Living famously
By Wendy Robertson
1998 will go down as Resistance's year of living famously. Thanks to the near saturation media coverage our actions and politics have received, Resistance has become recognised across Australia. Year 12 politics students in South Australia were even quizzed about the Democratic Socialist Party and Resistance's orientation to parliament in their end-of-year exams.
As a result of leading two successful national high school walkouts that brought thousands of high school students onto the streets, Resistance's position going into 1999 has been strengthened.
In early January, Resistance's national council got together to work out ways to ensure that we continue to expand and consolidate Resistance.
This means making sure that the increased profile of Resistance, increased confidence and increased membership base we gained through our work in 1998 flow into and continue to expand in 1999.
Resistance is planning a membership drive for the month of February, to be known as "Red February". Joining 600 new members is the target. There are thousands of contacts who identified with Resistance's activities last year, and Resistance aims to reach them through this campaign.
Phase 1: membership renewal. Last year Resistance joined around 1200 people. A major task is to get back in contact and get them to rejoin Resistance for another year.
Phase 2: high school outreach. One key task is to continue to expand Resistance's organisation and influence amongst high school students. Resistance high school members on 40 schools around the country will be holding meetings and producing Resistance high school newsletters.
Phase 3: taking it to the streets. Through Resistance's stalls, we will be taking our campaigns to the streets.
Phase 4: campus saturation. The first weeks of campus activities and orientation weeks are in February. Resistance will be holding stalls, meetings and political actions to attract students to revolutionary activism.
Building the fight back
Resistance is planning to campaign in four key areas:
- against the Jabiluka uranium mine;
- for women's rights;
- in solidarity with the Indonesian democratic movement;
- against voluntary student unionism legislation.
Of course, there are many other issues that Resistance will be responding to this year. Resistance resolved that it would organise actions around the issues of the day: from the next Gulf war to defending the right of young people to walk the streets without fear of cop harassment. If you want to get active, get in contact with Resistance.