This indicated to me that Von Dehn has little understanding of what fascism is, what leftists believe, and how political violence operates.
In this letter, I wish to set the record straight on these topics, drawing from my background as both a student of history and a student of political philosophy.
Fascism is a slippery word. One that in the modern world is more likely to refer to 'person I disagree with' than any cohesive ideology. This serves only to benefit the fascists themselves as confusion over the term allows their beliefs to go unchallenged. In reality, fascism is a cult of violence.
Violence is the language fascists speak most proficiently because their ends are, in of themselves, violent.
The fascist seeks to cast the world in his image. He wishes to "purify" the nation by purging homosexuals, Roma, and Jews, to 'protect' his culture from the 'degenerate' art of modernity, and 'ensure that his children will live in a world that looks exactly like his.
In other words, he wishes to stop the natural movement of his community and to preserve the present eternally or even to return to the past. Only the threat of violence will move those who oppose him to his goals, so it becomes the only language he speaks.
The leftist antifascist understands that violence is the language of the fascist. The fascist cannot be reasoned with because his goals are unreasonable.
The antifascist knows this and so aims to make it clear that the fascist will not succeed in those goals by speaking a language he understands. And the antifascist is right to do so. When Oswald Mosely's fascists' party marched down Cable Street in London in 1936, they were met by a mob of violent antifascists who sent them packing. Not coincidentally, Mosely's fascists were never much of a force in Britain again. Likewise, it took an antifascist alliance to end the fascism of Mussolini, Hitler, and Hirohito. So, I ask von Dehn — and all the readers of The Chief — is denouncing the violence of antifascists worth risking the far more insidious violence of the actual fascist?
Claire French
Squamish
