BY STELLA REITHMULLER
BRISBANE — On February 15, 30 people attended a high school action demanding freedom for refugees. Although the action was small, it was an important show of defiance for students who have faced intense harassment at school.
This harassment has been particularly intense for students at Ferny Grove High School. A large number of Ferny Grove students have attended high school walkouts and weekend rallies in the last 12 months, and have helped to mobilise students from other schools, despite teachers threatening severe punishment.
Carry Trayner, Resistance member and student at Ferny Grove told Green Left Weekly: "Students from all grades at school walked out of class to join anti-war protests last year. There has been lots of discussion around refugee rights, and people want to get involved."
Despite this, Ferny Grove will not even allow a social justice group to meet at lunchtime. Students have been refused permission even to hold an Amnesty International meeting.
Ferny Grove administration has also actively dissuaded students from attending protests, warning them: "Your actions now will have an impact on future employment." The schools deputy principal, Pat Anderson, said that if students attended the February 15 protest they "shouldn't bother turning up to school at all [on that day]".
Two of the Ferny Grove students who attended the protest were told they would have their school positions, prefect and school captain, taken away from them for attending.
The school administration wants to prevent a repeat of 1998 school protests against the racism of One Nation's Pauline Hanson, when 15,000 students walked out of school across Australia. Authorities condemned this because it was introducing "politics" to school, but school is already political.
In a typical modern history lesson, students are taught the ruling class view. Students are also taught how to be good citizens, what to think and how to react to the current political situation. Those who question the way society is organised are told that they don't know what they're talking about, and that they are being "brainwashed by left-wing extremists".
The February 12 protest shows that there are students, still a small minority, prepared to take action. At the action, students spoke to passers-by about the racist history of the Australian government, and the lies that it tells about refugees. They then held a meeting to discuss how to get more students involved, and lessen the pressure from school administrations.
[Stella Reithmuller is a member of Resistance and a student at Ferny Grove High School.]
From Green Left Weekly, February 20, 2002.
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