Young people in revolt


Three million on the streets of France, a million in Chile. 415 out
of 456 colleges occupied in Greece. Mass student rallies and
demonstrations in Germany. Young people are fighting for their future
all around the world. Ben Robinson examines why these events are taking
place and what links them.

UNIVERSITY OCCUPATIONS started in France this February. Protesting
against the effective removal of under-26s’ rights at work (the CPE
law), half a million students and workers demonstrated on 7 March. By 18
March they had attracted 1.5 million, by 28 March and 4 April around
three million across France.

Mass university occupations defied police oppression and helped
organise this magnificent movement. Student bodies appealed to workers,
who responded with two general strikes and joint protests and rallies.
70% of the population rejected the proposed law. Airports, train
stations and other facilities were stopped, and the government was
forced to withdraw its plans for review after signing them into law.

So when French president Jacques Chirac visited Chile in June, he
must have felt at home. A movement of school students involving 400,000
young people were either occupying schools and being brought meals by
supportive parents, on strike or involved in campaigning against the
state of education, and the effects of privatisation (enshrined in the
LOCE law).

This struggle escalated as the government refused to meet the demands
of free transport, no exam fees and a change in the whole education
system. Students, mainly 13-16 year olds, organised impressive mass
meetings and heated discussions on the way forward.

Eventually, mass demonstrations put overwhelming pressure on Chilean
president Bachelet to offer concessions. Public support for the school
students never dipped below 75%.

The government’s offer, eventually accepted, was to meet those
demands on exam and bus fees, resulting in an extra $200 million going
into the education budget, and review the current laws governing
education with student participation.

In Greece, another student movement was developing that would shake
the government. By 8 June, 250 universities were occupied, against
proposed changes in how the education system works, moving towards
private companies’ control, and away from providing for those from
poorer backgrounds.

Xekinima, the Socialist Party’s sister organisation in Greece, led
the call for a general strike for 22 June. Though this happened on a
smaller scale than we were demanding, still thousands of students and
striking workers demonstrated. Occupations have been called off for the
summer, but in autumn students will carry on where they stopped.

These huge events are the biggest in their countries for at least ten
to 15 years. But internationally they are even more important. Taken
together with smaller but still significant events in USA, Germany, etc.
they show a new phase of youth in revolt.

Attacks

A NEW generation has grown up since the Berlin wall fell and the
Stalinist regimes collapsed. Young people were promised a continually
brightening future, but instead they have lived through attack after
attack on the gains of previous generations.

The richest sections of society have had a field day. Profits are
booming whilst the working class and other poor oppressed people’s
living standards are falling. Great gains have already been taken away.
But the international capitalist class plan further attacks.

In Germany and Greece, recent student protests opposed moves to
privatise the education system. In Germany, university fees will be
brought into many of the different regions, pushing education for
students from poorer backgrounds even further out of reach. France has
seen occupations over rights at work.

Chile is slightly different. Decades of Pinochet dictatorship, and
the continuation of attacks after the dictator was ousted in the early
1990s, had run the education system into the ground. In May’s elections
Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first female president come to power,
claiming to stand for the oppressed people. When Bachelet failed to
address problems in the education system, there was a huge explosion of
anger.

Young Chileans’ struggle has several inspirations. One is the
explosion of anger across Latin America, where there has been a huge
increase in workers’ militancy. Only last year Bolivia saw four-fifths
of its roads barricaded, for example.

Another undoubted inspiration is this year’s struggle in France,
which emanated from the universities, but gained its power from workers
who took up the struggle. But the most decisive factor is that those
involved in the struggle have lived through attacks after attacks.

Lack of organisation

THE PARTIES that were once seen to represent workers have been bought
off by big business, whose interests are recklessly pursued by the
leadership of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD – who are in a coalition
government with the German equivalent of the Tories) and by other
parties that betrayed their roots such as Blair and Brown’s Labour
Party.

This absence of mass workers’ parties has had an impact on young
people. They can provide an invaluable forum to debate and develop
ideas, and also give a lead in struggles. Their absence means there’s no
major challenge to the cuts and attacks being put through. This can and
has resulted in less confidence in workers ability to fight back, and
also become a barrier to further developing ideas.

But not only is there a lack of political organisation. The trade
union leadership was generally not prepared to organise to defend
rights. And, although this has started changing in the last few years
the bureaucracy and leadership, usually right-wing, has been a huge
barrier to expressing anger and organising resistance.

Now, over the last decade and more, with the political disarming of
the working class and the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe
and Russia, the capitalist class and their government stooges are busy
‘returning to normal’ in earnest.

This means taking back the temporary concessions granted in the
post-war period, and bluntly running society for profit. They only care
about maximising profit by whatever means possible. These struggles by
young people are caused by capitalism’s drive for short-term
profiteering.


Working class can change society

OF COURSE, it’s not just young people who are affected by this policy
of destruction of the welfare state, and it’s not just young people
fighting back. In Britain, the destruction of the NHS, the education
system, attacks on pensions, cuts in benefits etc are all part of this
international wave of attacks.

But even here the younger, student nurses stand out as some of the
most willing to struggle against NHS cuts. Young people come to struggle
fresh. They haven’t been affected by the defeats of the past. Youth
today have seen previous generations receive many benefits, based on the
post-war concessions and trade union strength mentioned earlier, and
expect the same.

But it’s like a mirage of a comfy chair. When you sit down on it, you
fall straight through and hit the ground hard! This shock to the system
is increasingly leading to young people saying enough attacks are
enough, and when more are made this mounting anger explodes into action.

Young people are less tied down in general, and have less to lose and
more to win. In Greece, Germany, Chile, and France these movements
against different attacks all began in universities, schools and other
education institutes, where young people are most concentrated and
easily organised, and the immediate risks are less than in workplaces.

The contrast between generations is felt sharply in Chile. General
Pinochet’s coup against left-wing president Allende came about through
the literal slaughter of the workers’ movement in 1973. This year’s
school students’ movement was the biggest explosion of anger since
Pinochet’s dictatorial rule ended in 1990. A Chilean professor remarked,
"This is a post-Pinochet generation born without fear".

But young people today have witnessed a crisis in working-class
organisation all their lives. Young people don’t have the experience of
past struggles, or often even access to information and ideas forged in
these struggles. This inexperience can weaken movements because they
don’t necessarily know the best strategies for organising, or even a
clear idea of what they’re fighting for.

The magnificent resistance earlier this year marks a turning point.
For this generation it’s a glimpse of their potential power. Many young
people drawn into these movements will have been involved in, or
watched, the anti-capitalist and anti-war movements.

Protests against the World Bank, the G8 and other capitalist
institutions, mainly by youth, marked a political resistance to the
state of the world. They found a wide echo, even if only passive.

Questioning the system

THE ANTI-WAR movement held massive demonstrations on every continent.
There was, and still is, huge opposition to the occupation of Iraq and
Afghanistan.

This anti-war movement has been around one issue but it actively
involved far wider layers of society than the anti-capitalist protests
ever did. And many of the youth involved have come to question the
capitalist system itself and are looking for an alternative

The wave of protests in France and worldwide mark another ‘anti-‘
movement. They are against the bread and butter attacks on young
peoples’ living standards and their future lives. They push new layers
of young people into activism, and gain huge support from older
generations.

The major concessions achieved in France and Chile will hugely
increase the confidence of these young people involved in struggles, and
they will take this confidence into the workplaces when they finish
education.

They are not only important for those young people active in the
struggles. Many people worldwide will have watched and gained confidence
from these movements. In the past, young people radicalised through
events and struggles at a young age have gone on to play important roles
in later struggles.

But as ‘freer’ parts of society, they also show first the anger
building up amongst workers before it appears later on in mass class
action. The willingness of wider layers to take up these fights shows
this huge anger. The confidence that workers and activists will have got
from these youth movements will help speed up this process.

The movement in France, a bigger economy than either Chile or Greece,
caused ripples around the world and inspired youth elsewhere. The
example of what the French students, through linking up with the
workers, achieved is impressive. There are lessons for other youth
movements.

Students have limited power in society. Previous Chilean governments
weathered school student protests before, although on a smaller scale.
Only through getting wider layers involved, workers in trade unions most
importantly, can they achieve concessions. This time in France, the
first university occupation began on 7 February. By 11 April, the CPE
law was repealed. As the wider working class began getting involved in
trade union ‘days of action’, in reality strikes by another name, the
government were brought to the negotiating table. Drawing the workers
into their struggle gave the French movement its real power.

Chilean students spoke of the lessons of France and also painted
banners with quotes from Che Guevara. France also inspired many chants
on Greek students’ demonstrations. Greek students sped up their struggle
through seeing the message of France.

The most important lesson that we can draw from these struggles is
that the role of the working class is central in the struggle to change
society.


Resistance is growing in Britain

ON 28 March, the day that three million demonstrated in France, one
million were on strike for their pension rights in Britain’s biggest
strike since the 1926 general strike. Again, these were attacks on the
working class’ conditions in order to maximise profits caused a
fightback.

There is huge anger under the surface. Last year, Scotland held its
biggest political demonstration ever under the ‘make poverty history’
banner. London had some of its biggest demonstrations ever, with two
million marching against the Iraq war on 15 February 2003.

Brown, Blair and Cameron are from the same mould as Chirac in France,
Bachelet in Chile, Merkel in Germany and Bush in the US and send the
same stream of attacks rain down constantly on workers’ and young
peoples’ heads. The New York Times describes the background of the law
that Chile’s youth targeted.

"In his last act before stepping down in 1990 after almost 17 years
in power, General Pinochet issued a decree reducing the central
government’s involvement in and supervision of education. Instead,
authority was shifted to communities and education was opened to free
market forces, with private companies allowed to compete with the
Catholic Church, traditionally the main provider source of private
schooling." This privatisation of education is what Blair is trying to
push through now.

A layer of young people in England and Wales will have seen what has
happened earlier this year, and taken heart. The underlying causes of
the movements exist here, and Blair and Brown are daily adding to the
kindling.

The mass movement in France in 1968 was sparked by students but taken
up by workers. In some areas it began to take power into its hands.

Chile in 1973 saw stormy events between workers and oppressed people
on the one hand, and the capitalist class. Before Pinochet’s coup
against the left-wing government, 800,000 workers marched, demanding
arms to defend the government. Socialist ideas received huge support
from these workers.

Most countries in the world have seen movements on a bigger scale and
with more far-reaching demands than those we’ve seen this year. It is
studying the lessons of the movements of the past, and putting these
lessons into action, that parties such as the Socialist Party exist for.

Future struggles

A PARTY well-versed in Marxism and the lessons of history can ensure
that the working class of the 21st century don’t make the same mistakes.
Young people are looking for these lessons.

The existence of a revolutionary party based on the ideas of Marx,
Engels, Lenin and Trotsky could mean a huge change in the depth of ideas
of those most advanced layers engaged in struggle.

Today, these predominantly youth movements are in danger of remaining
toothless in the absence of the conscious intervention of the working
class.

Rebuilding a fighting, campaigning trade union movement and political
representation for workers and young people go hand in hand. One can’t
fully develop without the other. For these struggles to advance, these
organisations need to be strengthened and renewed, and often in the case
of workers’ parties, started from scratch.

It’s the job of socialists involved in this process to argue for
their ideas, and for a socialist alternative, whilst showing their ideas
in action by helping to build these organisations.

We are currently going through a pause. The Greek students’ struggle
will reignite this autumn.

In Chile the LOCE is under review, but when the ‘review’ is finished
it is unlikely it will be what the students want. The French ruling
class will come back to these measures again, having only promised to
‘replace’ the CPE.

But young people have also shown their willingness to come back to
struggles. The day after the CPE was repealed in France, thousands of
students demonstrated nonetheless. They were demanding that the whole
package of cuts and attacks passed as part of the same package as the
CPE should be withdrawn.

More and more people will draw the conclusion that it’s the whole
capitalist system that needs changing, as the only way to guarantee our
rights. These movements mark the beginning of a more favourable period
for socialist ideas.

Socialists must get involved in these movements, initiating struggle
where possible, and put forward our ideas as the best strategy for
workers and young people, for a socialist world. This also means
building our organisations in England and Wales, in order to prepare for
future struggles.


Join the resistance

International Socialist Resistance

ISR is a broad, independent anti-capitalist youth organisation. ISR
was founded in Brussels, Dec 2001 at a conference of 500 young people.

ISR members fight across boundaries for a socialist world, based on
meeting the needs of all.

PO Box 858 London E11 1YD
020 8558 7947
[email protected]


www.anticapitalism.org.uk


Socialist students

Socialist students organise in over 40 UK universities with members
in over 70.

For more info:
[email protected]


www.socialiststudents.org.uk