No. of Recommendations: 5
In reality, Antifa is not a well-structured organization, but rather a loosely organized, secretive movement of like-minded far-left activists. There are no leaders, no hierarchy and no formal membership. Instead, the activists organize in small units called “affinity groups.”
In other words, cells based on the IRA model.
No, it's not. I mean, it's right there in your Reuters quote - which you mistakenly think supports your point. Right out, they say that Antifa isn't an organization - it's a movement.
The IRA had leaders. They had an organization. The organization was structured around cells, which simply means that lower-level members of the group didn't have information about the rest of the group. Organizations can be structured around cells - but they're still organizations. They still have leadership - a group of people that are in charge, that are directing the activities of the group. They can do that through cells (where one cell doesn't know what the other is doing) - they can do it indirectly and clandestinely as well. But there's still a leadership structure that's directing things. Famously, there were different IRA organizations - that disagreed and competed with each other. Each of those organizations were structured on cells, but they weren't all part of the same organization. Because those cells were under different leadership in competing organizations.
Antifa doesn't have that. There's no leadership. There's no members. There's no structure of an Antifa group. It's a system of beliefs and tactics.
It's like "environmentalism" isn't an organization. There are lots of people who are in groups that promote Green ideas. Many of those groups will have overlapping membership, share ideas and tactics, and from time to time coordinate with each other. But that doesn't mean there's an "Environmentalism" organization that actually exists and runs things. Those different groups aren't "cells" of the national Environmentalism entity.
The same is true of Antifa. It's a movement, with various people engaging in similar actions advancing the goals of Antifa beliefs. But they're not members of a single national organization, any more than the Sierra Club and the NRDC are part of the same organization.
