ahead of the referendum and could not afford opening any fancy info-centers. The actions for us took place as a complement to the work with flyers-distribution and participation in No to EU’s activities. The work did not end with the EU-referendum. The most recent year we have continued working against the EU’s racist refugee policies and police-cooperation in the Schengen-agreement. Between the years 1992 to 1995 there was a tense relationship between AFA and the other left, especially Stoppa Rasismen, SAC-Syndikalisterna [anarcho-syndicalist labor union], Socialistiska Partiet [the Socialist Party], Offensiv [Trotskyist group] and Ung Vänster [“Young Left”, youth organization of the Left Party]. Meanwhile the “confrontational line” lead to AFA being put under heavy pressure by cops and media. The left meanwhile was electioneering and no controversial issues were allowed to disturb. During those years there was no broad antifascist movement to speak of in Sweden. AFA was alone in conducting a continuous antifascist work. AFA in this situation tried to become wider and tried to fill a role as social movement. Alongside the actions we held school lectures, conducted own research on the extreme-right and wrote articles. We tried to politicize the “sub-cultures” which were closest to us to counter the nazi “white supremacist-music”. And we invested in the building of the AFA-network within and outside of Sweden. We stood quite alone but that did not bother us much. The cooperation with the rest of the left felt mostly pointless and we could not see it giving any actual results in practice.
1995-1997
During 1995 the result of the nazi music-wave was seen, in the form of increased nazi-violence: the murders in Kode, Klippan and Västerås and serious cases of beatings outside Fryshuset in Stockholm. With the increased racist violence both media and the anti-racist movement was awoken again. AFA suddenly stood as sole group with a continuous work, an activist base, knowledge and experience, and had thus strengthened its position within the anti-racist movement. We had an entirely new base and sense of self for initiating a cooperation with other groups.Emergency service politics and State racism
During 1996 there was an attempt to organize within the nazi-skin sub-culture, Nationella Alliansen [the “National Alliance”]. AFA could quickly locate their premises and militant antifascist groups made sure it was closed. The crowning moment came when the internationally important Hess-demonstration – which Nationella Alliansen organized in Trollhättan [town near Gothenburg] – was prevented from marching in the streets through our mobilizing and was instead enclosed at a loading dock at the train station. After the nezis’ fiasco in Trollhättan and closed premises in Stockholm internal fighting took over the nazi movement and Nationella Alliansen collapsed. Antifascist actions, an increased opinion against fascism and increased repression from the State broke the nazis’ little upsurge between 1993 and 1996. Today the nazi movement is in retreat and busy with internal fractioning while the Sweden Democrats haven’t recovered since the anti-election campaign 1994. AFA Stockholm has instead been able to widen its field of work. That we have gotten experience from continuously surveilling nazi activities has lead to militant actions or mobilizations having worked as “emergency service politics” which has been deployed when needed whilst the majority of the continuous work has be possible to put into offensive struggle such as building the libertarian socialist organizations and networks. Meanwhile we have been able to work with other issues, such as against the porn industry and a campaign together with Nätverket mot rasism [the “Network Against Racism”] against the European police-cooperation and the restrictive refugee-policies in the Schengen-agreement.After the large number of nazi-murders 1995 there was a change in society. The discussion shifted. From earlier in connection with nazi manifestations talking about everyone’s right to freedom of speech, nazism instead began being seen as a threat. After 1995 one can notice an increased antifascist organizing and a more active State role through anti-racist campaigns and reversal on police interventions. The last three years there have been attempts at improving the contacts between all anti-racist/antifascist organizations. At an initiative by Hasans Vänner mot våld och rasism [“Hasans Friends against violence and racism”], a Stockholm-based group within the national association Stoppa Rasismen, Nätverket mot Rasism has been started. AFA has entered and helped building the Network. We have also entered the equivalent international network of anti-racist grassroots organizations, UNITED.
Within AFA we have no confidence in the State measures against fighting fascism. The latest five hundred campaigns against racism/fascism, it was established in a State study, has not had any effect (or adverse effect) in the work against racism. One of the reasons they have not tried starting any local and continuous antifascist/anti-racist work but instead go for spectacular gimmick campaigns whose purpose has been more to give the impression that the State is reacting against racism than trying to get actual results. In some cases the State campaigns have even suffocated the local anti-racist work through creating an interest, gathering a lot of names and then put the lid on. That is how both the “Rör inte min kompis”-campaign in the 80s and the “Ungdom mot Rasism”-campaign [“Youth against Racism”] in the 90s worked. The State campaigns have “depoliticized” anti-racism and lead the discussion away from making the State’s own role in maintenance of racism visible – the restrictive refugee policies and the lack of will to deal with discrimination.
The Swedish nazi movement has grown up under police protection. Without police protection the neo-nazi manifestations had been impossible. The neo-nazi concerts have been dependent on police not intervening and at several occurrences the police have convinced venue-renters to let the concert be held when the owner has wished to cancel the contract after it dawned on them whom they had rented the venue to. To “avoid scuffles” the police aided with buses to give nazis rides to the concerts and keeping antifascist demonstrations at a distance. As of the autumn 1995 one can notice a change in the police. They have become more active in the intervention against neo-nazi activities. We are strongly skeptical to these attempts. The police have been more interested in giving the pretense that they react against nazi activities, and they have only reacted after media pressure. We don’t believe one can legislate away social problems. Antifascist work which is to have effect must be undertaken locally at grassroots level by people working continuously based on their own every-day life. The State and authorities can never achieve that. We don’t believe that State or police have any genuine interest in fighting fascism, as they are not the ones hit by the fascist violence. We therefore can not put our trust in police or State undertaking the antifascist work. During the three first months 1998 the police have intervened and stopped three white supremacist-concerts. But it has not only been actions against the neo-nazi movement. The increased police-activities have also been used to try to suffocate initiatives from antifascist organizations. When “nazism” has become a police matter, antifascist mobilizing is seen as a disturbance of police work. “Regular people” should not go out detaining burglars, and they shouldn’t go out taking action against fascism either, since “nazism” is a police matter. In that manner one has attempted stopping antifascist manifestations and put the blame for failed police actions against nazism at the antifascist movement.
Activities are broadened
In autumn (1998) the AFA-network turns five years old. During that time we have not just kept fascism back but also broadened our own activities. A breadth which is noticed both regarding forms of actions and cooperations with other groups. One of our goals has been to refuse getting stuck in ruts, to neither let ourselves get sucked into the establishment nor being ejected into isolation. By broadening our cooperation at grassroots level with other social movements we have increased the areas of contact, broken our own isolation and created channels where we have been able to take a discussion about or activities. Purely self-critically the cooperation with other antifascist movements has forced us to be more open, straight and not enter cooperation with hidden agendas. But meanwhile our recurring, militant actions have lead to us maintaining a unique position in the antifascist movement and us not having to compromise our analysis and our antifascist profile. We have also during these five years learnt to conduct ourselves tactically and pragmatically relative to the militant form of struggle which we have been a part of establishing. We have not let the militance go to our heads and be transformed into a goal in itself. We have instead at each action and campaign first decided which political goal we wanted to achieve, to then decide methods to achieve that result. Protest activities, creating opinion through media, mass-militance and action group-militance has been allowed to complement each other. That is where our possibility of growth in the future lies: to both be an antifascist opposition and to work pragmatically. To both work in cooperation with other social movements and develop an anti-hierarchical, decentralized, militant and result-driven antifascist practice. And we have not forgotten that the AFA-network is only one means, suitable for the moment. The general goal is after all to create a broad and strong libertarian, socialist movement. A strong left is the best cure against racism, sexism, homophobia and capitalism.