BY SIMON BUTLER
It's now been
a year since Pauline Hanson's advice to turn away boatloads of desperate
refugees became Australian government policy. But the unjust treatment
meted out to refugees has sparked a movement of anti-racist solidarity
among growing numbers of people.
Most recently, the movement has gathered momentum on universities as
student activists campaign in defiance of government laws to declare their
campuses centres of refugee solidarity, sanctuary and aid.
On August 21, activists from University of Newcastle Action for Refugee
Rights (UNARR) successfully organised a general student meeting to vote
to call for a student referendum around refugee rights. The referendum,
which is to be held from September 16 to 19, will ask students to vote
to declare their campus a refugee safe haven.
According to Peter Robson, an activist in UNARR and the student union
education officer, the open air event was more like a student rally than
an ordinary meeting. “It's one of the biggest student protests that has
happened on the University of Newcastle for many years”, he told Green
Left Weekly. “A hundred and fifty people turned up to decide whether
their uni could become a refugee sanctuary. Only one person voted against.”
The success of the meeting has been a welcome shot in the arm to the
refugee rights campaign on the university. Recently, a National Tertiary
Education Industry Union delegates' meeting on the campus voted to support
the campaign and they are looking at how to run their own ballot for staff
on campus. “The whole campaign has shown that there are quite a lot of
students and staff who think that the refugee rights movement is important
and are willing to take a stand on the question”, said Robson.
“The next step is the actual referendum. We need this to be as big a
statement of support as possible. We'll be bringing the human face of refugees
to students and asking who they believe — do they believe in [immigration
minister Phillip] Ruddock or do they believe in human rights.”
Earlier this year, activists on the Australian National University in
Canberra were part of a similar effort to declare their campus a refugee
safe haven. Members of the ANU Refugee Action Collective attracted 130
people to a student general meeting to vote on the issue. The decisions
of official SGMs are binding upon student unions or student representative
councils.
Important breakthrough
According to Stuart Munckton from the ANU Refugee Action Collective, the
meeting was an important breakthrough. “On ANU, student general meetings
are held every term but in the last few years they have been small. They
haven't been forums where students can make democratic decisions about
their own affairs.
“But when we discovered that a new meeting was to be held in a week's
time we made a snap decision to build it around declaring the campus a
safe haven and it was the biggest SGM on campus for many years. We managed
to pass a motion that the official position of the student association
would be opposition to the government's policy of mandatory detention.”
The motion to publicly declare ANU a refugee sanctuary failed to get
up. Nonetheless, “during the week-long campaign we got hundreds of dollars
in donations from students and secured the support of numerous campus clubs
— from the environment collective to the ANU Muslim Association. Now, after
hearing about the success on Newcastle University, I'm convinced we can
go all the way [and make the campus a safe haven] next time”, said Munckton.
In coming weeks, students on a number of other campuses will be urged
to mobilise in defiance of the Howard government's inhumane treatment of
refugees. Activists from Melbourne's La Trobe University and from the University
of Western Australia are organising their own student general meetings
on refugee rights on September 3 and 4 respectively.
“At the moment we're campaigning hard to make La Trobe a refugee safe
haven”, said Ben Zala from the La Trobe Refugee Action Collective. The
collective plans to submit four motions to their upcoming student general
meeting:
That students declare their university a refugee safe haven.
That the Student Representative Council provides financial support
for escaped refugees by holding a fundraising concert.
That free education for temporary-protection-visa (TPV) holders be
provided by La Trobe University.
That La Trobe University make a declaration that under no circumstances
will it cooperate with any private corporations involved in the system
of detention.
Zala told Green Left Weekly that he expects the September 4 meeting
to attract hundreds of people. “The response so far has been fantastic
from students and staff. We've distributed a broadsheet that outlines the
motions. We've campaigned with mass leafleting and lecture announcements
and we've been applauded for what we are saying in the lectures. It's been
very positive.”
Anti-racist activists from the University of Western Australia Refugee
Action Network (UWA RAN) are aiming for a minimum of 100 people to attend
their September 3 SGM in order to make the decisions binding on the Student
Guild. UWA RAN is calling for the university to be declared a refugee safe
haven and for the Student Guild to donate $2000 to assist escaped refugees.
One of the main successes of the initiative so far is that it has made
the government's policy of mandatory detention a constant topic of discussion
and debate on the campus.
Excellent response
“The response overall has been excellent”, said Claudia Quinnell from UWA
RAN. “I was in the [campus] cafe today and I noticed people I didn't know
discussing it as I was walking through.”
The Wollongong Refugee Action Collective is also agitating for a student
general meeting that would allow students to voice their condemnation of
the government's refugee policy, declare the University of Wollongong a
refugee safe haven, and allocate money from the student union to assist
refugees in need.
“The primary purpose of our safe haven campaign is to raise awareness
on campus about refugee rights and further mobilise students against the
government's scapegoating of refugees”, said Grant Coleman, a student activist
in the Wollongong RAC. “I think the adoption of this proposal by a number
of universities around Australia will be a massive blow to the legitimacy
of the government's policy. It will be a clear statement of student solidarity
in the face of the government's racism.”
Members of the Melbourne University RAC are busy collecting the 1900
student signatures required to force a hostile Student Representative Council
to organise a campus-wide student referendum around refugee rights.
“The petition has been a great staring point to engage in discussion
about why students should support their campus becoming a refugee safe
haven”, said RAC activist and Melbourne Uni student Helen Slaney. “We found
that very few people have actually contested the demands on the petition.
When we've explained what the campaign is about people are really positive.
We've gone into big lectures, handed the petition around, and have had
just about every student put their name down.”
Meanwhile, members of the University of Sydney Refugee Action Collective
have decided on a campaign to get the university administration to fund
and provide English education classes for refugees on TPVs. According to
Jemina Mowbray from the Sydney University RAC, the next step will be to
present a motion to the upcoming University Senate meeting in October.
Students will be asked to show their support by demonstrating outside.
The most strident opposition to the refugee rights movement on campuses
has come from right-wing student union officials. “We've encountered a
lot of opposition to the campaign from the student administration here
on Melbourne Uni”, said Slaney. “There's a chance [the SRC] may try to
stop the referendum even if we get the signatures required by the constitution.
But if they do that we'll go ahead, organise the referendum ourselves,
and work to get the majority of students to declare the campus a safe haven
anyway.”
Young Liberal opposition
The Young Liberal-dominated SRC of the University of Wollongong has already
moved to quash the safe haven campaign. An SRC meeting on August 30 passed
a motion declaring the petition being used by Illawarra RAC to be unconstitutional.
“It's pretty clear that the Young Liberals are going to try to sabotage
our campaign. Our petition has been written to the letter of the constitution
and we'll be waging a battle to have this decision overturned. It will
simply make it clearer for students to see why they should support the
campaign and attend the general meeting. We can't let Howard's proteges
get away with this sabotage”, said Coleman.
One of the main objections raised by the Young Liberals is that it may
contravene the law for students to openly declare that their campus welcomes
refugees — escaping detention or otherwise. This is an argument that is
rejected by refugee rights activists across the country.
“I'd say that what the government is doing to refugees is illegal and
irresponsible and what we are doing is responsible, it's the right thing
to do”, said Quinnell.
“We are not going to accept it as a valid argument”, Illawarra RAC activist
Eliza Barwick insisted. “The whole point of the campaign is to oppose the
[government's bad] laws.”
The threat of “illegality” didn't sway Stuart Munckton from ANU either.
“It's a moral issue that is worth more than any law. In every struggle
for justice bad laws have had to be broken. It was Martin Luther King who
pointed out that everything Adolph Hitler ever did was `legal'.”
From Green Left Weekly, September 4, 2002.
Visit the Green Left Weekly
home page.
