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PICT2015 Lecture-s1-low.mp4

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Hello, everyone. Thank you very much for coming. So today, we're
going to talk about left-wing extremism. Let me just show you my
slides. So this week, we are going to talk about the left-wing
extremism and the left-wing terrorism. We will mirror in some ways
the discussion that we had in our lecture regarding right-wing
extremism and terrorism. I'm sorry, I've been really sick, so my ways
and short is not we were cooperating with me, so we will bear it the
way it is. So we also want, before we jumped into the lecture, we also
want to ensure that we had a student called Sarah Holmes and her
PhD research that looked into antiphon, that is anti-fascism. And we
will be acknowledging some of her research in the later part of our
lecture. And her PhD research, it focused primarily on anti-fascist
ideology and how things were leading to extremism and terrorism and
where we can draw the lines and all of that. So today's discussion, we
will explore some of the conceptual and definitional issues. and
debate about what left went extremism and terrorism actually is
about. We will also discuss and explore some of the political
ideologies that are associated with left-wing extremism and terrorism.
We will explore the period of the 1960s and '70s associated with left-
wing extremism and terrorism. particularly some classic examples or
groups that existed in the West, such as the Red Brigades or Weather
Underground. But we need to remember that in the non-Western
world, there were other movements that were violent and leftist, that
is the Marxist, Moist, et cetera. So these groups also influenced these
Western terror groups, but we will not be touching on those groups
today. We will also be exploring the evolution that have occurred in
the left-wing extremism. And we will briefly look at Antifa as a case
study and ask whether it's a terrorist group or not. So let's academic
interest that lots of media and political interests do exist. Although, by
far, the most terrorist groups and attacks through history have been
broadly about what you would call left-wing. So I understand when we
say left-wing, right-wing, sometimes it is debatable as well.
Sometimes there are religious-based or ideology-based groups.
Sometimes there are separatist groups of movements that are also
trying to fight for a cause. So most of the time, things are getting a bit
unclear in the form and shape of that. where are we going to put it
right-wing, left-wing, when these right-left ideologies become so
hostile towards the state that it is becoming a threat. And that
extremist ideology is then leading to its terrorist ideologies as well. So
it has recently become more notable in the media, particularly in the
US associated with anti-fascism. protest and the anti-racism protest,
in particular, former President Trump, or at that time, and even in the
current tenure of President Trump, label many of these protest
movements, extremists or even domestic terrorists, making this issue
one of the great political debate. Unfortunately, in today's Australia,
we are also coming across groups that are somewhat falling into the
categorization or definition of these type of groups that we'll be
discussing today. So the growth of the far left tourism in the West that
we have seen, there's a growth from 20, we would say 17, 16
onwards. There's a study rise in the in the group, but then later on
there is a decline also seen in the way things are operating in the far
left side. The far right, we are aware of that, yes, those groups also
exist, but then again, there's a decline in that as well. So from 2007 to
2021, We could see there is the bars are indicating that there is an up
and down in the way these groups are operating worldwide. Even the
left wing attacks and this affiliation, there are 95% of the far left and
far right attacks that are perpetrated under no formal affiliations. So
we can say that probably we can label them as lone wolf terrorist
groups or somewhat fighting for a specific cause, right? Irrespective,
whether they are fighting for a religious ideological belief or political
or whatever. But most of them are unaffiliated in that context. If we
look into the use of weapons and political terrorist attacks from 2007
and 2021, We can see that in century fire bombs and explosives that
have been very high by the left and then by the right. Even on the
figures here on the right side of our screen. Sorry, pardon me for my
throat. So the terrorist facilities in the West by ideology, we can also
see the religious base. They are gaining much more momentum as
compared to other groups. So the far right unlower separatists, they
are pretty lower in terms of the religious groups. So there are these
definitions that we're going to jump into. We also need to consider
that what do we know about left-wing terrorism in recent years. We
are, according to the Institute for Economic and Peace and their
Annual Global Terrorism Index, political terrorism is, in general, has
increased steadily over the last decade, with 73% of attacks in the
West being attributed to politically motivated groups and individual.
The majority of the increase in politically motivated terrorism in the
West is a result of rising far-left terrorism. In 2011, far left groups and
individuals were responsible for two attacks while far right groups
claim five attacks. So that's that kind of highlight the far left attacks
are much more stronger in comparison to the far right ones. So,
however, in 2021, the far-left attacks increased significantly to 38
attacks, while far-right groups claimed over two attacks of the
politically motivated attacks in 2021, and then were attributed to any
official far-right or far-left terrorist groups. So there are some lone
terrorist attacks also happening. But we also need to see is all the
numbers that we are coming across is not correct. If we look at the
figures, we see that definitions are important. There has been an
increase of activity of individuals associated with extreme left.
However, this left-wing terrorism does not kill many people. It
generally is a form of damage against property using fire or bombs
and is generally performed by those who are unaffiliated with any
group. So is this terrorism or is it something else? I think this is one of
the week common questions that comes for a mind. To get that, we
can see how important definitions of terrorism are. And I leave it to
your best evaluation, how correct these statistics are. But when we
talk about the definitions, so the left-wing extremes of what it is and
what do we mean by that. So the term is used to refer to groups that
come together under diverse set of political philosophies, including
socialism. communism, Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, autonomism and
anarchism. So some of these groups are completely philosophically
opposed to one another, that is, Marxism versus anarchism. As we will
see later, all are, to some decrees, anti-state and unready to work
within the democratic system to reach their higher utopian and
idealistic goals. All legitimate to some degrees, the idea of direct
violent action against the state, which they see as being illegitimate.
So that direct action against the state is something considered
illegitimate actions or acts by these groups. We can also see that
there is no agreement in ideology. The term left-wing extremism or
terrorism is used to refer to different things, to different people at
different time. So there is no direct kind of consensus or some mutual
point of centrality when it comes to the left wing. Because some
groups, they are fighting for one cause, another for another, and
others are for others. So there is always a variation when we talk
about all these groups. So these definitions, sometimes they serve
different political agendas. We need to think about this quote that is
flashed here. So with it at all, it provides a broad definition, we refer
to specific political ideologies by like Marxist, Linnist, Mark Castro,
anarchism and anti-globalization views. The European Union terrorism
situation and trend report defines laughing terrorism groups as those
that seeks to replace the entire political society and economic system
of a state by introducing a communist or social structure and classless
society. McCoy, Johns, and Hastings argue that groups at this end of
the spectra mobilize in opposition to what they perceive as fascist,
racist, oppressive tendencies in society, and politics drawing on
principles opposing colonial and capitalist beliefs drawing inspiration
from previous socialist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin and Howe Chun
men. Ellington at all, 2019, speaks of the term, Wingardism, anti-
perialism and anti-fascism. So in all of these definitions, you can find
that each one of them is trying to provide a different lens to it. There
is no common consensus. There's no agreement among all scholars to
define what they think is the left side or left group or left-wing
extremism or terrorism. To each one of them, based on their
situational circumstances, their definition of the left-wing terrorism
groups is completely opposite to each other. We can see about the
environmental groups. They usually, they fight for animal rights and
environmental activities. Violent attacks by these groups and
moments are usually seen as single issue, terror or violent extremist
groups, but often are not anti-democratic and do not seek political
revolution and are willing to work within the confines of liberal
democratic process, but not always earth, liberation front, etc. So we
can see that they are fighting for a cause. They want to bring some
kind of change in terms of the environmental protection, security and
all of that. But can we label them as a terrorist, environmentally
terrorist equiterrorism or environmental terrorist groups or left or right
or whatever? These things are quite complicated. So the
characteristics of left-wing extremist groups, they are common
characteristics include the belief they're political, but the belief the
political and social structures are corrupt and seek the redistribution
of economic wealth and services to lower class. So they are trying to
give certain or provide certain benefits to different classes. To them,
the upper class, the elite, or the bourgeois, That is, they consider
them corrupt, and they want to bring down the power from the elite
to the poor straight of the society. They disdain for capitalism,
imperialism, and colonialism. These are something that they are really
not in favor of. They also include a Marxist political focus, pro-
communists, and their beliefs are based on socialist ideology. They
also support decentralized distribution of the resources, a non-
hierarical socio-political system, where there is no direct focus on
specific groups or whatever, everything needs to be divided equally
among all strata. So they are also trying to work on anarchist ideology
and do not believe in structural constraints of the state of a state in
principle, regardless of how it is structured, preferring new forms of
direct and participated democracy to make the state irrelevant. So
basically, if we bring things together, there is a focus on the
redistribution of the economies. They are They disdain capitalism.
Their political institutions are seen as corrupt. They want to bring a
change. They want their revolutionary. They aim to overthrow the
capitalist state and take control of the government. There is
sometimes support for a decentralized and non-institutional social
system, and there is a need for violent uprising to overthrough the
state. One's common strategy that goes back to the Anarchus is to
provoke the state to use more violence and reveal itself as
illegitimate. So the basic characteristics of the left-wing extremist
groups define who they are, what they're trying to do, but then there
is a difference between the old and the new examples of the left-wing
extremism. So we can see that in the old left examples that you can
see on the screen, Communist Soviet Union, Maoist China, and the
Rock in Cambodia, we can see there's a long and complex political
history behind these ideas. And ironically, these ideas have been the
basis for some attempts at state building these state ended with
mass, terror, and killings. These states were focused on a proliterate
revolution, the rising up of workers to take control of the state and
lead to its evolution or eventual dissolution of the existing system. So
basically, they were trying to get hold of the power from from the top
elite who were in control of the running of the government, and they
wanted to give those powers to the working class. So the all versus
the new one, if we compare here, these ideas of what the left was
changed through the late 20th century and are changing again even
today. Much of the research in this space is historical in nature,
particularly from the period of the 1960s. This was the era called the
third wave or red activism, and broad societal leftist movement, most
non-violent were linked to the Vietnam War at the time and the anti-
war protests around the world. But there were also French leftist
violent movement during this time too. For example, militant groups
such as the Weather Underground, the Palestinian Liberation
Organization, Red Brigades, the 700 airline hijacking, 400
kidnappings, 1,000 attacks annually in 1970s Western Europe as well.
So this was a time of great social activism. that we can see, social
activism and revolution. The new left that aroused at this time was a
transnational movement. All left was Marxist and with a focus on the
exploitation of workers. Revolution would occur by the rising above
working class. New left went beyond this to include cultural issues
such as anti-racism, anti-colonialism, etc. And the new were not just
class-based. There was an added important importance placed on
direct actions and it was transnational. The new left was influenced by
wider global events in Cuba, China and the Vietnam War. So we can
see that what they were trying to do is that they wanted to challenge
the existing status quo and they wanted to introduce something new
to the system. If you like see in the comparative table here. The new
and the old, the both are fighting for some revolution, some change.
But then the new left social movements, they were trying to bring a
change and the power to shift from the elite to the working class. So
the three groups that you see here on the screen, these groups all
emerged out of this time of mass protests in the West. but created
very different types of terror organization. So there was a global origin
for the movement, but really local characteristics depending on the
state where the terror groups emerged. The Red Army fiction, it
emerged from the West German student movement during the 1960s.
And this was of the most well-known and frequently mentioned
movement. They emerged from the West German student movement,
as I mentioned already. And there were three generations of members
that were associated to the Red Army, a fiction commonly known as
RAF. So, they held a Marxist-Leninist ideology, opposed to the West
German capitalist establishment, perceived as a reincarnation of the
third ray. And there was an idea that de-nazification had not been
sufficient, and that capitalist Germany was just a new form of
colonialism and fascism. So, can you just see here they were very
anti-colonialism, and fascism, and they wanted to get rid of those
ideas which were promoted at that time, and they wanted to
challenge that. So overall, they were responsible for 35 deaths, not
included the 25 attacks, attackers, and many more wounded. They
also created a very violent movement, deaths of a student during
protest and the assessination of a leftist figure, this may have led to
the belief that the violence of the state could only be met with further
violence. We should remember that they were also supported by the
Soviet Union and that they receiving training from Middle Eastern
leftist groups such as the PLO in Palestine, transnational training and
the coordination with Nobel. At the time, this is one of the first
examples of transnational terrorism. If you compare these groups to
the terrorist groups, the way they are operating, the way they are
working, we are also aware of that most of the terrorist groups, they
realign themselves with other terrorist groups. depending on their
ideological beliefs or their objectives. So if their objectives are getting
aligned with each other, they just merge, they just recreate another
wing or another offspring, and then they pursue their objectives.
Same was the case, yeah. So they also had some kind of, I can't say
alignment, but some kind of lineage to with other left wing extremist
or terrorist groups as well. So the weather underground that is in the
center of the slide that emerged from a broad student movement in
the USA in early 1960s. This larger student progress movement was a
large and mostly non-violent movement. It was called the Students for
a Democratic Society. It was focused on issues of civil rights, anti-war,
anti-poverty, and it was heavily influenced by the anti-Vietnam War
movement. So the triggering point for the weather underground was
the Vietnam War movement. This group wolf into a mass radical and
anti-imperialist student movement advocating revolutionary politics
for the new left in the USA. They defined their stance as Marxist-
Leninist ideology opposed to the United States government and the
capitalist system. However, it should be emphasized that the broader
movement was not on the whole violent. So as the student protest
movement increased in size and became more spread over time,
there was a need for the students group to become more structured
and organized. and a more extreme one guard led by a violent core
emerged. And in 1969, the smaller revolutionary movement moved
away from the bigger movement, releasing a document stating that
you don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind was
blowing. And from there, they got their name the weather
background, the weather underground. So, and this was a committed
well in group. Their goal was to overthrow the US government. So
ultimately, the weather underground, they were in the background
working for to overthrow the United States government. And they
were unlike raft, they made a conscious choice not to target
individual. This was possibly because of the accidents that occurred
during their own attempts at creating bombs. They were in-apt, they
blew themselves up, but a police rage on one of their headquarters
found masses of dynamite. Part of their tactic was bombing, which
included the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, the California Attorney
General's Office, and the New York City Police Station as well. So
primarily, their target was not the public, not bombing them, but
bombing the government departments, government officials, and
government entities. The Italian Red Brigades, they were one of the
most important and long-lived groups. Revolutionary movements
within the factories of Milan, drawing on workers rather than students
like others, it emerged from broader social movements. It proclaimed
Marxist Leninist aim to overthrow the state and multinational
corporations. It did this by provoking the state to overrap and become
oppressive. Its recruiting tactics was to focus on the factories of Milan
and the industrialized parts of North Italy. The group was highly
structured and hieratical, consisting of sales, brigades, fronts, and
column positioned around at leaf. They became increasingly violent
and did focus on regular people as targets. So they used bombing,
kidnapping, murders, and are today still most well known for the
killing of former Italian Prime Minister. So we can see all these groups
from RAF to the weather underground at the Italian Red Brigades.
Each one of them have a different tactics, strategy, target, aim
objectives. RAF and the Italian Prigues, we can see they were
attacking the civilians as well, but whether underground, they were
primarily targeting the government entities, government officials and
government departments. So in that context, we can see how
extremely are rising these groups have been, and they post serious
threats to not only to the state, but to the people within the state as
well. We have already discussed the raft, the way they emerged, the
way they popped up, their bombing, their assessination and killing of
the government, the German elite, and the U.S. relatory targets, that
highlights that their targets were primarily the official ones. The
weather underground, we have seen the way they bombed. The US
capital, the Pentagon and Attorney General Office, and the New York
City Police Station made them one of the warrant and extremist
terrorist groups based on the left-wing terrorism. The Italian brigades,
again, bombing, kidnapping, and murders that was at the heart of
their tactics to use terrorism and to kill people. So the Maoist next
light moment in India, we should turn from this focus on the West for
a moment to remember the wider picture. So call next elites after a
region where they attack police stations. We need to see Indian
government as a colonial capitalist entity. So these groups primarily
what they were doing was they were considering the Indian
government as a colonial capitalist entity, and they wanted to get rid
of it. So everything that was related to the local tribal Adivasi and the
anti-Hindu politics, they were targeting those. So the local tribe and
the Hindu politics were something ever heard of it. They often focus
on elements and symbols of the states and they were responsible for
over 10,000 deaths and have recently been on the deck line as well.
So we could see the way the threat they were posing. You could see
on the screen in this map, it's all red red. So their target was more on
anti-colonial ideology. or they wanted to spread message that they do
not accept colonial mindsets. The contemporary left. This left-wing
terrorism or extremism group is more focused on anarchism, anti-
racism and anti-fascism, then on traditional markest values of
workers' rise and revolution. As we have seen, offenses and arrests
associated with leftist protests have increased in recent years. In
particular, there have been many left-wing extremist terrorist attacks
in Greece, Italy and Spain. There have also been concentration
between the far right and the far left on the streets as well. And I
think that is more dangerous to have that kind of contradition. So
capitalism, banks, private property are often the focus of their
attacks. And this is the reason for all the bombings and use of fire
shown in the earliest slides that after the pre-picture is still varied,
two recent studies have defined the violent far left in different ways.
So march and mother identifies the emergence of radical, but not
necessarily violent, left fringe motivated by animal rights,
environmental issues, anti-globalization issues, as well as consisting
of the autonoman and anti-fascist as well. While Wenham et al.
identified the contemporary left-wing extremism as the pursuit of a
classless society without borders or even states. resistance to asylum
and migration policies, resistance to repatriation of refugees and the
raising barriers to counteract migration. It also included revenging
animal sufferings and environmental pollutions and also the
resistance against extreme right-wing parties and groups. Anti-fascist
and human rights have become the current focus of left-wing
extremist groups. So we can see the nuances exist in different places
when we talk about left-wing extremism and terrorism. Now let's
move on to anti-fascism or antifa. We are acknowledging our students
work that I have mentioned early on when we were beginning our
lecture today. So some of the findings of ANDFA belongs to our
students, PhD research, and let's get more into it. We are taking
antipharcism as a case study. So anti-fascism is a contraction term for
anti-fascism, antifa, that we call it, but often seen as a mainly
mallitant in nature. This is not a group not aligned with one ideology
and is increasing, increasingly getting misunderstood as well. It is not
entirely mallitant. It adopts different identities and techniques in
different places. So there is no one standard formula that we can
apply on, Antifa, because it varies in different places and different
people adopted in a different fashion as well. So if we speak about the
United States, it is increasingly seen that in the United States, Antifa
as a melegium group, and Wolland extremist group and a form of
domestic terrorism. There is some but limited empirical evidence to
support these claims. So what is antifa? They have been described as
social movements, technical choice and organization,
countermovement, political identity, and a subculture. So some rituals
and researchers describe them as a purely a countermovement
against fascism, but some argue they are more than this and that
they are more a political identity and are revolutionary. But are they
militant? I think this is something we need to understand. So three
types of anti-fascism or antifac. It is important to remember that
militant anti-fascism is only one of three broader approaches to
fascism, that is state anti-fascism, liberal anti-fascism and militant
anti-fascism. So if we look into the state anti-fascism, this approach
adopted by political parties or governments through enacting,
legislation and working within parliamentary framework to legislate
against racism and hate. While liberal anti-fascism, it opposed fascism
on moral terms and includes civil society groups who adopt a
collaborationist strategy and are willing to work with the state and
police. And the groups such as hope not hate in the United States fall
in this category. Politant anti-fascism, this is where antifa sits. They
are willing to use force and use violence to oppose fascism and the far
right. They will not work with police and the state. They see their
struggle against not just fascist, but against the state as well. So this
is what make antifa definition fits in here as compared to the other
two. militant fascism, antifa has no center, no structure and is very
diverse and each group adopts its own identity and its own symbol,
etc. So antifa is perhaps better described as a social movement than
a group or organization. There is no central coordinating body and no
hierartical structure. Local groups adopt the antifa label and act in
local community groups, groups such as Antifa, Australia, etc.
incorporate geographical markets in their name. The consequences of
acting against fascism are justified by comparisons to World War II
and Nazis. They emphasize the importance of stopping fascism before
it gets a hole in society and then reaches power through the poor. So
the violence is seen as defensive and preemptive. This is where no
platforming comes in to show fascism against the whole. They're not
tolerant of fascist ideas or discourse and illustration, et cetera. So the
problem is that they define fascism in many different ways. To them,
the black block. That is another tactic in the black block. This refers to
a group of woolen activity, activists as at the front of anti-fascist
protests and all dressed in black and with the face covering. I think we
had a glimpse of it recently in Melbourne when a group just popped
up with all in black dress and their face covering. So they perform a
contingent within a rally or counterprotest. It originated as a way of
protecting people's identity from police, and the tactic began in 1970s
to prevent having one person single loud during progress and
speeches. So it is more about why they are adhering to such an attire,
because they want to keep the identity of their people and persons
protected, so nobody can identify them. Coming over to militant
antifa, Another tactic they're using is social media. So, social media
research to identify the dogs enemies, that is this emphasis, the
importance of open source intelligence as well. Also, much identify
action is known well, using stickers, posters, etc. They also raise food
and parcels for people. who have no housing, etc. And the examples
of those are stickering in Sydney. Not all are from Antifa, but show one
tactic postering and the variety I have spoken about it earlier. So we
can see the strickering here, the way they are putting various stickers
and trying to demonstrate their ideology and their perspectives. So
social media is a very important kind of tool for these kind of groups
to flourish their environment. There are numerous networks online
and so many social media networks. These are transnational as well.
So much of the movement is a transnational online social media
movement that showcase their antifa or anti-fascist ideology, the way
they are promoting, like we can see the anti government, there were
sort of groupings existing. So the imagery on antifa, we can see they
all are focusing on some specific kind of ideology, like on the one you
see on the screen. It's about oillance, it's about anti-patriarchy and
environment, anti government, anti-capitalism, anti-police. and the
anti-fascist, maximum, anarchism. So we can see in all these groups,
they are the history of struggle and in group dynamics, online, offline
dynamic, social media, ideology, insight into each group and all of
that. So they are They are using different platforms, different
ideologies, different perspectives to highlight what they are trying to
do in those communities. So the group adopt different names and are
also different symbols and iconography. This iconography shows
difference between groups and across nations as well. So groups in
the USA are heavily anarchist with a focus on anti-racism influenced
by a history of fighting against the KKK. So we can see things are not
one and the same across the world. It's completely different, a
different part of the world. So the groups in the USA are heavily
anarchists because they are, it has its history fighting gates the KKK.
The groups in the UK, that is, they are more heavily influenced by
classic Marxists and groups in Europe are influenced by anarchism as
well. So we can see a variety that do exist between different groups.
It preveals over there. So, in Australia is something of a mix. Antifa do
not subscribe to a single political ideology or philosophy, and the sole
requirement is an opposition to fascism and are willing to step up and
do something about it, Antifa international. So, they do not see
themselves as an independent ideology, but part of a much larger
historical struggle we talked about earlier, and this is reflected in their
graphy adopted. The two flag hikens that is seen here is a standard
flag of antifa. And it kind of highlight that local and national groups
and online on stickers, banners, clothing, etc. If the dominant flag is
red, then a socialist ideology is dominant. And if the flag is black, then
the anarchist ideology is dominant. So we can see usually black and
white, but then if black is prominent, it has a different meaning. If it is
prominent, it has a different meaning. This is what we have to
understand. So what are identify in all of this? They are defensive
movement against inceptive fascism, they are social movement, or
they are counter movement, or are they violent extremists, or are
they domestic terrorists? It is really hard to put them under one finally
kind of, you know, definition and explanation. Alleviately, there are
movements that that was created to oppose and prevent fascism. The
aim of the movement is to create a community that will prevent
fascism from ever taking hold again. They call on street level activism
and direct actions, including a range of tactics, which does include
violence as well. So violence is certainly used by some group, but this
does not make the whole moment of violent extremist one. But I
would predict as more countries adopt far-right political positions such
as Italy recently, we will see left-wing extremist movements and
violent antiphytactics increase as well. And I think with the recent
rulys and protests that we have seen, the far left when extremist
groups, they are also gaining momentum along with the far right
groups who are also getting more stronger today. We are going to
take that into consideration. The way things are working across the
world, whether Antifa is going to be further increasing or decreasing,
or where we can see is it is gaining more momentum. It depends on
we as political situations of different countries. But despite these
claims for politicians that the whole movement is a form of domestic
terrorism, the evidence does not support this blanket claim reality is
more nuanced. And we have to see that the bird watching, if this is
true or not, if you are interested, we can get into more detailed
discussion about it as well. I would like to take your questions or
concerns, if any, that you have. And I will also request you there are
certain readings and videos provided. regarding this week's topic. So
if you want to read about it, please feel free to go back to Island
website and you will get all the relevant details up there. I will just
stop the recording here and we'll take your questions if you have any.