TIGER ALERT : AUS STUDENTS : THE RIOTING TO COME

Question:

Here is the Tiger Alert address origination…. I think we should mail bomb this address – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – —–Original Message—– Sent: Monday, August 10, 1998 2:52 PM TIGER ALERT TIGER ALERT Yuh gotta be really dumb not to read the TIGER ALERT Golf’s number One Spiritually Correct Email magazine Tiger Alert : Arming the People Edited in London by Olive North and Little Red Riding Hood After years of criticism for apathy, Australia’s school students have taken to the streets, exploding the notion that our youth don’t give a hoot about politics. STEPHANIE PEATLING reports. THE passion seems to have been lurking below the surface, waiting quietly for a trigger. Just two weeks ago, anti-racism rallies drew 10,000 schoolchildren out of the classrooms and onto the streets. Thousands of others joined the throng outside the opening of the Queensland State Parliament, rallied against the proposed mine at Jabiluka and chanted against the Government’s waterfront reforms. But instead of congratulations for leaving their TVs and computer games, their new activism has sparked attack for missing school, and insults for resorting to radical action. The newly elected One Nation MP, Shaun Nelson, who at 25 could himself be called a youth activist, said: "Putting children into the line of fire, into where there’s going to be a sea of hatred and violence outside Parliament House, is child abuse. Using children to get across their political agenda is abhorrent. These communists should have to answer for their actions for doing this." A week later, his sentiments were echoed by Queensland’s One Nation leader, Bill Feldman, in State Parliament, who blamed the youth socialist organisation Resistance for manipulating school students. "It’s our equivalent of the sloganising of the fascist Black Shirts of the socialist Mussolini, who busted up the meetings of political opponents. It’s the equivalent to the sloganising of the Brown Shirts of the Nazis who busted up the meetings of their political opponents." Feldman later denied he was exaggerating and called for the embryonic youth movement to be wiped out. "When you actually look and see what happened in those countries and how the minds of those young children were twisted and warped for political endeavours … it’s a very dangerous practice. I think it should be stamped out." But the idea that youth are unable to think for themselves and are being manipulated by adults only increases their anger. Sean Healy, 26, is the national co-ordinator of Resistance, the group behind the anti-racism rallies, and says this opinion is not only ill-informed, but hypocritical. "It is young people and school-age students who are the least likely to be brainwashed. They’re less cynical than uni students and they haven’t formed an attachment to a major political party. They don’t have family responsibilities and they haven’t spent years in a mind-destroying job. "If you’re under 18, you aren’t supposed to have any political opinions one way or the other. It’s completely hypocritical because the people who were down on youth for being apathetic and not interested in politics are now the ones criticising their actions." It is a wave of action that has heartened Senator Natasha Stott Despoja, the closest thing Australia has to a youth-focused politician, who believes the political version of the old saying that children should be seen and not heard is definitely on the way out. "It’s just so encouraging to see this sort of grassroots action. The racism rallies are certainly a focus point, but when you also look at the Jabiluka protests you can see there’s a whole movement appearing. "In the last few weeks I’ve been flooded with e-mails and letters from school students who aren’t even old enough to join a political party. And they’re asking for the platforms of all the political parties, not just the Democrats, precisely because they do want to make up their own minds." But whether these protests are the beginnings of a broader youth protest is unclear. Professor Stuart Rees, the director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, believes youth is faced with so many concerns that it is difficult for it to unite around one particular issue. "It’s like a growing sense of disillusionment and a perception that they’re being screwed. There’s all sorts of things provoking young people like the reintroduction of upfront fees, the youth allowance, rising levels of suicide and all of it is the government saying we don’t care about you. These protests we are seeing at the moment are just one piece of the jigsaw. The dilemma is whether conflict and protest can ever be a political movement." Professor Rees believes an umbrella youth organisation will need to be formed to channel all the issues confronting youth if there is to be a significant and coherent movement. "In this period of history, there is such a feeling of competition that the people who might best be able to co-ordinate such an effort are most likely the ones being pushed to study law or commerce or whatever. Young people have been brought up in a culture of selfishness, which really discourages them from doing anything irresponsible like protesting on behalf of someone else." Professor Geoffrey Sherington, Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Sydney, believes the current protests are comparable with the anti-Vietnam movement 30 years ago, which he sees as the most successful historical example of youth action. "They were very much organised around one issue and there were certainly a lot of school-age protesters as there are now. Then, as now, it seemed to attract kids whose parents had been involved with left-wing causes in their youth." Professor Sherington places the current protests in the context of international examples, such as the unemployment rallies in Germany at the beginning of the 1990s. He also points to the significant participation of Indonesian students in the end of the Soeharto regime earlier this year and the role of Chinese students in anti-government activism. "But these incidents, especially in Germany, just died away and failed to become broader political movements addressing youth issues. What makes what’s going on here so interesting is racism as the starting point and the activism of ethnic students who have obviously been directly affected by it. "It’s certainly very small, but it could take off into something broader. What we could see here is it spreading to take in other issues like unemployment. We’ve seen this Government take away its method of communicating with young people and this is really one of the only ways they have left to communicate." One of the most interesting observations made about the recent spate of demonstrations was that it seemed to be school students who were driving the action. University students, a group of people supposedly prone to protesting, were apparently few and far between. Katrina Curry, education officer of the National Union of Students, worries that university students no longer have the time or the economic freedom to participate in protests and rallies. "So many uni students wanted to come, but had to decide if they should miss work and starve for a week instead and there is no common time that all students are free to come. So we’re encouraging students not just to think of action as rallies. If someone is a good writer, well, they can be part of a letter-writing campaign." The age of many of the protesters is an issue of concern for at least one parents’ group and the NSW Department of Education. "The NSW Department of Education has made it clear that students should not be absent from school for this purpose. The department has a number of very good programs in schools to address issues of anti-discrimination tolerance and multicultural racism" was all the department would say in a statement. The NSW Parents Council is trying not to dissuade students from taking an interest in politics, but is concerned about the legal position schools are in if anything should happen to their students during school hours. "We don’t want to discourage students from taking an interest in politics and in an important issue like this. But as a parent, I was concerned about seeing schoolkids of 12 or 13 being manhandled by the police," says Duncan McInnes, the executive officer with the Parents Council. "It’s not a badge of courage to have a police record at that age. We aren’t advising parents one way or the other, but we do think it’s a good idea if they provide their students with a note if they are going to protests in school time, so that the school is covered." But according to Sean Healy, it was school students who pushed for the rallies to take place and Resistance is planning another day of action for August 28, based on their initial success. "At least a quarter of our membership is made up of high school students and they demanded the last

Response:

TIGER ALERT TIGER ALERT Yuh gotta be really dumb not to read the TIGER ALERT Golf’s number One Spiritually Correct Email magazine Tiger Alert : Arming the People Edited in London by Olive North and Little Red Riding Hood After years of criticism for apathy, Australia’s school students have taken to the streets, exploding the notion that our youth don’t give a hoot about politics. STEPHANIE PEATLING reports. THE passion seems to have been lurking below the surface, waiting quietly for a trigger. Just two weeks ago, anti-racism rallies drew 10,000 schoolchildren out of the classrooms and onto the streets. Thousands of others joined the throng outside the opening of the Queensland State Parliament, rallied against the proposed mine at Jabiluka and chanted against the Government’s waterfront reforms. But instead of congratulations for leaving their TVs and computer games, their new activism has sparked attack for missing school, and insults for resorting to radical action. The newly elected One Nation MP, Shaun Nelson, who at 25 could himself be called a youth activist, said: "Putting children into the line of fire, into where there’s going to be a sea of hatred and violence outside Parliament House, is child abuse. Using children to get across their political agenda is abhorrent. These communists should have to answer for their actions for doing this." A week later, his sentiments were echoed by Queensland’s One Nation leader, Bill Feldman, in State Parliament, who blamed the youth socialist organisation Resistance for manipulating school students. "It’s our equivalent of the sloganising of the fascist Black Shirts of the socialist Mussolini, who busted up the meetings of political opponents. It’s the equivalent to the sloganising of the Brown Shirts of the Nazis who busted up the meetings of their political opponents." Feldman later denied he was exaggerating and called for the embryonic youth movement to be wiped out. "When you actually look and see what happened in those countries and how the minds of those young children were twisted and warped for political endeavours … it’s a very dangerous practice. I think it should be stamped out." But the idea that youth are unable to think for themselves and are being manipulated by adults only increases their anger. Sean Healy, 26, is the national co-ordinator of Resistance, the group behind the anti-racism rallies, and says this opinion is not only ill-informed, but hypocritical. "It is young people and school-age students who are the least likely to be brainwashed. They’re less cynical than uni students and they haven’t formed an attachment to a major political party. They don’t have family responsibilities and they haven’t spent years in a mind-destroying job. "If you’re under 18, you aren’t supposed to have any political opinions one way or the other. It’s completely hypocritical because the people who were down on youth for being apathetic and not interested in politics are now the ones criticising their actions." It is a wave of action that has heartened Senator Natasha Stott Despoja, the closest thing Australia has to a youth-focused politician, who believes the political version of the old saying that children should be seen and not heard is definitely on the way out. "It’s just so encouraging to see this sort of grassroots action. The racism rallies are certainly a focus point, but when you also look at the Jabiluka protests you can see there’s a whole movement appearing. "In the last few weeks I’ve been flooded with e-mails and letters from school students who aren’t even old enough to join a political party. And they’re asking for the platforms of all the political parties, not just the Democrats, precisely because they do want to make up their own minds." But whether these protests are the beginnings of a broader youth protest is unclear. Professor Stuart Rees, the director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, believes youth is faced with so many concerns that it is difficult for it to unite around one particular issue. "It’s like a growing sense of disillusionment and a perception that they’re being screwed. There’s all sorts of things provoking young people like the reintroduction of upfront fees, the youth allowance, rising levels of suicide and all of it is the government saying we don’t care about you. These protests we are seeing at the moment are just one piece of the jigsaw. The dilemma is whether conflict and protest can ever be a political movement." Professor Rees believes an umbrella youth organisation will need to be formed to channel all the issues confronting youth if there is to be a significant and coherent movement. "In this period of history, there is such a feeling of competition that the people who might best be able to co-ordinate such an effort are most likely the ones being pushed to study law or commerce or whatever. Young people have been brought up in a culture of selfishness, which really discourages them from doing anything irresponsible like protesting on behalf of someone else." Professor Geoffrey Sherington, Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Sydney, believes the current protests are comparable with the anti-Vietnam movement 30 years ago, which he sees as the most successful historical example of youth action. "They were very much organised around one issue and there were certainly a lot of school-age protesters as there are now. Then, as now, it seemed to attract kids whose parents had been involved with left-wing causes in their youth." Professor Sherington places the current protests in the context of international examples, such as the unemployment rallies in Germany at the beginning of the 1990s. He also points to the significant participation of Indonesian students in the end of the Soeharto regime earlier this year and the role of Chinese students in anti-government activism. "But these incidents, especially in Germany, just died away and failed to become broader political movements addressing youth issues. What makes what’s going on here so interesting is racism as the starting point and the activism of ethnic students who have obviously been directly affected by it. "It’s certainly very small, but it could take off into something broader. What we could see here is it spreading to take in other issues like unemployment. We’ve seen this Government take away its method of communicating with young people and this is really one of the only ways they have left to communicate." One of the most interesting observations made about the recent spate of demonstrations was that it seemed to be school students who were driving the action. University students, a group of people supposedly prone to protesting, were apparently few and far between. Katrina Curry, education officer of the National Union of Students, worries that university students no longer have the time or the economic freedom to participate in protests and rallies. "So many uni students wanted to come, but had to decide if they should miss work and starve for a week instead and there is no common time that all students are free to come. So we’re encouraging students not just to think of action as rallies. If someone is a good writer, well, they can be part of a letter-writing campaign." The age of many of the protesters is an issue of concern for at least one parents’ group and the NSW Department of Education. "The NSW Department of Education has made it clear that students should not be absent from school for this purpose. The department has a number of very good programs in schools to address issues of anti-discrimination tolerance and multicultural racism" was all the department would say in a statement. The NSW Parents Council is trying not to dissuade students from taking an interest in politics, but is concerned about the legal position schools are in if anything should happen to their students during school hours. "We don’t want to discourage students from taking an interest in politics and in an important issue like this. But as a parent, I was concerned about seeing schoolkids of 12 or 13 being manhandled by the police," says Duncan McInnes, the executive officer with the Parents Council. "It’s not a badge of courage to have a police record at that age. We aren’t advising parents one way or the other, but we do think it’s a good idea if they provide their students with a note if they are going to protests in school time, so that the school is covered." But according to Sean Healy, it was school students who pushed for the rallies to take place and Resistance is planning another day of action for August 28, based on their initial success. "At least a quarter of our membership is made up of high school students and they demanded the last protest because they were so furious about the rise of racism in Australia and because they felt no-one was listening to them," Healy says. "If you look at the anti-Vietnam War movement, it was youth who pushed that along, but now that voice is being clamped down on. Pauline Hanson says she doesn’t mind if we do it on our own time, so doing that would really defeat the purpose. The next one will be bigger and better and brighter than the last one so she really better look out." Or as Professor Rees puts it: "It’s like someone has been force-feeding all the youth valium for however many years and they’re just now beginning to wake up to what is being done to them." This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. This posting is provided to the individual … read more »

Response:

Filed under: Activism

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

TrackBack URL | RSS feed for comments on this post.

Activism Change

Learn, read, react :: Activism