Resistance!

The fact that we live in a sexist society was brought home in July by the publication of a study titled Youth Cultures of Eating, which found that one in five women suffer from an eating disorder. The study, funded by the Australian Research Council, compared data collected in 2000 and 2006 from interviews with 8950 young people.

Organising is well under way for protests during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney in September, to which PM John Howard will be welcoming his war criminal mate, US President George Bush.

As the world’s most recognisable symbol of struggle and liberation, Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s image seems to become more popular every year. Even the Weekend Australian, a mouthpiece of Australia’s ruling class, put Che on its front page on July 14 to grab potential buyers’ attention.

My university, the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), has given 22 student and staff records to the Australian Federal Police, the NSW police and the Australian Taxation Office.

Internationalism was a strong theme of the 36th Resistance conference held in Sydney over July 5-8. Apart from hearing from Julia Espinoza from Socialist Worker in New Zealand and Gusti Galuh Ratna Sari from the Indonesian National Student League for Democracy, the whole conference took part in a separate one-day forum on July 7 organised by the Venezuelan Embassy.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that of the 46 million pregnancies terminated each year, some 19 million occur outside the legal system. Most of these illegal abortions are unsafe — performed by unskilled providers, or in unhygienic conditions, or both. Each year, an estimated 68,000 women die as a consequence of unsafe abortions.

On June 26, federal education minister Julie Bishop announced a new board to draft a new national Australian history curriculum. Among the draftees are conservative historian Geoffrey Blainey and right-wing commentator Gerard Henderson. This is the Howard government enforcing its own racist ideology on history teaching.

The 36th annual national conference of the socialist youth organisation Resistance will be an important stepping stone towards the protests against US emperor George Bush’s visit to Australia in September for the APEC summit.

With opinion polls showing his government is headed for defeat in this year’s federal election, PM John Howard has been sure to pull out the, now well-weathered, “economic management” card in an attempt to regain voter support.

Organising is underway for demonstrations during the APEC summit, which PM John Howard is hosting in Sydney on September 8-9 and which US President George Bush and other “world leaders” will be attending. The Stop Bush collective is organising a convergence for September 8, aiming to draw people onto the streets to protest against the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. The protest will also call for urgent action to stop environmental destruction and for the defence of workers’ rights.

The Peace Convergence 2007 will be a gathering of activists who oppose the Talisman Sabre war games and the testing of depleted uranium munitions. The long-term dangers of depleted uranium, mainly from weapons, are now a concern throughout the world.

Students across NSW are getting organised for a “Stop Bush! Stop Howard!” student conference on June 1 aimed at building the protests when the US president comes to Sydney for APEC in September.