In the chaos of the government’s “let it rip” strategy (more like “let old people die”) the social struggle has asserted itself and continued in many domains over the past month.
Citipointe Protest 4/2/2022
On January 28 Citipointe Christian College disseminated a new enrolment contract that would attempt to prohibit and exclude students from identifying as trans and non-binary and those who engage in homosexual acts, conflating them with bestiality and paedophilia. Suitably, this sparked outrage across the community culminating in a protest organised by Equal Love Brisbane against Citipointe College.
The protest was well attended despite the short notice, with over 500 people turning out to condemn the school. The protest had immediate effects with the contract being revoked and the LNP-linked principal stepping down.
Kill The Bill Rally 9/2/2022
In addition to the Citipointe protest, the Kill The Bill rallies went ahead both in Brisbane/Meanjin and across the country protesting the “Religious Discrimination” bill. For those not in the know, the Religious Discrimination Bill is less about guaranteeing religious freedom than it is about enshrining the right for anti-LGBTQIA+ discrimination and the rolling back of the great gains won over the past 20 years by queer and women’s struggles. It represents another example of the far-right being on the offensive against any and all progressive developments in society.
The rallies had a large attendance and an immediate effect, with the bill being dropped shortly after by the Coalition., The ever-reliable failure that is the Labor Party, however, has promised to revive the Bill if elected, providing further evidence against the effectiveness of electoralism. The zombie nature of this bill and the continuing presence of the far-right in Australian politics show that the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights is far from over and organising is just as important as ever.
Invasion Day Rally 26/1/2022
Despite the drastic spike in covid cases, the Invasion Day Rally in Meanjin was well attended this year with estimates entering the thousands. The event marks both a protest against the government sponsored nation-wide celebration of the beginning of the invasion of so called Australia by the first fleet and the continued colonisation and oppression that the First Peoples continue to face.
The event saw multiple aboriginal speakers and had good energy overall.
Protest for Öcalan 15/2/2022
Demonstrations were held in front of both the NSW and Victorian Parliaments protesting the continued imprisonment of Kurdish Independence Movement leader Abdullah Öcalan and the international plot involving the CIA and Turkey that was used to abduct him from Kenya and bring him to Turkey where he remains imprisoned in isolation.
Abdullah Öcalan helped found the Marxist-Leninist Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in 1978 and was heavily involved in Kurdish Independence movements. More recently he has become known for his prison writings in which he has embraced a more libertarian stance on socialism reading being influenced by Anarchist writers such as Murray Bookchin. These writings have helped form the theoretical basis for the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria commonly known as Rojava which has been praised for its directly-democratic nature, emphasis on women's rights and semi co-operative economy.
See You Next Month!
This is just a small snapshot of what has been occurring in the social movements this month, but these struggles will not be disappearing anytime soon. So make sure to get involved, get active and organise for a better world!