By Jessica Needle
When people speak of the role of youth in the struggle against oppression, they usually think of university students. High school students are seen by many as children, too young to be politicised, too young to have their own views.
When they come out with something that contradicts what their schools and parents have told them, the reaction is usually hysterical — they have been "manipulated" or "corrupted" by a sinister outside force. Yet, since the 1960s and the mass radicalisation of young people around the anti-Vietnam War movement, high school students have played a vital role in many progressive campaigns.
Secondary students in Australia are up against the direct oppression of the education system. School itself is a tool used, not to inspire creativity, curiosity and passion, but to create apathy, passivity, obedience and acceptance of the social hierarchy. The rules are fairly simple: don't. Don't try to question the system. Don't fight for a role that hasn't been allotted to you. Don't talk back. Don't argue.
When doing extra research for a history assignment, I was shocked to learn the truth about the treatment of Aborigines in Australia since white settlement. We had barely skimmed over this in class. Throughout my school life, from year 1 to 12, we had learned about the "great" explorers, the "glorious" role of Australians in various wars and the Australian ethics of loyalty, mateship and fair play. To discover after so long that the dispossession of Aboriginal Australians was carried out by a system of deliberate genocide, which continued well into the 1930s, led me to question other so-called facts that I had been taught.
Children are told that the world is made up of many different races. They are told that all races are equal and then go on to learn how the "civilised" people — Europeans — brought all their wonderful inventions to the "backward" peoples. But race is merely another classification, invented to create nationalism and obtain power and control over others. Racism was invented to justify the dispossession, exploitation and murder of people because their bodies had adapted to a certain climate, or their system of language had developed differently.
The education system upholds this by showing imperialist explorers as heroes and glorifying war as a battle between good and evil.
However, many high school students have refused to blindly accept and regurgitate the facts of life as dictated by the education system. We refuse to believe that racism, sexism, injustice and war are natural products of human nature. We refuse to be categorised according to our class, gender and ethnicity and told what we can't do because of them. We refuse to believe that we live in a democratic society when government policies are opposed by the vast majority of people.
In France during the 1968 revolutionary uprisings, in the fight for freedom in Indonesia and East Timor, in the struggle against oppression in South Africa and particularly in the Soweto uprising, secondary students have played an important role. Last year in Australia high school students were at the forefront of the anti-nuclear campaign. Today thousands of young people across Australia take part in mass rallies, solidarity movements and campaigns for social justice.
Young minds are unafraid to question accepted institutions, and bring new views and ideas. It is vital for any movement to accept that high school students are the future, and that they are as valuable in the struggle as any seasoned campaigner.
[Jessica Needle is a high school Resistance member. She presented this talk at the Soweto Day dinner organised by Western Australian South African Solidarity on June 14.]