Should Canada declare ANTIFA a Terrorist Organization?

Recently, the Trump administration expressed their desire to declare ANTIFA a terrorist organization. Which should immediately bring up the question: should Canada follow suit?

One Conservative leadership candidate, Derek Sloan, has stated he would designate ANTIFA as a terrorist entity, while the others have remained quiet on the matter.

In an email to supporters, Sloan states:

“ANTIFA” stands for “anti-fascist”, which is ironic considering they wear black masks, respect neither free speech nor private property, and actively call for violence against those they dislike, all of which are classic fascist tactics.

For years, ANTIFA has been growing bolder in instigating intimidation and perpetrating violence against anyone who disagrees with their radical left, Marxist worldview that champions communism, anarchy, open borders, and planned violence.

We’ve all heard the news from the US, where people were peacefully protesting in righteous anger against the horrific killing of George Floyd by a police officer. Like most other Canadians, I condemn the killing of George Floyd and am appalled by all forms of police brutality, including violence that is racially motivated.

But rather than respect the true cause of justice and accountability for the death of George Floyd, ANTIFA hijacked these protests and turned them into violent riots, causing widespread destruction, physical injury, and death in many American cities—and now even cities around the world.

Now, here are my thoughts on ANTIFA, directly from the horse’s mouth.

The Pros

There are some good reasons to qualify ANTIFA as domestic terrorists. The definition of terrorism is the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. According to most of their “leaders,” this is precisely what ANTIFA does.

They will usually reword the definition and add some justifying caveats that the people they are assaulting are “Fascists.” Therefore, their violence in the bigger picture creates a more peaceful world.

In the words of Mark Bray, a professor and author of The Anti-Fascist Handbook, “The argument is that militant anti-fascism is inherently self-defence because of the historically documented violence that fascists pose, especially to marginalized people.”

We do not excuse this reasoning when it is put forth by terrorist groups like ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas and others when they say that they only use violence to bring about a global Caliphate. Their justification is that Sharia law is the perfect system for peace and harmony. Therefore violence in pursuit of Utopia is righteous. 

The Cons

While the most strident ANTIFA supporters often make the best case for classifying ANTIFA as a domestic terrorist organization, doing so might create more problems for the people who oppose them than those people realize.

ANTIFA has some support what one could call the “woke blue check-mark brigade” on twitter.  For example, there was a long time NPR political journalist, Mira Liasson, calling the landing at Normandy an “ANTIFA rally.”

She is not the only journalist to tweet something to this effect. Other than being ridiculous in comparing the men who risked life and limb to fight real Nazis to a group of malcontents burning down a Starbucks, one has to ask themselves; is this support for terrorism or simply chaos for chaos sake?

The other common ANTIFA defence comes from the standard clueless anti-establishment Leftists on social media. Many of us have encountered the defence, “ANTIFA means anti-fascist, so if you oppose ANTIFA, you are supporting fascism.”  This statement is idiotic, as being against the Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) does not make you anti-democracy, but is that statement criminal?

If Canada or the US moves to make ANTIFA a terrorist group, we could face the potential of journalists, and clueless 20-somethings from the internet strung up on terrorism charges, which brings up two significant problems.

First, do we want to see journalists we disagree with facing criminal charges? If the answer is yes, then I might have to point out that that is a bit of a fascist impulse. The irony here would be that it would give minor justification to ANTIFA’s everyone to the Right of centre is a fascist claim.

Second, this could significantly handicap Canada’s ability to successfully prosecute on counter-terrorism laws in the future by watering down existing case law.  

The legal system relies heavily on precedent. So, it is essential to think very hard about the implications of changing laws. It is very likely that if a journalist or a random person of social media is taken to court over the incidents mentioned above, a judge would be very hesitant to convict them. This makes it harder to bring terrorism charges on to people who it really should be applied to.

A reasonable compromise

Instead of declaring ANTIFA as a terrorist organization, it may be wiser to target specific subgroups or factions that can be proven to advocate and partake in political violence.  

For example, American comedian/political commentator, Stephen Crowder, once infiltrated an ANTIFA subgroup in Utah and got excellent video footage of that group showing that they were planning a violent terrorist attack. That group can reasonably be labelled domestic terrorists with legal prosecution having a good chance of success.

With ANTIFA being a relatively loosely affiliated collection of Radical Leftists ranging from violent thugs to losers daydreaming about being revolutionaries, a wide net may not be the best method to deal with them.