Students at Yeronga State High in Brisbane’s south have complained that racism, especially the use of slurs and unfair discipline, is too common at their school. So, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, they have spoken up and fought back.
More than half of the students at Yeronga come from migrant and refugee backgrounds. And the school has a progressive reputation. In 2015, teachers made history by going on strike to fight the attempted deportation of an Iranian refugee student, Mojgan Shamsalipoor.
“The school sort of represents itself, and the principal represents it, as a safe space for all identities—Muslims, Blacks—but it’s sort of not”, Abu Jamal, a 15-year-old who describes himself as a Black Muslim, tells Red Flag. “While I was in the school, I had two racist incidents happen to me. I was called the n-word, and things such as that. And I didn’t feel that it was safe to go and talk to the teachers, because the school doesn’t provide that to the students. And there are many others who have expressed the same.”
On 10 August, year 12 students put a poster on Instagram and Snapchat that read: “No Justice, No Peace! YSHS students wear all black, no assembly, no class until justice is served”. The following day, 70-80 students gathered in the school courtyard, chanting, “Black lives matter!” and “No justice, no peace!”
“I think the thing that inspired everyone was seeing photos and screenshots of the school captain saying the n-word”, Abu says. “And basically ... the injustices that are happening all over the world—systematic racism, and things such as that.”
The students brought a megaphone to give speeches. Many brought homemade placards, some reading, “Stop telling people of colour their experience is an illusion” and “Tolerating racism is racism”.
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One of the school captains was a white student who used the n-word in a social media post. Initially, he did not face discipline from the school. But the second school captain, a Black woman, was threatened with suspension for wearing a hoodie instead of the school uniform to the protest.
After four hours on strike, the students were told they could go home. The following day, the principal was forced to apologise at the school assembly. The school captain—who had apparently been hiding inside a classroom during the protest—was suspended for one week. The school has appointed representatives from the group of protesters to speak to the administration. But Abu says it is not enough:
“While it was very empowering to see how many people are supporting you and supporting the same cause, the school captain is still there, the principal is still there. I don’t think it’s achieved its goal, but it was very empowering to see all the people that were on our side, helping us. Just last week, in engineering class, there was a teacher calling a student of African descent, whose English was sort of not good, who was behind the class. And the teacher called him a fuckwit in front of everyone—he looked very sad, he looked almost depressed.”
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Yet the students have grown more confident to speak up. “Personally, I am extremely supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement, and I think a lot of the people in my school do”, Abu says. “Seeing George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, all those protesters being brought to life, and these mass protests happening all over the world—it inspired everyone.”

Priya De

Oula Shihan

‘No justice, no peace!’ Brisbane high-schoolers strike against racism

A peaceful vigil of Hong Kong students was attacked by Chinese nationalists today at the University of Queensland. 
The demonstration of about 100 primarily Hong Kong students staged a peaceful sit-in to support protesters fighting against the Chinese extradition law. They also voiced opposition to the Islamophobic treatment of Uyghurs held in concentration camps in Xinjiang.
The action was a brave act of defiance. A Uyghur student, who asked not to be identified, told Red Flag that the Chinese government has forced his family into camps. He says that his parents are now under house arrest as punishment for him leaving China. Several Hong Kong students wore masks to avoid recognition, fearing for the safety of their friends and family back home. 
During the speeches, 200 pro-China students, with a PA blaring the national anthem, pushed through the protest to physically disperse it. They carried signs reading “China’s Hong Kong” and chanted nationalist slogans. One student threw punches at a protest organiser, chipping his tooth. 
The pro-democracy Hong Kong protesters, who were joined by some mainland Chinese supporters, stood their ground and chanted “Free Hong Kong!” and “Free Uyghur!”
Following this stand-off, the Hong Kong students continued their vigil at a different location. They were followed by the Chinese nationalists. Up to 400 pro-China students surrounded the vigil of 150 Hong Kong students and their supporters. They demanded that the Hong Kong students apologise for hosting their protest. They responded: “We will not apologise!” 
After an hour’s stand-off, with a wall of police and security separating the groups, the pro-democracy protesters marched to a different location on the campus and said that they would be back. 
Hong Kong students at the university have previously called solidarity actions, drawing hundreds, with the protests in Hong Kong. This is the first time they faced an organised backlash from supporters of the Chinese government. 
Jack, a student from Hong Kong told Red Flag: “We want to condemn the actions by the Hong Kong police and the government and we want a full termination of the extradition law”.

Hong Kong students attacked by Chinese nationalists at the University of Queensland

A monarchist, a Nazi and a man in a toga walk into a student general meeting at the University of Queensland. They try to defend the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation’s attempt to buy its way into the university to a crowd of more than 400 students. They get booed, laughed at and derided. Eventually students just tell them to get off the stage and go home. 
The final humiliation comes when we vote overwhelming against university management taking the Ramsay Centre bribe to offer its degree on campus. 
Since last year, the UQ administration has pursued talks with the centre to institute a major for Western Civilisation on the campus. Students and staff have resisted, organising forums and protests on the issue. 
We oppose Ramsay on the basis of its revision of Western history and its attempt to whitewash the crimes of colonisation, genocide and slavery. 
Staff, members of the National Tertiary Education Union, also raised concerns. The UQ Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) Board of Studies has voted twice against a proposed Ramsay curriculum. The NTEU explained staff opposition: 
“The Ramsay Centre promotes an outmoded and uncontested view of ‘Western Civilisation’ and arguably seeks to promote a neo-conservative political agenda in universities. A deal with Ramsay would undermine academic freedom and university independence.”
The dean of the HASS responded by telling staff that their role is merely advisory. She also confirmed her endorsement of the curriculum. 
Then we called the student general meeting.
As the debate opened, supporters of the Ramsay Centre were few and far between. From the beginning, they failed to win favour with the audience. A pro-Ramsay speaker tried to argue that the centre would fund Arts at UQ. No one bought it, and someone could be heard saying, “We don’t want racist money”. 
The monarchist followed. He opened his argument with, “I too would like to acknowledge the traditional owner of this land: her majesty, queen Elizabeth”. 
He was met with jeering and a bottle was thrown at him. 
When he tried to list the supposed achievements of Western civilisation, people chimed in with their own additions: “racism!” and “murder!” 
The anti-Ramsay speakers had a warmer reception. 
When a representative from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Student Collective said, “I would just like to acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded no matter what lunatics say”, loud cheers echoed throughout the theatre. 
“My whole life I’ve been asked to forget things. Some of the glories of Western civilisation, which the last lunatic was speaking about, he failed to mention genocide. He forgot to mention children stolen from their families. He forgot to mention deaths in police custody”, he said. 
The vote against Ramsay was a victory against racism. 
However, the fight is not over. We need to maintain the pressure to stop the university’s negotiations with Ramsay once and for all.

Historic student meeting votes against the Ramsay Centre at UQ

Politicians have expressed “horror” and “shock” at the attack in New Zealand and now are scratching their heads, asking, “Who could have predicted this?” 
As a Muslim woman living in Australia I can tell you that I and any other Muslim could have predicted this. It wasn’t a question of whether such an atrocity could occur. It was a question of when. 
As politicians denounce this as a freak event or the act of a stupid and deranged individual who just lost his way, it is important to say that it was not. 
The attacker is a racist, fascist, white supremacist and deranged individual. But what led to such a massacre was years in the making. 
World leaders have lined up to express their “sadness” and – laughably – their “solidarity” with the Muslim community, the same group they have spent years attacking and demonising. 
Decades of anti-Muslim racism and the war on terror have led to this. Mainstream political parties repeatedly have made Muslim-bashing a policy platform. Governments have cracked down on civil liberties, some banning Muslim prayer and the burqa. They have spent decades treating Muslims as an enemy and a threat to the “enlightened” West.
So yes, this attack did not come out of nowhere. I lay the blame for it on these politicians. 
As Scott Morrison sheds crocodile tears, let’s not forget his history of Islamophobia and racism. He was the architect of the “stop the boats” policy. He supported US president Donald Trump’s Muslim ban and said in response to it that the world was finally catching up to Australia. His predecessor, Malcolm Turnbull, was one of the first to congratulate Trump on his election victory. 
Trump was commended in the killer’s manifesto. The language used in the manifesto – such as “the West is under attack” and “Muslims can’t assimilate” – has been used by mainstream Australian politicians. 
We need to remember this as these hypocrites try to remove the blame from themselves. We also should remember this hypocrisy as the Coalition and Labor move to censure senator Fraser Anning for his comments. They paved the way for people such as Anning and brought him into the mainstream. 
To those who say this attack is “unAustralian”, I strongly disagree. Racism is woven into the fabric of this country and is supported by both of the major parties.
Our society has become so racist that fascists feel confident to kill Muslims. This is not a question of gun control. Banning assault rifles will not end racism. Neither will looking to politicians for solutions when they are the ones who laid the foundations for such an attack.
This is also not a question of national security. This terrorist attack is the argument of Fraser Anning put into practice. National security has long been the justification used by governments to demonise Muslims, to crack down on dissent and to blame refugees for the problems in society. It is the argument of governments when they want to win elections. 
The way to deal with fascists is not to debate them, meet in them in the middle or try to see the world from their perspective. We know what they stand for. They are fascists, white supremacists and Nazis ready to kill. We need to smash fascism and push these people back into the sewers from which they crawled. We should protest them wherever they rear their heads. 
But we also need to challenge those softer racists, the ones that say “maybe immigration is too high” or “Muslims are different”.
We need to fight for a world where our governments cannot use Muslims and migrants for political point scoring. 
We need to win a world free from racism. 
The only way to do that is to get rid of the capitalist system that uses racism to divide us and distract us from who is really to blame for all of society’s problems. The ruling class and politicians like Scott Morrison are the ones to blame, not refugees fleeing Western bombs. 
We should mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.

Mourn for the dead and fight like hell for the living

Since early February, Indigenous activists and supporters have been camping at Deebing Creek, Ipswich, in protest at a developer’s plan to build flats on a former mission and heritage site. Red Flag spoke to Yuggera women Aunty Faye and Karen Coghill about Deebing Creek’s history and the current struggle. 
At the entrance to Deebing Creek, signs say “Yuggera-Ugarapul land”. If it weren’t for Indigenous activists and supporters, there would be no recognition of what the rolling hills and bushland used to be. For more than 50 years, the Salvation Army operated a mission at Deebing Creek. Children and adults were taken from across Queensland to the Ipswich site. Aunty Faye, now 73, was among them. 
“There are 14 kids in my family, and I was the second eldest. We lived here in one of the old mission houses”, she says, sitting on a fold-up chair in the protest camp. “This place is very sacred to us. There are unmarked graves. There were places we weren’t allowed to go by our mum, but she never told us why. And as we’re getting older, now we know. Next time, I’ll take you to our old cemetery down across the road. There’s just one headstone. They say she was a teacher, and she was shot and all the little ones were massacred.
“When I was 14, I was taken to Nudgee orphanage. I had housemaid knees by the time I was 16 because of scrubbing floors. I never got paid. They’d buy me a ticket to come home, and that was it. It used to take nearly all day to get from Nudgee to where we lived. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be away from my little brothers and sisters. And every afternoon, I used to go down to the babies ward at the orphanage and I saw these little kids there, and I knew them. And I said, ‘Why are they here?’ They had a mum and dad. I had a mum and dad.” 
Between offers of cake, sandwiches and water from supporters at the campsite, Aunty Faye tells us about a long life of fighting. “I went out to all the marches. Should have been at work but I was always there. My Aunty used to come and say, ‘Come on Faysie, we’ve got to go to this one’. We had a sit-in once, in the big government offices. We were trying to get Aboriginal legal aid and a medical centre in Ipswich. We were up there for the longest time and ended up getting what we wanted.” 
Aunty Faye is among those who have refused to sign away Deebing Creek to property developers. 
“I know this is right, what we’re doing”, Aunty Faye says. “People wanted to sign off on this, and I said no. I didn’t think I would be game enough to say I’m not signing anything, but this means a lot to me. Not only me. There’s lots of other babies and families that were brought here. It’s sad for us to be talking about it, but we need people to know.”
Deebing Creek was purchased by Frasers Property Australia in October 2015 without consultation with traditional owners and despite being listed on Queensland’s Heritage Register because of its cultural and historical significance for Indigenous people. Since then, the developer has erected barriers and fences to keep people like Aunty Faye out. 
“There’s an old well where we used to get water”, she explains. “It’s always had water and now it’s dry. Even the creek is not running, so I think they’ve blocked it somewhere. Something is going on. And there’s an old bunya tree that has been here forever. That’s where they want to put a sewage pipe!” 
Activists around us are cleaning debris from a police raid the previous night. Young unionists are climbing a surveillance camera, trying to block its lens. 
The camp is staunch and rebellious. So is Karen Coghill, a protest organiser. She has a lot to do and laughs when we tell her it’s Friday. After six weeks of camping, picket lines and arrests, she’s lost track of time. As we sit down to talk, a representative from the developer enters the campsite, unwelcome. It’s momentarily heated. Karen tells him to come back another day. 
“I’ve only found out since campaigning here that we’re all Thompsons”, she says. “That’s the whole Yaggera foundation and that’s from the mission. We don’t know whether he [Thompson] fathered my great-great-grandmothers or if they took that name because he was the mission owner. And I’m sitting down thinking about native title and the state government recognising my granny. We don’t even know where she’s buried! You know they’ve got her name and registration and everything like that, but we’re not even allowed to find out where she’s buried!
“Australia has a hidden history that we want people to know about. Only we can do it, not the system. We’ve got to get away from a dependency on the system. We don’t have to ask for permission to find out our own ancestral history! We haven’t even had a chance. Aunty Faye grew up here, and now developers are saying we can’t go in here unless we ask for their permission! I know they have illegally obtained our land.”
“We’ve had so many wonderful people come and share and offer their services”, Karen says, saying goodbye at the campsite gate. “Oh my God. This camp has put Deebing Creek on the map. Everybody knows what Deebing Creek Mission is now.”
----------
Organisers have called on supporters to <a href="www.tinyurl.com/y6fyh3v8">sign the online petition</a> to establish a Commission of Inquiry into Deebing Creek Mission sale to developers.

The fight for Deebing Creek

Dozens of protesters rallied outside the McDonald’s restaurant in Brisbane’s Queen Street mall – the largest McDonald’s in the southern hemisphere – on 12 January.
They were protesting a recent statement made online by the restaurant’s franchisee, Tantex Holdings, threatening to ban workers from taking drink or bathroom breaks outside of the allocated 10 minutes on shifts of four hours or longer. 
Tantex Holdings owns six McDonald’s restaurants in Brisbane and turns $10 million of profit each year. 
In a private Facebook post, a Tantex manager warned that if workers insisted on their right to a break, he would deny them the right to water and the toilet, writing, “So I hope to god that you don’t get thirsty on your next shift because we just wouldn’t be able to allow a drink. Fair is fair right?”
Josh Cullinan, secretary of the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union, says, “[Tantex] are the latest example of exploitation of young McDonald’s workers”.
A survey conducted by the union found that 92 percent of workers do not even have a rostered 10-minute break, despite it being a legal entitlement. 
Many ex-workers of McDonald’s were there to protest the mistreatment they endured while working at the chain. Noah Nicholson, a young former McDonald’s employee, told Red Flag of the emotional and physical abuse he and other workers experienced during his three years working there. 
“When they [the managers] were around there was always a sense of threat at the store”, he said. 
Noah did not have full management training and therefore was not qualified to take charge of the store at night. Despite this, he was unlawfully rostered for overnight shifts when he was just 17 years old. Bad as this was, Noah said it was preferable to working when the managers were present because they created an environment of fear for young workers. 
“There was the physical threat looming as well as just the general stresses of the day-to-day shifts”, he said.
Noah recounted an incident in which a 17-year-old worker was assaulted by his boss for accidentally setting off the fire alarm. “The manager was angry at this person and was having a go at them instead of accepting it for the accident it was.” When the worker stood up for himself, he was strangled by the husband of the manager. 
“It was all swept under the rug and everyone was neglected”, he said. “As long as people were making money, she [the manager] did not care.”

Marchers descend on the golden arches

Brisbane ferry workers docked their ferries and walked off the job for 48 hours on 6 December, following a year of failed negotiations with their employer, Transdev.
They walked off again for 24 hours on 20 December and have flagged further industrial action in the new year.
All sections of the workforce are involved: masters, who drive the ferries, deck hands and customer service officers. For many striking workers, this is their first industrial action.
Transdev is a French multinational company that won the tender to operate Brisbane ferries six years ago, hugely undercutting its competitor. Ever since, Transdev workers have suffered pay cuts, worsening conditions and increased casualisation. 
Several workers told Red Flag that the company’s cost cutting is also compro-mising ferry maintenance and safety, putting workers and the public in dan-ger. Yet, as one worker at the 20 December meeting said, “I feel like I can’t complain about poor maintenance for fear of the sack”.
And the company is proposing to cut ferry crews from three people to two. The secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia Queensland branch, Bob Carne-gie, told Red Flag: “Ferries which carry a minimum of 100 people need cus-tomer service officers for the safe running of the ferries and we’re not going to accept crews being knocked down to two”.
Transdev’s profits were $521 million in 2016. But it treats its workforce and the public with contempt.
Delegates and union representatives have met with Transdev 17 times this year to negotiate an enterprise bargaining agreement. But management has refused to acknowledge the workers’ demands. As one worker told Red Flag: “Transdev are giving with one hand and taking with another”.
Tracey Ellis, a master, recently resigned after working on the ferries for 11 years. She told Red Flag that since Transdev took over the ferries, she and other masters’ pay had been cut by nearly 25 percent. “Every time we get a pay increase the company manipulates the rosters to take that away”, she said. 
Transdev has also avoided paying workers their travel allowances by rostering them to start their shift a minute later than required to qualify for them. 
With its contract ending in May, one worker commented: “It’s a last bid by the company to rip as much money out before the contract ends”.

‘No justice, no peace!’ Brisbane high-schoolers strike against racism

Hong Kong students attacked by Chinese nationalists at the University of Queensland

Historic student meeting votes against the Ramsay Centre at UQ

Mourn for the dead and fight like hell for the living

The fight for Deebing Creek

Marchers descend on the golden arches

Brisbane ferry workers take on Transdev

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