Why you should strike on March 13?

Maddie Clark explains the importance of student climate activism.

Political protests have always been a sure way of pressuring governments to do something they don’t want to do. Think: marriage equality, the eight hour day, desegregation. These progressive reforms were won by ordinary people who were compelled to fight against the injustice they saw in society. Thankfully for us, they kept fighting despite resistance, and won many of the things we accept as normal today. 

If we dig a bit deeper we can learn that when social movements include strikes — the act of workers stopping work — they are much more likely to succeed. When capitalists are faced by political protests they face a crisis of legitimacy that forces them to respond in some way, but workers refusing to work creates a much greater challenge. When workers work, they only earn a fraction of the money made by their employers. When workers stop working, the bosses stop making profits off their labour, and will do pretty much anything to get them back to work. 

In addition to the important role of workers, the function students play in social struggle should not be undervalued.  Historically, students are some of the first to point out the unfairness in society, and the last out fighting against it. 

For example, during the Vietnam War it was students in the US, radicalised by the Free Speech Movement, who began to organise against the war. Student radicals convened “teach ins” that became the first arenas of anti-war opinion. These “teach ins” were spaces where thousands of students and teachers gathered to debate the merits and disadvantages of the war. Debates were broadcasted across the country, and similar spaces emerged across all countries who had troops in Vietnam. 

As the war progressed, students did everything they could to draft dodge, and there are countless stories of students hiding political dissidents within the halls of universities. They also organised protests against the war, which famously exploded in 1968 when the Tet Offensive destroyed US claims that their occupation was legitimate or justified.

Students helped popularise and organise anti-war sentiment. Their protests, lock ons and demonstrations were crucial mainstays of the anti-Vietnam war struggle. Although it was a combination of factors that led to the biggest defeat of the US military, including the struggle of the Vietnamese Liberation Front and the mass desertion of the US army, the role of the students in this struggle is important to highlight. 

Although most people in society can share the progressive opinions of some students, the economic and societal pressures of being an adult , such as going to work, paying taxes and caring for a family, makes being an activist much harder. 

Increasingly, students work and experience some of the same struggles as workers do, but overwhelmingly students still have more time and are more free to participate in activism. Because of these factors, when campaigns die down for the majority of the population, students can hold out and while they do that, make sure that society knows that the status quo is not unchallenged. 

But we don’t have to look back to the 70s to see this play out. Last year, revolts shook the globe as country after country demonstrated against the neoliberal agenda of their respective governments. To name just a few: Hong Kong, France, Iran, Iraq, Chile and Lebanon exploded as ordinary people took to the streets to demand more democracy and better living conditions, with students often at the forefront of these movements. 

We also saw this dynamic in the climate movement. 

Greta Thunberg was just one student who decided that striking for the climate was more important than going to school. But her actions resonated with millions of other people; watching the world get warmer and warmer, and seeing no action done to stop it. Thunberg’s “Fridays for Future” called for students across the world to stop school and fight to save the planet. 

Between 20 and 27  September 2019 this resulted in an incredible 7.6 million people turning out to protests across 4500 locations in over 150 countries. In Australia, an estimated 300 000 protestors took part. Crucially, students were the drivers of this activity. 

While most people support action on climate change, not everyone can protest on the streets every day. This is where the role of students is valuable. 

This is absolutely pivotal in the environment movement. We don’t have time to wait around for policies to be put through parliament. We need to create a social crisis that forces our leaders to action now. 

This Friday, Uni Students for Climate Justice (US4CJ) have organised nationwide uni student strikes in protest of the government’s inaction on climate change. The list of demands include: full land rights to First Nations people - as recently Native Title has been ignored in favour of mining rights, an end to the fossil fuel industry that will include a green jobs guarantee for workers, and that the climate criminals pay out the thousands of people who lost their homes in the bushfires. 

We need everyone who can to join this strike. The climate crisis is going to get much worse and it is up to us as students to continue to fight until we win. 

Details of the protest: 
Date: 13 March 
Time: 11:30am 
Location: Fisher Library 
Facebook event: Uni Student Climate Strike SYD!