Four days ago, shortly after I published my previous blog post, we got word that a political event of considerable importance — and one which is dear to my heart — occurred. No, not that one, but rather that Major League Soccer had lifted the ban on the emblem of the Iron Front.
Look, the President getting impeached is important. I get that. But a ban on whether you can publicly display anti-fascist symbols? That hits me very close to home. And somewhat to my surprise I’ve become a rabid Timbers and Thorns fan and, over the course of the summer, have genuinely come to care about the struggle against creeping fascism in a city in another country on the other side of the continent which I have never visited. Perhaps it’s because I recognize and can sympathize with the challenges they face.
At the centre of the controversy was the MLS’ ban on a single, specific anti-fascist emblem, the “Three Arrows” logo of the Iron Front, a paramilitary organization founded in 1931 to fight the rise of Nazism and other authoritarian threats in the Weimar Republic. Each arrow had a specific meaning: One to oppose Nazism, one to oppose Monarchism, and one to oppose Communism (which by that time had been entirely co-opted by Stalinism.) The Iron Front was brutally suppressed only two years later by the National Socialist Party when it took control of the German state.
After the Second World War the Three Arrows became associated with anti-fascist organizing generally… which is more than a bit ironic given that the Eisernefront and the original Antifaschistische Aktion were often in opposition to each other during the early 1930s. The emblem particularly became associated with English and Italian anti-fascist movements in the 1970s and 80s, and from there migrated quickly to football supporters’ clubs.
By the time the MLS was established (or arguably re-established) in the mid-90s, the Iron Front logo and resistance to fascism was immutably associated with European football culture; Germany’s Bundesliga actually has an annual award for the supporters’ group which makes the best anti-fascist-themed tifo, as a specific example. This anti-fascist element of football fandom and was almost immediately adopted by American soccer fans as part of their new tradition.
The aesthetic of the Iron Front’s three arrows is instantly recognizable, almost infinitely adaptable and remarkably easy for anyone of any artistic level to draw. It was deliberately designed by in the 1930s by socialist activist Sergei Chakhotin to quickly and effectively cover up swastikas… which I can personally attest it does extremely well. Any history of 20th century iconography and graphic design is going to have to include the Three Arrows, because it’s absolutely brilliant in its bold yet simplistic design. You can even replace the arrows with other emblems and no one will miss the point you’re trying to make.
The Iron Front logo has been actively displayed in Major League Soccer for nearly twenty years — literally from the beginning of the current league and even well before that. So what happened to make the league change its policy on the display of this particular iconic emblem?
Frankly, the growth of populism and fascism in the United States of America and other western countries.
It’s a very sad statement on the reality of both American politics and the state of late-stage capitalism that the League would try and ban anti-fascist imagery to avoid offending potential alt-right consumers. The MLS put a fan code of conduct in place that forbid “political imagery”, with only one specific example of that imagery, the logo of the Iron Front, which it claimed had been “co-opted by the violent organization Antifa”. This displayed a woeful ignorance of the reality of what constitutes “antifa” — not a centralized organization called antifa, but a loosely cooperative shared philosophy of countering fascism by whatever means… but yes, up to and including the use of force if necessary.
Ironically, the MLS’ ban took a relatively obscure symbol and made it centre-stage in what would soon become a league-wide crisis and a subject of international debate. The blows landed heaviest on the fan-bases in Portland, Seattle and Minnesota, with their strong traditions of progressive supporters’ groups, but it was felt in incidents across the MLS. Unevenly applied, pointlessly specific — you could, and some fans did, display actual anti-fascist banners rather than the Three Arrows — this whole incident ended up becoming a monument to corporate over-reach, tone-deaf bullying, and the Streisand Effect.
The ban was, to put it bluntly, a stupid move from the get-go and a damned pointless hill for the League to die on.
Finally after weeks of upheaval, fan protests, product boycotts and a mid-game walkout, the supporters’ clubs who had resisted under the banner of “A United Front” and the League met earlier this week and hammered out an agreement — the Iron Front ban would be lifted for the remainder of the season and the playoffs. Any future decisions on a Fan Code of Conduct — including whether to reinstate any ban on “political imagery” — will be decided only with input from the supporters’ groups themselves.
It was a complete and total victory for the fans and Wednesday’s Timbers/Revolution match at Providence Park in Portland took on the feel of a triumph. (The only thing that robbed it of its perfection was the game-tying penalty kick at 96 minutes.)
Now, it might seem odd, given everything else happening in the world today, that I’d be focusing a post on the outcome of a dispute between the owners and the fans in a comparatively obscure soccer league. (It’s Going Down, an anarchist webpage, has posted an excellent article interviewing some of the fans if you’re interested in more of the fine detail.)
But I’m focusing on this for a very good reason: We won.
The fanbase of the MLS won this dispute. That the supporters’ groups are being magnanimous in victory doesn’t change the fact that we got everything we wanted and the League owners had to back down. (I say we, but of course my own contribution was quite minimal and entirely online; still, I feel a great deal of affection for the people who got down in the trenches and really busted their butts on this.) The outcome was doubtlessly aided by the eventual realization, on the owners’ part, that their intransigence on the issue would likely cost them far more than it was worth, but that lesson was driven home by the discipline and unity of the supporters protests. There’s some lessons that activists can learn from the United Front’s victory.
First, the value of solidarity. The supporters’ groups in the United Front organized across their traditional rivalries and acted for the sake of the sport to overturn the ban and defend their safe space; it’s no surprise to me that the strongest opposition to the ban occurred from the largest and most enthusiastic supporters’ groups in the league; When perennial rivals Seattle and Portland last met, both fanbases cooperated on a dramatic 33-minute silent sit-in during the game; later when stadium security in Seattle ejected an ECS capo for wearing an Iron Front t-shirt, the fans walked out of the stadium en masse rather than tolerate it.
A sports league, by definition, is made up of competing groups. In this case, the organized supporters of various teams are in opposition literally by design; an artificial tribalism is built into the game and is actually part of the fun (while I have no personal animosity to those who support Seattle, for example, the rivalry between my beloved Timbers and the Sounders is entertaining and diverting. Also, Gut the Fish.) But when push came to shove, the fans realized that they had much in common with each other even across the lines of decades-old rivalry and very little in common with the owners… and if that’s not an allegory for class struggle, I don’t know what is.
The second lesson was that the United Front stuck to a clear and simple message, and refused to let their opposition define the terms of the debate. From day one, they weren’t arguing for the Iron Front logo to be recognized as an acceptable political symbol, they were arguing that it was a symbol of support for basic human rights and therefore exempt from a ban (which they also argued was vague and ill-defined in any case.) They stuck to the messaging and refused to allow their established predicate to be altered. They also refused to compromise on that one, simple point. That discipline paid off in the long run.
The third lesson was creativity in sharing that message. If the actual logo of the Iron Front was banned, then the fans got enormously, delightfully creative in skirting the ban. I’ve long held it to be the sign of a good protest when people are enjoying themselves, and despite the frustration and anger that many had towards the league for imposing the ban in the first place, the fans of the United Front went at their protest with a jaunty defiance that was an absolute joy to witness.
The fourth lesson to be learned is also quite important: Without the ordinary people in the community there is no community. The value of the fans’ everyday contributions to the MLS goes far beyond simply buying tickets and concession food and swag… although I suspect it was the threat of losing thousands of season-ticket buyers that ultimately brought the owners to a compromise. I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating — the owners aren’t the community. They have a vested interest in providing the space that community exists in, of course, but the community is the people who have put their hearts and souls into building it, even — or perhaps especially — if they have received no profit from doing so.
And loyalty needs to flow both ways.
Despite the turbulence of the ban and the upset which accompanied it, I think that this outcome will result in a net positive for the MLS and its supporters’ groups and the community which has been built around it. Not only have the fans come together and won something important — in many ways more important than the outcome of any particular game or season — we’ve done so in a way that we can be proud of for the rest of their lives.
That’s not to say it’s over, of course. While the owners and the league may have come to the realization that the Iron Front logo is something that the fans are going to fly one way or the other so there’s no profit in resisting it, the reason we’re flying that banner hasn’t changed. Fascism is creeping into every aspect of public life and it needs to be resisted where it’s found.
The Three Arrows were adopted into football culture because a lot of fans were anti-fascist during the last outbreak of fascism and neo-nazism in the 1980s and 90s. It’s sad but necessary that we remember and honour those roots in the context of the resurgence of fascism in 2019. And on a personal note, somewhat fittingly, my spouse observed that while a lot of the “Timbers Army” (and other supporters’ clubs) are now staunchly anti-fascist because of the ban on the Iron Front logo, it was absolutely in character for me that I’ve become a soccer fan from the opposite direction.
