Fighting Fascism

Do We Fight or Flee?

Morning Comrades.

Fight or Flee? Something I have been asked way too many times in the last few months and not answered properly and something I ask myself often, as well.

Right off the bat, I cannot and will not be answering today’s question conclusively. If this is something you are looking for I am sorry to disappoint. I will do my best, however, to go through various aspects to this questions and hopefully give some room to anyone asking the same question.

As white Western democracies increasingly exhibit fascistic characteristics—through authoritarian governance, violent repression, and racialised capitalist exploitation—the question for the working and marginalised classes is as urgent as it is old: do we flee or stay and fight? For the majority of white, western people this question really has not been a reality since the 1930s and 1940s, apart from our comrades in ex-Yugoslavia and most recently, both in Ukraine and Russia. As we all should know by now, the perceived safety and rights given to white Europeans, and North Americans are just as fragile and truthfully non-existing as for anyone else. Yet, given our material privilege within our societies, the question hasn’t arisen for most, out of stupidity or a falsely held believe of said privilege, and especially once one brings a class reality to the question, this question should be asked daily. It is a loaded question no matter how you look at it. From my perspective it is equally influenced by our families lived experience as well as my own, theoretical and material ideas.

Given their class background as Dutch farmers, in addition to being Jewish, I know for a fact that my grandmothers family didn’t conceive of running away from their farm, right until the point where German soldiers kidnapped and /or killed them. As peasants, they weren’t really aware of what was happening let alone had the material options of running away, there was no place to run to, let alone the money needed to do so. I asked her about this late in her life and wondered, in retrospect, if she would have if she could, and never really got a conclusive answer from her. Fast forward some 90 years to today, I am asking similar questions myself, not necessarily for myself, but for my family. The answer’s are eerily similar. Does running away from an imminent Fascist threat solve our problem? Does utilising my own privilege, granted by the opposing system to stay and fight this onslaught, guarantee success or at the very least delay said attack on our lives for those not given said privilege? Do I even belief this place, that isn’t our home, is even worth sticking up for?

These questions can and will go seemingly endlessly and as far as I am concerned, cannot be definitively be answered as a whole. What is right for me, may very well not be right for you, and what I may not be capable of doing, you may. One reality I learned when shit hits the fan is, we’ll find out, and quickly. Yet, and despite Fascism’s new cloak and appearance these questions are not hypothetical ones but historical ones.

Let’s get into it.