In several places around world, students are rising up, fighting for their rights and demanding real change.
In Quebec, university students have mobilised in record numbers to oppose attacks on their education. The government of Premier Jean Charest plans to introduce a massive 75% hike in tertiary education fees — on the back of fee increases of C$100 a year for the past five years.
In response, 200,000 students and supporters marched to oppose the cuts on March 22. By March 29, about 300,000 students had gone on strike, boycotting their classes to protest the fee hikes.
Students have launched protests at Montreal government offices, courthouses, at Charest’s home and in major cities throughout Quebec.
The movement has not just opposed the fee hikes, but has also begun to demand free tertiary education for all.
In Tunisia, university campuses have been a platform for contests between democracy activists and Salafists (fundamentalist Islamists) who, in response to a niqab-wearing student being refused entry to her exam, occupied the Manouba University of Arts and launched physical and verbal attacks on secular students and administrators.
Members of the interim government of Tunisia, led by Islamist party Ennahda, say they support the Salafist occupation. But many students — Islamic and otherwise — have spoken out against the Salafist students’ violence.
Throughout Tunisia, thousands of religious and secular students have mobilised to condemn the violence and demand their campuses remain spaces for free expression.
Student board elections held on March 15, the first since last year’s overthrow of dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, were decisively won by the left-leading General Union of Tunisian Students (UGET). The Ennahda-affiliated General Tunisian Union of Students won about 10% of the positions.
UGET’s victory advances the rights of students and Tunisia’s wider revolutionary struggle.
In Australia, students are fighting back against attempts to cut jobs at the University of Sydney and other campuses and saying no to neoliberal attacks on education.
Wherever major reforms have been won or repressive regimes have been overthrown, young people have been at the forefront.
Resistance stands in solidarity with students in struggle in Quebec, Tunisia, Britain and elsewhere who are part of the fight for free, quality education, student rights and a better world for all.
