'WHAT WAR CAN DO, PEACE CAN DO BETTER': Thousands of Melbourne Students Take Anti-war Message to the Streets

MELBOURNE – In the largest and most vocal student protest since the anti-Hanson walkouts of 1998, an estimated 7,000 high school, TAFE and university students marched enthusiastically through the heart of Melbourne on Wednesday March 5, joining other students across the globe in an International Student Strike against the looming US invasion of Iraq.

In scenes similar to those in numerous other concurrent student protests held on Wednesday in cities across Australia, the message of the Melbourne protesters was clearly captured by one of the numerous home-made placards carried by students: ‘WHAT WAR CAN DO, PEACE CAN DO BETTER’.

Claudia Quinnel, member of the socialist youth organisation Resistance, co-chaired the Melbourne rally. Speaking to the students massed outside the Victorian State Library, she reminded everyone that many of the high school students present were not yet old enough to vote in Australian elections.

“The media says that you people are too young to think,” she said. “But do the media think that the children of Iraq are too young to have bombs dropped on them?” Quinnel asked, to a resounding affirmation from the students.

Speakers at the vibrant and energetic rally included Leigh Hubbard, secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council, and Maryan Al Talidi, an Iraqi refugee and Melbourne high school student. Hubbard congratulated the students on exercising their democratic right to voice their opinions in the streets, assuring the crowd that, “the Australian Union movement supports you.”

Al Talidi stressed that the real solution to the Hussein dictatorship lay not in the hands of the US or the United Nations, but in the hands of the Iraqi population. “Regime change is a job for the Iraqi people,” she said.

Yorran Pelekanakis, member of the Socialist Party and co-chair of the student rally, highlighted the hypocrisy of the US ‘War on Terror’, stating that the US is the only nation to date to have ever used nuclear weapons of mass destruction against innocent civilians.

“Bombshells [containing depleted uranium] dropped [by US military] during the Gulf War are still causing dying and suffering ten years later,” he said to the students.

Reflecting this sentiment, Lincoln Hanncock, the young Socialist Alliance candidate for the upcoming Sheoak Council Election, reminded the crowd that, “The real axis of evil is George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard.”

According to Quinnel, students from up to 60 Victorian high schools travelled to Melbourne to participate in the historic strike. “Students travelled from as far away as Wangaratta, three hours from Melbourne, to let their voices be heard,” she said.

Angelica Cameron, a year nine student from the Melbourne Rudolf Steiner School, said that only five people from her class could not make it to the protest.

“We had people painting banners and talking about the strike even a week before the protest,” said Cameron. “The school was buzzing with activity in preparation for the big day,” she said, reflecting a general sentiment felt by Australians both young and old, for the need to protest the blatant US aggression against Iraq.

The underlying motive for the war on Iraq was clearly understood by all who attended the protest. Placards, chants and speakers unanimously acknowledged the link between the US war drive and the vast oil reserves situated in Iraq.

“This is a war about profit, a war about oil,” stated Hanncock. “In fact, it’s hard to say that this is a war at all: this is just a massacre,” he said.

It appeared that the students were clearly not fooled by Howard’s war-mongering rhetoric. The Chair of the Student Union of Swinburne University (Hawthorn campus) challenged Howard, saying, “You lied to us about the Children Overboard; you are lying to us now [about the necessity of war].

“We are here to get Howard to listen to reason,” he told the crowd.

The spirited march through Melbourne’s CBD culminated in a mass student gathering outside Parliament House, where the atmosphere resounded with the chant of “this is what democracy looks like”.

As the students participated in a show of ‘true democracy’ on the steps of Parliament, the irony was evident: the students were challenging Howard to be accountable to the unprecedented public opposition to the Australian government’s support of a US-led war on Iraq.

At the meeting, the students voted unanimously to continue the struggle against impending war, by pledging to actively build and participate in another student strike scheduled to occur in Melbourne on March 26.

To resounding applause Hanncock reminded the students, “We need to make a better world, not a world based on corporate greed and war.

“If the government won’t stop the war, then we must stop the government.”