Farida Iqbal, Sydney branch
"I got involved in Resistance when I started to get really angry about how queer people are treated. I know people who got kicked out of home by their parents when they came out. I'm talking about 13-year-olds here!
People try to kill themselves. That's no surprise because society tells you all your life that queers are pond scum.
But I don't blame regular people for homophobia. I blame the freakin' system that forces the narrow nuclear family model on society. John Howard's ban on same sex-marriage is absolutely shameful.
Resistance is deadly serious about ripping homophobia out of our society by the roots. We fully believe that a world without homophobia is possible — if we fight for it."
Tim Doughney, Melbourne branch
"Resistance is determined to be part of organising young people, who will be hit especially hard by the industrial relations changes, to be part of the broader fight-back against the Howard government's attacks.
The Work Choices legislation is just the latest in a long line of attacks, including on public education and health care, welfare recipients and increasingly on our democratic rights.
The ALP has shown itself to be no alternative — it started many of these attacks in government and has shown no real resistance in opposition. This is why Resistance is part of the Socialist Alliance. The alliance unites a number of left-wing groups in one organisation and includes a number of leading militant unionists. It is both committed to the fight against Howard's anti-worker attacks and building a political alternative to both major parties — a party that defends the rights of the millions, not the millionaires."
Amber Pike, Sydney branch
Amber was a participant in the World Social Forum held in Caracas, Venezuela, in January.
"In Australia we're encouraged to be cynical about society and the potential to change it for the better. But here in Venezuela I have seen how ordinary people, led by the government of President Hugo Chavez, are defying Bush and the big corporations. Young people here are not cynical or apolitical — they are helping lead a revolution.
It is hugely inspirational to witness a revolution first-hand, to see a place where the struggle to build an alternative to capitalism is a living reality.
Socialism is supposed to be dead and buried, but here, millions of people are engaged in a struggle to construct what they call a 'new socialism for the 21st century'.
Venezuela shows we don't have to accept injustice — I'm involved with Resistance so we can build a socialist alternative here."
From Green Left Weekly, February 8, 2006.
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