BY KATHERINE BRADSTREET
SYDNEY "Where were the students?", asked the June 20 Sydney Daily Telegraph, in an article by Rachel Morris bemoaning the small numbers of young people that attended the "welcome home" parade of troops who served in Afghanistan and in the Gulf.
The article compared the relatively small turn-out at the parade, held in Sydney on June 19, to the Books Not Bombs-organised anti-war protests in March, when thousands of students from 200 schools took to the streets of Sydney in opposition to Australian involvement in the invasion of Iraq.
Despite the question in the headline, the article's only attempt at an answer was to report that students "were not formally invited". An accompanying opinion piece by David Penberthy criticised the "hairier members of the Teachers Federation" for not encouraging their students to attend the ticker tape parade.
Penberthy cited "plenty of evidence that many teachers and parents could scarcely contain their delight" at the protests in March, and argued that it is only then fair, in the spirit of "small-l liberalism", that those same teachers and parents encourage students to attend the parade to "observe and open their minds".
Neither article gives recognition to the most important element determining the number of students attending the Books Not Bombs protests or the welcome parade what students believe in.
Throughout the war on Iraq, and during the build-up to it, more young people maintained their fierce opposition to the war than in any other age group. For high school students who opposed the war, most of whom were too young to vote, the Books Not Bombs protests provided their best chance to have their opinions heard.
Young people were very skeptical about the war and its alleged basis the elusive weapons of mass destruction.
This was something that Resistance was conscious of when we helped to initiate Books Not Bombs, a national network of anti-war students.
The success of the Books Not Bombs protests can be largely attributed to the high level of self-organisation by high school students. Many of the groups that publicised the strike on their high schools did so in the face of stern disapproval and opposition from school authorities.
Contrary to the claims made in Penberthy's article, even the few schools that gave approval to the March 5 student strike, retracted after the NSW education department pressured schools not to support any further actions.
The Telegraph article and opinion-piece continues in a similar vein to that taken by many critics of Books Not Bombs painting student protesters as nave and ill-informed.
As more time passes, the US failure to produce evidence of the biological and chemical weapons that it claimed Iraq was producing is more obvious. This is making it harder to sneer at those who opposed the invasion.
The many young people who demonstrated their opposition to the war in Iraq are not going to suddenly suffer from collective amnesia, as convenient as that would be for PM John Howard, US President George Bush and British PM Tony Blair. The deep cynicism many young people feel towards the US-led war drive will not suddenly evaporate, though Washington and Canberra may wish it might.
When the US takes the next step in the War on Terror, whether the target is Iran, Syria, North Korea or another "rogue" nation, it will, along with its allies, have to contend with this greater cynicism and greater willingness to mobilise.
As for the 30,000 students around Australia who took part in the student protests against war in March, if they had had their way, there would not have been a welcome home rally the troops would have been home months ago.
[Katherine Bradstreet is a member of the Resistance national executive.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 2, 2003.
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