Special to RY
Student struggle week of action underway
Every November 17th, International
Students’ Day, is commemorated by remembering the important role of students in
fighting for a better world. In honour of this day, the World Federation of Democratic Youth’s
Commission on Europe and North America has called for a student week of action
against the current attacks on our education system taking place across the
region. The week of action runs from November 17th-23rd.
In Canada, students are facing skyrocketing
tuition fees, mounting debt, the privatization of education, cuts to student
services, attacks on the living and working conditions of campus workers, the
elimination of programs and classes, and the corporatization of research. More
and more students now graduate without a future: either unemployment, or work
in precarious, part-time, low-paid, non-unionized jobs. Students in Canada are
fighting for free, accessible, quality and emancipatory education. They are
fighting for a future!
Canada is not alone in this fight. The
attack from governments and corporations is being resisted, at home and
internationally. In recognition of this week of action, Rebel Youth Magazine
takes a look at ongoing international student struggles:
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| Solidarity protest demanding justice for the disappeared Toronto, Nov 20th - Rebel Youth |
Students and their allies in Mexico have
been protesting and building a growing movement for the last 2 months. In late
September, 43 teaching students in Guerrero state were disappeared by police
after protesting discriminatory hiring towards rural teachers and the
inadequate funding of their education. Since then, massive protests of students,
families of the disappeared and allies have been demanding an end to the
repression of the student movement and other social movements by police, the
government and drug cartels. The call to return the students from Ayotzinapa,
under the slogan “they were taken alive, we want them back alive”, were taken
up across Mexico, Latin America and the world. It has been discovered that the
missing students were brutally tortured and murdered. The current
demonstrations, growing stronger each day, are demanding the President of
Mexico resign.
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| Demonstration against military recruitment - May 2014 |
Israel
Students at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem are fighting repression by the administration of the University for
organizing “unauthorized” demonstrations against military recruitment on campus
by the Israeli Defense Forces, and solidarity demonstrations for hunger
striking Palestinian prisoners. At the end of September, 12 students were
threatened with disciplinary action by the university. Student conduct
protocols are designed to disallow demonstrations that challenge Israel’s
occupation of Palestine and disciplinary action almost always targets
Palestinian students. It is not a coincidence that at the same time the
university has signed a corporate research agreement with Lockheed Martin, the
US weapons manufacturer and war-profiteer. As the students have said in a
statement: “We will not be silenced and we will not allow the university to
suppress us. We will expose the university for its racism.”
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| Spain - October 22nd |
Spain
At the end of October, tens of thousands of
students participated in a three day strike with actions occurring in 43
cities. The students are protesting the new “increasing the quality of
education” law, which reduces scholarships and raises tuition fees. They are
demanding the resignation of Spain’s education minister. Tuition fees have
risen by 50% over the last three years, which means that 45,000 students have
been shut out of the university, unable to afford the increased fees. Official
unemployment figures (usually deceivingly low) show that youth unemployment is
53.7%.
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| One of many mass demonstrations of Chilean students |
Chile
In 2011 and 2012, Chile witnessed a massive
mobilization of students. Chile has one of the world’s most expensive and
privatized education systems in the world. Strikes, occupations and
demonstrations with hundreds of thousands of people demanded a fully public and
free education system with continued and escalating mobilizations. This helped
lead to the defeat of the right-wing government and the election of a new
government on a platform of free education. The national student leader at the time
of some of the largest mobilizations, Camila Vallejo, was elected as a member
of parliament for the Communist Party, along with other student union leaders.
This fall, the government has passed a bill to stop subsidized schools from
being able to make a profit, as a step towards free, accessible education.
Students have declared 2015 a year for continued student mobilizations.
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| 50 000 march on October 31st - Montreal |
Quebec
After several of the largest demonstrations
in Canadian history, and the longest student strike in Quebec’s proud history of
student resistance, the Liberal government of Jean Charest was defeated in
2012. The Parti Quebecois didn’t keep their promise to freeze tuition fees and
instead increased fees by inflation. Now the Liberals are back in power
students have started to mobilize against a reinvigorated austerity agenda. On
October 31st, over 85 000 students participated in a one day strike and
demonstration under the Halloween-themed slogan of “Austerity: a horror story”.
The Coulliard Liberal government has announced it wants to cut social spending
by $4 billion by attacking healthcare, childcare, public workers pensions,
education and more. Quebec students and the labour movement have called for
escalating actions against the current government.
November the 17th has been designated
International Students’ Day since the 1939 execution of 9 Czech students at the
University of Prague, and the sending of 1200 students to concentration camps
by the Nazi occupiers of Czechoslovakia.
The World Federation of Democratic Youth
(WFDY) is an international anti-imperialist federation of youth organization,
with member organizations in over 100 countries. The WFDY’s Commission on
Europe and North America has issued a call-out for mobilizations to occur on
International Student Day (November 17th) and the following week.
The Young Communist League of Canada
(YCL-LJC) is a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth. The YCL is a
cross-Canada activist youth organization with the goal of building a socialist
Canada
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