Anti-fascism was never a defence, but rather a concrete counter-proposal—a vision of a just and inclusive society based on solidarity. Yet as authoritarian rule grows stronger in many different contexts and as global crises intensify while democratic traditions and institutions are eroded, the question  becomes ever more urgent: how can anti-fascist thinking and action become operative to realize the utopian ideal of plural democracy?

Two German states were founded after the Second World War: the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany. In each of them, ‘never again’ was inscribed into their political DNA. Eighty years later, Germany faces a decisive tipping point, as large sections of the middle class draw closer and closer to normalizing German nationalism—whether in ministry halls or via the reconstruction of a Prussian palace—while the Bundestag’s largest opposition party is officially recognized as being extreme-right. 

This situation, the first of its kind since 1945, raises the question of whether the politics of ‘never again’ were ever successful in the first place—and thereby, too, the question of whether political self-image and established models such as memory culture were effective  strategies for processing Germany’s violent history. The focus of the evening, therefore, is to find alternative approaches for coming to terms with our present. 

Can a contemporary model of anti-fascism point a way to the future? Can an anti-fascist practice be imagined that doesn’t simply react to the continuities of violence but instead actively repels them? How can this be accomplished during a time in which political and social exclusion, racist and anti-Semitic narratives, and the state’s disparagement and criminalization of social initiatives are increasingly prevalent?

Anti-Fascism as Concrete Utopia gathers activists, journalists, and theoreticians to pursue the question of anti-facism’s historical necessity and what it can and must accomplish to help shape the future.