BY JACQUI THOMAS & SAM KING
ADELAIDE High school students have defied an attempt to prevent them attending a demonstration during school hours against One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. While one student, Resistance member Jess Griffin, was suspended for three days from Mitcham Girls High School for publicising the rally, another nine students from her school joined Griffin at the 150-strong anti-racism protest on March 8.
Mitcham Girls principal Virginia Gill defended her March 6 decision to suspend Griffin in the Adelaide Advertiser, claiming Her behaviour [was] interfering with the rights of other students to learn and teachers to teach.
In the media uproar which followed, most mainstream outlets sided with the school, focusing in particular on Griffin's age (13) and ignoring any discussion of why students were taking action.
Today Tonight's Leigh McClusky berated Griffin during an interview which could easily have been mistaken for a poor attempt at interrogation, saying We're not talking about Pauline Hanson, we're not talking about your political persuasions, that's not the issue. Don't you see that?
McClusky seemed dumbfounded to find that Griffin did understand the issues and could speak to them. The young activist replied, If you just let people push us around, just because we're kids, then we're not going to get anywhere. I believe everybody has rights and everyone's different, it doesn't matter the colour of your skin or anything, it's just no-one should be discriminated against or exploited.
Students have criticised what they believe is the hypocrisy of their principal, who told the Advertiser The school did encourage students to have opinions, if they were represented intelligently and appropriately.
They point out that photocopying that students paid for themselves was monitored, that anti-racism posters were systematically removed and that teachers stood at school gates telling students attempting to leave for the rally that they could not do so without parental permission. Another Resistance member received six half-hour detentions for organising and then attending the anti-racism protest.
The students also point out that Mitcham Girls authorities were quite happy to cancel classes last year for an address by Liberal premier John Olsen.
The attempted repression failed, however, to dent students' enthusiasm: the 10 students from Mitcham Girls were the loudest protesters in attendence.
The rally, which was initially called by Resistance, won considerable backing from other groups. Speakers at the rally included representatives of M1 Adelaide, Resistance, the International Women's Day collective, the Adelaide University women's department and the Democratic Socialist Party as well as an Aboriginal activist who attacked Pauline Hanson's attempt to steal the popularity of the anti-corporate globalisation movement.
Griffin's comments to the rally most summed up the mood: I'm here to resist, so that there is a world fit for all of us to live in in the future.