POLITICS-AUSTRALIA: Involvement in Iraq War Breaks Student Apathy

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY, Mar 6 2003 (IPS) - Anti-war protests by Australian students this week, chanting "books not bombs" and "stop this bloody war", reflect a break with the apathy on political issues that has been growing among young people in the last decade.

At noon Wednesday, thousands of students across the country walked out of their classrooms to protest against a war on Iraq and the participation of Australia, the only country apart from the United States and Britain to send troops to the Gulf for a planned attack, in it.

Here in Sydney, more than 7,000 students from universities, technical colleges and high schools marched through the city centre.

Tertiary students seem to be outnumbered by high school students in the Sydney march, despite the fact that many schools warned students that they could face expulsion or suspension if they left the classrooms without a letter from parents authorising their participation in the protest.

However, many parents and office workers cheered on the students as they marched along George Street – Sydney’s main commercial centre.

The anti-war passions expressed by young people across Australia surprised analysts, because for most of the 1980s and 1990s youngsters here have shown political apathy and shunned social activism, preferring instead to get a degree, earn money and join the consumerist society.

"They say we can’t afford quality education, but, they can spend billions of dollars on the military. We can’t let these matters continue," Anita Ceravolo, a budding youthful Australian Green Party politician, told the marchers.

"This is just the beginning, we will organise to make sure our leaders listen to the people," she warned.

At one point, Sydney’s commercial television channels grabbed footage of a small group of students who ran amok toward the end of the march, and reported three arrests that they reported as the work of unruly teenagers.

But judging from the marches and speeches made by student leaders at the end of the protests at Hyde Park here, youngsters were one is expressing their worries about the path their leaders were taking them – toward confrontation and war.

The anti-war protests also covered a cross-section of Sydney’s multicultural population. Though most students were from the majority Anglo-Saxon community, there were significant numbers from migrant backgrounds – Arabic, Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Latin American, Southern European and South Pacific.

"We’re here because the Americans are playing a dirty game to take Iraq’s oil," said one technical college student of Lebanese background. Added another angrily: "I don’t want to grow up watching war. I don’t want my children to grow up watching war.”

"This war is illegal because they (United States) have not established any direct threat by Iraq to the United States. No weapons have been found which could provide a direct threat to the U.S. So it is illegal under international law," argued Daniel Wodak, a 17-year-old student from Sydney Boys High, one of the top selective schools in the city.

He went as far as citing international law. Since Australia has signed the Rome Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, Prime Minister John Howard could be charged for war crimes there if he gives orders to Australian troops to "attack a sovereign state where it is not proven that there is weapons of mass destruction”, he told IPS.

These sentiments show that although Australian youth shunned political activism in the eighties and nineties, the threatened war against Iraq has mobilised and polarised people "because the whole agenda of Bush and Howard is so easy to see… this is a war for oil”, said Emma Clancy of the ‘Books Not Bombs’ coalition, instrumental in organising the youth protests.

She pointed out that anti-Vietnam war movement, took many years to develop to the point where half a million people could take to the streets in protest – as what happened in Sydney during Feb. 15, the day of global protests against the war.

"It’s incredible – the willingness to mobilise," she observed. "The war may start, but they (political leaders) will soon see that its too politically costly for the governments of the United States, Britain and Australia.”

The protest organisers have vowed to continue with more protests if a war breaks out, including walking out of classrooms as soon as a bombing campaign begins in Iraq.

"Young people are very concerned about the state of the world." said Angela Luvera, a protest organiser from Sydney’s Macquarie University. "Most of the time, society doesn’t give young people to have their say. Yes, today we are so angry about war, we have decided to walk out of class.”

"Howard and (U.S. President George W) Bush think people are blind. They think we are stupid and will swallow their lies that this is a so-called war on terrorism. But, we know it is not,” she argued.

Asked why he walked out of class Wednesday, 11-year-old Elliot said passionately: "We hate war. We want peace, so that we can grow up without fighting.”

When anti-war protests started in Australia last year, it was mainly by small groups of Middle Eastern Australians.

But, today, the protesters are mainly white Australians, and Wednesday’s protests attracted students even from elite public schools and many private schools as well, judging from their uniforms.

At one of the leading private schools here, three school captains have written to Howard, demanding that Australian troops brought back home from the Gulf.

The government has sent up to 1,000 troops to join U.S.-led action against Iraq, without seeking parliamentary approval.

"Our elected leaders want us to go home, not protest. We will not keep quiet," hollered student Sara Poya. "We are not the powerless minority, we will go back to our classrooms and say we are the majority.”