When the government is preparing to wage a bloody war on the people of Iraq, which will result in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi people;
When Australian corporate war-profiteers, like Qantas, BHP, and Dunlop, are set to make record profits from this slaughter;
When the government prioritises military spending and a $15 million advertising campaign promoting "anti-terrorist" hysteria, while launching another savage attack on higher education funding;
We know something has to change.
All over the world young people are taking action against the war on Iraq. Youth were a large part of the million people in Florence last November, the millions across Italy and the hundreds of thousands across the US on the anniversary of the 1991 Gulf War and the weekend of the Martin Luther King junior holiday. Half a million people converged on Washington — a truly amazing statement of political resolve to stop this unjust war.
Students in the US are organising on a massive scale. On the eve of these demos, two conferences set up a nationwide anti-war student network which already represents more than 80 different schools and campuses.
Now, US students have called a strike for March 5. The National Youth and Student Peace Coalition which involves more than 20 large nation-wide youth organisations including the United Students Against Sweatshops, the Movement for Democracy and Education, the Black Radical Congress and the Muslim Students Association of the US and Canada has issued the call, which can be viewed at <http://www.nyspc.net>.
We are urging students and young people across Australia to join in solidarity with the US students, and protest here on March 5.
We fear that our futures will be shaped by today's actions by people with whom we have little or nothing in common. Bush, Howard and Blair's interests are not ours. This is a war about corporate greed, not about fighting terrorism. And Bush's agenda of "a war without end" means we have to respond — and quickly.
In Australia, as in the US and across Europe, young people can play a key role in mobilising opinion. We can be the conscience of the nation, as we've done before campaigning against another unjust war in Vietnam some decades ago.
As one of the USA's staunchest allies, the Howard government helps legitimise and shore up Washington's war drive. As the PM sends more troops to the Gulf, he doesn't dare ask the Australian people about whether we support another war on Iraq. Why? Because he knows the answer - the majority of Australian's don't support war on Iraq!
By taking action in our tens of thousands, and eventually in our hundreds of thousands, we can force the Coalition government to end its support for this unjust war. And if it doesn't listen, we will make sure it pays the biggest possible political price.
The movement to stop the Vietnam War demonstrated that there is power in numbers. When we stand up and take action together, at our universities, high schools, TAFEs, workplaces and in the streets, we can make a difference.
Join the March 5 strike! Declare your high schools and campuses opposition to war!
Funding for education not war! Bring the troops home!
No war on Iraq! No Australian involvement!
[Initiated by the recently formed Youth and Students Coalition Against War, the call has been endorsed by the Griffith University Nathan campus Students Representative Council; co-welfare officer at that campus David Lafferty; Simon Cunich from the Illawarra High School Social Action Network; Resistance national co-ordinator Kylie Moon; Rihab Charida from the Palestinian Human Rights Organisation; Newcastle University Students Association president Vanessa Bowden; Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific coordinator Pip Hinman; Karol Florek from Fortians for Refugees; Newcastle University education officer Peter Robson; and Wollongong University Students Representative Council general representative Sophie Williams.
[Resistance will be contacting groups throughout Europe and the Asia-Pacific to encourage them to also take up the call and strike on March 5. Please help to distribute the call to action, and encourage your school, campus or community organisation to sign on. For more info email <ysc_against_war@yahoo.com>.]
From Green Left Weekly, January 29, 2003.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.