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Should Antifa be considered a terrorist organisation?

Written by: Mathyn Ressang

I interpret this question as; ‘Should groups that act under the banner of Antifa, or ‘anti-fascists’, be
considered as terrorists?’, based on the fact that antifa in itself is a movement, which consists a great
amount of left-wing groups that often greatly differ in ideological views and methods1.
In order to determine whether Antifa should, or should not be considered a terrorist organisation. I
will divide this paper in several parts. I make an analysis of Antifa, its history and focus on militant
antifa-groups.
Afterward, this paper attempts to provide a structure in which we are able to assess to what extent
Antifa should be seen as a terrorist organisation. As we will see, the definition of ‘terrorism’ poses a
fundamental difficulty. Therefore I take an alternative approach in assessing Antifa in this manner,
that does not focus on providing a positive formulation of what is terrorism, but rather a structure that
helps us ascribing meaning to a term (terrorism) which in the course of history proves to be in
continuous connotative change.

I - What is ANTIFA?
Antifa, or, (originally) Antifaschistische-aktion, is a movement which has originated as a reaction to
negate fascisism. As a reactive movement, it is logical that Antifa’s assertiveness follows the
fluctuation of the assertiveness of fascist groups. After the election of Trump in 2016, there was a
growth in assertiveness of both extreme right and left wing groups2.
The history of the concept ‘Antifa’ goes back to the early twentieth century. Militant left-wing groups,
often motivated by an marxist, or anarchist ideology sought to counter organisations such as the Ku
Klux clan, Mussolini’s fascism and the Nazi’s and other fascist groups that opposed the Dreyfus
movement3.

It consists of no general positive doctrine, which other left-wing movements, such as Marxists and
socialists, did have. However, many ‘Antifa’s’ are highly engaged in several movements
simultaneously4. What modern Antifa-groups around the world seems to unite, appears to be
‘collective self-defense’5 against fascist groups such as white-supremicists and neo-nazi’s. However,
the phenomenon of the antifascist movement is as hard to classify as the term ‘terrorism’ itself. There
is no head of Antifa, or central steering organ. Antifa is a banner under which a great amount of
autonomous groups operate. These groups significantly differ in their approach. Scholars commonly
distinguish ‘liberal anti-fascist’ and ‘militant fascist’ groups 6, of which only the latter is considered to
be violent. It is therefore necessary to make a distinction of the groups within Antifa that would

1
Bray, M. ‘Antifa’. 9.
2
Idem. 1.
3
Idem. 16, 17.
4
Idem. 9.
5
Idem
6
Tesla, M. ‘Militant anti-fascism’. 11.
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qualify for being a terrorist organisation. The prior, obviously, as it does not commit to violence,
would not qualify as being terrorist. Therefore I will focus on militant-antifa organisations.
Significant events that have put militant antifa-groups in the spotlight were, both in 2017 the
confrontation with white-nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, the riot following the coming of a
right-wing writer to the campus of the University of Berkeley. In 2020, Antifa gets more media
coverage than ever and has an ongoing protest following the BlackLivesMatter movement in the
summer of this year7.
All of these events have been in some way violent.
One significant militant Antifa is Torch-Antifa. Torch-Antifa is a decentralised network of, according
to their website, 10 militant anti-fascist groups spread across the world but mainly the US8. These
groups act autonomously and there is no leading organ. However, they do communicate, collaborate
and apply the same methods. Therefore this paper will consider Torch-antifa as one group.
Their activities consist of initiating riots, boycotting far-right activities and exposing sensitive
information of far-right organisations, or members of these organisations with the idea that this will
stop far-rights from spreading their ideology in the public9 and to impose fear on those who openly
propagate white-supremacism and comparable subjects10.

Because of the abstaining from violence by non-militant Antifa groups, I will from now on leave these
out of the consideration whether Antifa is a terrorist group. Instead, I will focus on only militant-antifa
groups, suchs as Torch antifa.

II - Terrorism, and the problem of defining it

Whether Antifa groups, such as Torch-antifa are considered as activist groups, or terrorist
organisations by the US government will make an immense difference on the way they will be treated
by law enforcement. At the same time, the term ‘terrorist’ has a very negative connotation to the
public and already implies to refer to an actor which is evil and a threat. At the same time, those who
are labeled ‘terrorist’ often see themselves rather as freedom fighters.To label a group ‘terrorist’ is
thus a very significant act.

The use of the term ‘terrorist’ is often subjective and informed by contextual bias. A british
newspaper once reported Mohandas Gandhi and his following as a ‘gang of terrorists’11. However, the
course of history has projected him certainly rather as a freedom activist, than as a terrorist. Antifa
groups certainly see themselves as activists for a just cause.

Before we can assess whether Antifa is a terrorist organisation, we must first have a conception of
what is terrorism. Exactly because of these political and legal implications, the contextual differences
of violent groups and actions, and the changing meaning of ‘terrorism’ it has proven to be a complex
task to give meaning to the term12. There have been a great amount of attempts to formulate what
would qualify as terrorism. One significant attempt was that of Alex Schmid, where he sought to

7
NYT ‘What is Antifa?’.
8
TORCH. ‘https://torchantifa.org/about/’ .
9
Idem.
10
Vice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy1eRCYS08w
11
Bakker, E. ‘Terrorism and Counterterrorism’ 28.
12
Idem. 31.
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analyse the essence of definition of terrorism given by more than a 100 scholars13. From this analysis,
he concluded, that terrorism can be demarcated by it’s characteristics of being; violent, politically
motivated, organised, extra-normal14 and aimed at targets which are not necessarily the victims of
their violence15.
Critics, such as Gilbert Ramsay, acknowledge that when an actor clearly qualifies for all these criteria,
then we can conclude it is a terrorist organisation16. However, when there is disagreement on whether
an actor qualifies for these criteria, or only for some but not all criteria, this demarcation becomes
problematic.

I argue that Antifa in any way does not qualify for all of these criteria. Namely, their activities are
targeted on those who they oppose. The violence that they use is not aimed at citizens, but is meant to
directly confront their opposition17.
Also, like mentioned before, their organisational structure seems to be rather a network of
autonomous groups than one single body. It seems therefore that militant antifa-groups should be
investigated individually, rather than antifa as a whole.
And lastly, between 1994 and 2020, out of all the 893 attacks in the U.S. that were considered
terrorist, left-wing attacks were responsible for 25% of the total, and for 22 deaths, while right-wing
attacks were 57% of the total caused 335 deaths18. These numbers relativise the severity of left-wing
violence. It must also be noted that Antifa, being considered as left-wing extremists, are only
considered to be responsible for 1 death19.
Drawing from this analysis, we can conclude that in any way, militant-antifa groups are not clearly
terrorist organisations. However, it does not mean these groups may not be considered as terrorist
groups at all.

III - A Phenomenological approach?

There have been many attempts to define terrorism, there is just no general accepted concept of it20
As Ramsay mentions, to maintain a standardized and universal definition of terrorism would cause
confusion in relation to the ever-different contexts, goals and methods militant activist groups have21.

However, he notes that even though some events are hard to classify formally as ‘terrorist acts’,
somehow ‘we know terrorism when we see it’22, such as the attacks on 9/11, the bombing of the Taj
Mahal hotel in Mumbai, etc. We often find a generally shared consensus on what were terrorist
attacks and what are non-terrorist acts of violence23.
Based on the impossibility of defining one true meaning of terrorism, he proposes that we determine
the meaning of terrorism on the deliberative discussion of a society.

13
Ramsay, G. ‘Why Terrorism can, but should not be defined’. 213.
14
Meaning; in breach of accepted norms and values. Disregarding humanitarian constraints.
15
Idem. 216.
16
Idem.
17
Bray, M. ‘Antifa’ 168.
18
CSIS. ‘The escalating terrorism problem’.
19
Idem.
20
Bakker, E. ‘Terrorism and counterterrorism’. 44.
21
Ramsay, G. ‘Why Terrorism can, but should not be defined’. 223.
22
Idem. 225.
23
Idem.
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He suggests that we should try to define terrorism, not in a positive and universal formulation, but
rather asses every case of violence individually from phenomenological perspective2425, to determine
whether an event should be labeled as terrorist or not.

This approach seems to have a lot of potential, because it provides a structure for creating meaning of
a phenomenon (terrorism) which always appears in a different way and a different time.
There is however one major problem with this approach. Namely, not having one positive definition,
but rather determining meaning by the interpretation of an experience, will lead this meaning always
to be relative. Of course, we have already seen that groups that are labelled as terrorists often see
themselves not as such, but this same problem also applies to a society itself.
Ramsay says that we know terrorism when we see it, but who is this we?
As phenomenological philosopher Martin Heidegger described in his fundamental work Being and
Time, the individual’s experience of reality is for a major part informed Others in its surroundings26.
The effect of this is that groups within a society confirm each other in their world view/reality. We can
see this clearly in the USA of 2020, where left and right have completely inconsumable world views,
even though they spring from the same society27. Ramsay’s phenomenological approach seems to
become problematic when the interpretation of an event by the discussing parties becomes informed
by potential political loss, or gains. The critique of Trump’s willingness to label Antifa a terrorist
organisation is exactly this28.

So, in order for the phenomenological approach to be successful, we must have a group that can be
trusted to be as informed as possible by rationality, unbiasedness and thoroughness. It appears that
these characteristics are more difficult to find in politically influenced parties. Based on the generally
shared and respected fundamental values of academic integrity29, the group that appears most likely
have a deliberative discussion on defining terrorism is the (international) academic community.
From this conclusion, I will consider whether militant antifa-groups should be labeled a terrorist
organisation, based on the academic discussion on Antifa and the general consensus on to what extent
they should be considered terrorists.

IV - Terrorists, or not terrorists

Of course, academics are not unanimously for- or against labeling antifa-groups as terrorists.
However, there appears to be some consensus on a few key-aspects of antifa-groups’ behaviour.
One of these is that Antifa-groups in the last few years have indeed been responsible for acts of illegal
violence30 such as the incidents at Charlottesville, the 2017 Berkeley protests, and several Black
bloc-protests in a number of American cities. However, academics also note that the severity of the
violence by militant antifa-groups appears marginal in the contrast to undisputed terrorist-attacks;
their strategy does not include murder31. As mentioned before, their violence has only once caused a

24
Idem.
25
Meaning: the study the relationship between experience (of reality) and the consciousness
26
Heidegger, M. ‘Being and Time’. 163 - 168.
27
BBC ‘Who are proud boys - who are Antifa?’
28
NYT ‘What is Antifa?’
29
‘Fundamental values’. 17 - 30.
30
LaFree, G. ‘Is antifa a terrorist group?’ 249.
31
NYT ‘What is Antifa?’.
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casualty. For the most part it involved rioting and provokation. On the other hand, they do intend to
create fear32. This intention is one fundamental characteristic of a terrorist-act, according to many
academics33. However, the fear that Antifa-groups seek to impose is not aimed at the general public,
but at a particular set of people who they consider as their opposition34. This, considered with their
general severity of used violence, makes that the general academic public interprets militant
Antifa-groups rather as extremist activist groups, than as terrorist groups.
Based on this apparent shared interpretation by the academic public, I conclude that, from a
phenomenological perspective, the events and acts for which militant Antifa-groups were responsible
were not severe enough to be labeled terrorist. Following a deductive line of reasoning, I therefore
conclude that militant Antifa-groups should not be considered terrorist organisations, and therefore,
Antifa as a whole should not be considered a terrorist organisation.

V - Conclusion
In this paper I have argued that Antifa is a banner under which autonomous groups operate. I have
focussed on the category that is most violent, namely the militant Antifa-groups such as the
TORCH-Antifa network.
In the attempt to determine whether these groups should be considered terrorists, it was necessary to
overcome the problem of a positive definition for terrorism. In order to overcome this, I did not seek
to judge Antifa on the basis of one arbitrary definition, but instead resort to a negative structure
(phenomenology) that does justice to the unicity of each context in which extremist violence takes
place. Based on the collective interpretation of the academic public, a group that I have argued to be
most adequate for assessing whether Antifa should be considered terroristic or not, I found that there
is a general consensus that Antifa-groups are indeed violent and cause fear, however not severe
enough to be considered terrorists.

32
Vice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy1eRCYS08w
33
Ramsay, G. ‘Why terrorism can, but should not be defined’. 213.
34
‘The Antifa Handbook’ 168 -169.