[ includes Poster ]
http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=27556group=webcast
M26 = NEXT STUDENT STRIKE AGAINST THE WAR (Wed, March 26)
by Books Not Bombs Coalition - 5:44pm Sat Mar 15 '03 - article#27556
phone: Simon 0405 733 768 - Caroline 0414 506 283 - Jarvis 0404 015 789
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- High school students meet 1pm Town Hall, Sydney
-+ Uni/TAFE students meet 12 noon on your campus
!
-- United rally 2pm Hyde Park Nth, followed by a march around the city
to finish back at Hyde Park
Walkout of class to demand:
* No war on Iraq!
* Bring the troops home!
* Books not bombs! (article 1)
Details for your city are linked in the ACTIVIST CALENDAR section of
http://www.GreenLeft.org.au/current/
(Adelaide, Brisbane S-E Queensland, Canberra, Central Queensland,
Darwin, Geelong, Hobart, Launceston, Lismore NSW North Coast,
Melbourne, Newcastle, Perth Fremantle, Sydney, Western Sydney Blue
Mountains, Wollongong NSW South Coast) or see contact details below...
This protest comes after the last student strike against war, at which
10,000 people in Sydney and 30,000 nationally attended, most being high
school students. This next protest should be even bigger, building on
the success of the last strike and involving more campus students now
that universities have been back for a couple of weeks, but we need
everyone to help get the word out - help stick up posters, leaflets,
announce it in your classes, forward this email to others, get the word
out! Anyone against the war can come - you don't have to be a student!
Organised by the Books Not Bombs Coalition and enthusiastically
supported by the rallies held on March 5, students will again be walking
out of their class rooms and lecture theatres in protest of Bush's and
HoWARd's unjust war for oil.
- When the government is preparing to wage a bloody war on the people of
Iraq, which will result in the deaths of hundrets of thousands innocent
Iraqi people...
- When Australian corporate war-profiteers - like QANTAS, BHP, and
Dunlop - are set to make record profits from this slaughter...
- When the government prioritises military spending while launching
another savage attack on higher education funding...
...
from
http://www.GreenLeft.org.au/back/2003/529/
What comes next?
BY EMMA CLANCY
The Books Not Bombs Coalition was launched around the country on March
5, with thousands of its newsletters being distributed and meetings
being held afterwards in some cities. Many high school activists and
groups came into contact with the Books Not Bombs Coalition at the
strike, and now have the framework in which to build the next strike on
March 26.
Campus activists now have to catch up with the scale of organising on
high schools, and consolidate links between different sorts of students.
In Sydney, following the strike, the Sydney University anti-war
collective Students Against War voted to merge with the Books Not Bombs
Coalition, in order to form a larger, stronger youth movement against
the war.
This process will hopefully continue all around the country as a result
of the success of the March 5 strike. Already, the National Union of
Students is supporting and actively building the March 26 student
strike, along with university anti-war collectives, which have really
only just begun to function properly because campus was still on summer
break in the lead-up to March 5.
The success of March 5 - the inspiration it has provided to both high
school and campus activists, the opportunities it has provided for the
Books Not Bombs Coalition to grow larger and stronger and the support it
has received from broader sections of society - guarantees that the next
student strike will be an even bigger success. Students aim to involve
many more in the March 26 strike, including their teachers, parents and
other anti-war activists and we are especially eager to be joined in the
strike by trade union members.
--
The beginning of an international youth movement
BY ALISON DELLIT
The stunning success of the March 5 student strike for peace, which
mobilised a whopping 30,000 mostly high school students, took even the
corporate media by surprise.
Although mixed, much of the coverage was favourable. Even the rabidly
pro-war Murdoch-owned Australian ran a headline on March 6 that said
Gutsy students repeat protest history.
Sydney protest chairperson Lauren Carroll Harris, a high school activist
in Resistance, had a 700-word piece printed in the Fairfax-owned Sydney
Morning Herald on March 7. In it, she was able to put the case of the
protesting students.
Describing March 5 as an the beginning of an international youth
movement against war on Iraq, Carroll Harris argued that money that
will be spent on the military would be better spent on upgrading
educational facilities, public housing and hospitals.
Calling the mood of the protests passionate, exuberant, political and
angry, she
