Students resist repression to rally against racism

BY JACQUI THOMAS & SAM KING

ADELAIDE — High school students have defied an attempt to prevent
them attending a demonstration during school hours against One Nation leader
Pauline Hanson. While one student, Resistance member Jess Griffin, was
suspended for three days from Mitcham Girls High School for publicising
the rally, another nine students from her school joined Griffin at the
150-strong anti-racism protest on March 8.

Mitcham Girls principal Virginia Gill defended her March 6 decision
to suspend Griffin in the Adelaide Advertiser, claiming “Her behaviour
[was] interfering with the rights of other students to learn and teachers
to teach”.

In the media uproar which followed, most mainstream outlets sided with
the school, focusing in particular on Griffin's age (13) and ignoring any
discussion of why students were taking action.

Today Tonight's Leigh McClusky berated Griffin during an interview
which could easily have been mistaken for a poor attempt at interrogation,
saying “We're not talking about Pauline Hanson, we're not talking about
your political persuasions, that's not the issue. Don't you see that?”

McClusky seemed dumbfounded to find that Griffin did understand the
issues and could speak to them. The young activist replied, “If you just
let people push us around, just because we're kids, then we're not going
to get anywhere. I believe everybody has rights and everyone's different,
it doesn't matter the colour of your skin or anything, it's just no-one
should be discriminated against or exploited.”

Students have criticised what they believe is the hypocrisy of their
principal, who told the Advertiser “The school did encourage students
to have opinions, if they were represented intelligently and appropriately”.

They point out that photocopying that students paid for themselves was
monitored, that anti-racism posters were systematically removed and that
teachers stood at school gates telling students attempting to leave for
the rally that they could not do so without parental permission. Another
Resistance member received six half-hour detentions for organising and
then attending the anti-racism protest.

The students also point out that Mitcham Girls authorities were quite
happy to cancel classes last year for an address by Liberal premier John
Olsen.

The attempted repression failed, however, to dent students' enthusiasm:
the 10 students from Mitcham Girls were the loudest protesters in attendence.

The rally, which was initially called by Resistance, won considerable
backing from other groups. Speakers at the rally included representatives
of M1 Adelaide, Resistance, the International Women's Day collective, the
Adelaide University women's department and the Democratic Socialist Party
as well as an Aboriginal activist who attacked Pauline Hanson's attempt
to steal the popularity of the anti-corporate globalisation movement.

Griffin's comments to the rally most summed up the mood: “I'm here to
resist, so that there is a world fit for all of us to live in in the future”.

From GLW issue 440