BY
EMMA CLANCY
The March 5 student strike against war was a huge success, mobilising
around 30,000 students and young people across Australia as part of an
international day of student action to stop the impending war on Iraq.
Some elements were common to almost all the rallies and marches: the protesters
were overwhelmingly from high schools and each one of the rallies voted
to strike again on March 26.
In Adelaide, Luke Smith reports, 7000 students walked out of
classes. The poorest of state schools right through to the most exclusive
private colleges were represented at the protest. Students carried banners,
flags and placards and adorned themselves with face-paint. They unleashed
their frustrations with sweeping chants such as, “You can bomb the world
into pieces, but you can’t bomb it into peace”.
Answering many of the protest organisers’ detractors in the corporate
media, Resistance member Romi Graham received wild applause when she said:
“We have not been brainwashed into thinking this way. We have made an informed
and personal decision of our own accord to oppose this racist war.”
“We gather here, not to show support for the evil dictatorship of the
Iraqi regime, but for the innocent civilians like ourselves, who have known
nothing but war for decades”, she added.
Sydney's rally attracted 10,000 students, with large contingents
from Riverside Girls High School and Leichhardt High. The rally began at
Town Hall, where the excited crowd heard from strike organiser Simon Butler,
who congratulated the students for taking action
“The youth of Australia are saying today: this war for oil is unacceptable!
Are we going to sit back and watch hundreds of thousands of our Iraqi brothers
and sisters be slaughtered for the profits of a rich minority?”, Butler
asked the crowd, who replied with a resounding “NO! No war!”.
The marchers sprinted through the Sydney CBD, stopping traffic, from
Town Hall to Martin Place, then spontaneously continued to Hyde Park, where
they heard from high school speakers, the Socialist Alliance, Greens and
Mike Donaldson from the National Tertiary Education Union.
Edwin Wise and Maria Cameron report from Melbourne that around
7000 students marched enthusiastically through the city. The message of
the protesters was captured by one of the numerous home-made placards carried
by students: “What war can do, peace can do better.”
Rally co-chairperson Claudia Quinnell, a member of the socialist youth
organisation Resistance, pointed out that many of the high school students
present were not old enough to vote in elections. “The media says that
you people are too young to think”, she said. “But does the media think
that the children of Iraq are too young to have bombs dropped on them?”
Speakers at protest included Leigh Hubbard, secretary of the Victorian
Trades Hall Council, and Maryan al Talebi, an Iraqi refugee and Melbourne
high school student. Hubbard congratulated the students, assuring the crowd
that,
“the Australian union movement supports you”.
Al Talebi told the crowd that “regime change is a job for the Iraqi
people”. Lincoln Hanncock, the young Socialist Alliance candidate for the
upcoming Sheoak Council Election, reminded the crowd that, “the real axis
of evil is [US President] George Bush, [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair
and John Howard”.
According to Quinnell, students from up to 60 Victorian high schools
travelled to Melbourne to participate in the historic strike. “Students
travelled from as far away as Wangaratta, three hours from Melbourne, to
let their voices be heard”, she said.
Angelica Cameron, a year nine student from Melbourne’s Rudolf Steiner
School, said that only five people from her class could not make it to
the protest.
“We had people painting banners and talking about the strike even a
week before the protest”, said Cameron. “The school was buzzing with activity
in preparation for the big day.”
The spirited march through Melbourne's CBD culminated in a mass student
gathering outside Parliament House, resounding with the chant of “this
is what democracy looks like”.
The students voted unanimously to continue the struggle against impending
war. To resounding applause, Hanncock said, “We need to make a better world,
not a world based on corporate greed and war. If the government won't stop
the war, then we must stop the government.”
Sam King reports that around 1200 people took action in Brisbane.
Protesters
represented at least 20 different schools.
Protesters came from many different directions — one from the Gold Coast!
A busload of 80 students arrived from the University of Queensland after
a speak-out and march on campus. Other tertiary students found their own
way to King George Square, where the central rally was held. On Griffith
University, 70 students attended a forum held by the anti-war collective
before the protest.
A contingent of 50 students from Kimberley College were taken by their
teacher for a pre-rally “political excursion” to the Resistance Centre,
where they heard from an Iraqi refugee, and then had a discussion about
how best to build the anti-war movement. They finished up by making anti-war
placards before going to the protest.
After the “official” speakers were finished at the rally, students queued
up to have their say on the open microphone about why they had come, speaking
with passion, defiance and originality.
Students took off on the march, continuously chanting and singing “No
war, no war, no war, no war” and staging two sit-ins at intersections.
There were two stops, one at the defence forces recruiting centre and another
outside Boeing headquarters, then back protesters went to King George Square
and stormed up the steps.
Marching from campus, 200 Australian National University students converged
with up to 800 striking high school and college students, Danny Fairfax
reports from Canberra. The feisty protest was clustered around the
merry-go-round in Petrie Plaza. Alfred Deakin High, had 150 students attending,
and there was also a contingent of students from Young, a town almost 200
kilometres away.
At Petrie Plaza, Greens senator Kerry Nettle said, “I would like to
commend all of you for having the guts to make your voices heard on this
issue.” Will Mudford, a student from Lyneham High School, successfully
urged the crowd to accompany Nettle back up to Parliament House.
Lining up in front of parliament, students implored Prime Minister John
Howard to come out and face the protest, chanting “Howard's a coward” when
he did not. Unperturbed, the students formed a giant human peace symbol
on the front lawns.
Greens senator Bob Brown came out to say: “Millions of people in your
age bracket from Iraq have no say about this war. Instead, they have terror
and fear at what will be coming to them. When you make the call for 'No
blood for oil' you hit it on the head. We are fighting for the flesh and
blood of young people just like you.”
Matt Egan reports that Lismore came to life with chants of “Use
your brains, use your heart, no US war on Iraq” when 300 people joined
the student strike against war on March 5. Students from every high school
in Lismore and nearby areas, North Coast TAFE and Southern Cross University
(SCU) participated.
Amanda Zivcic told Green Left Weekly that Wollongong's
March 5 student strike and rally was held at University of Wollongong (UOW),
with speakers including Carmen Robinson from the High School Social Action
Network, Michael Zsafranier from the UOW Students’ Representative Council,
the Greens' Meredith Henderson, and the president of the National Tertiary
Education Industry Union's UOW branch Kim Draismore. The protest — with
a 400-strong crowd of mainly high school students — turned into a Books
Not Bombs meeting.
“Howard does not speak for me, he does not speak for us”, said one high
school student at the post-rally open-microphone session. “We don't want
a war, we've never had to grow up being used to the conditions of a war
and we don't want to start now. Or ever.”
Around 1500 students, walked out of their classes in Perth. The
spirited rally heard from a number of speakers, including Dave Kelly, secretary
of the State Schools Teachers Union, Hiba al Haimus, an Iraqi student and
University of WA Guild councillor, and Fred Fuentes on behalf of the NOWAR
Alliance. The protest then marched down to the US Consulate where students
sat down on St Georges Terrace, one of the busiest roads in Perth, in front
of the US consulate. Two students were arrested after the rally had begun
to disperse, because a flag was burnt.
Six-hundred students gathered in Hobart’s Franklin Square, Alex
Bainbridge reports. Prior to the rally, state education minister Paula
Wriedt asked the organisers (via the media) to reschedule the event to
after school hours
On the day, Wriedt did a backflip, telling media that, while she still
had reservations about students missing school, she congratulated them
for “express[ing] their views”. Rally chair Duncan Meerding to tell WIN
news that “this [pointing at the demonstration] is nothing like wagging,
wagging is unorganised. This is a strike.”
Most speakers — including Anna Elliston from Clarence High School, Anthea
Stutter from Resistance and Lelia Mihal from Women for Action — were young
students.
A number of students from Guilford Young — a private college — were
prevented from leaving the school grounds in their uniform and so they
sat in the cafeteria and boycotted classes.
Several students from the Friends School — run by the generally pro-peace
Christian Quakers — defied strong opposition from staff to attend the protest.
Staff had told students that attending the protest would be “striking against
the school” and therefore was not allowed, even though students believed
it could help stop the war.
A large number of students from the Mount Carmel School also held a
protest on Sandy Bay Road outside their school on the day. An assistant
principal at the school told GLW that this in response to staff
preventing students from attending the city demonstration.
Around 300 attended the student strike rally in Launceston. In
Burnie,
around 100 Hellyer College students rallied then marched through town in
the afternoon, followed by a BBQ back on campus. Around 50, mainly campus
students, rallied in Darwin.
Tim Doughney reports from Geelong that almost 1000 students took
over the city for two hours, with protesters from every Geelong secondary
school, Deakin University and Gordon TAFE.
Dozens arrived with their own handwritten banners and chanted their
way through Geelong's CBD. Two high school students even turned up with
a “Gays Against Bush” placard, a courageous gesture in a regional town.
Vanessa Bible of Armidale told GLW that more than 500
people came together at the University of New England from 11am on March
5, including academic staff, university and high school students, to rally
against the war in the central courtyard.
Three-hundred students also rallied in Newcastle, 200 in Bowral
and 200 in Ballarat.
From Green Left Weekly, March 12, 2003.
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