Student Fightback Defends Right to Protest

In recent weeks students from Ardscoil Ris, Limerick have fought for the
right to protest and we won.

On the day of the protest against Irish Ferries slave labour plans there
were 20 to 30 students ready to walkout to defend our futures. Unfortunately
the school scared some but 10 of us joined the huge protest.

Then a month later 3 of us were singled out for punishment, presumably for
leading the walkout. We refused to accept the punishment and decided to
fight back against this oppression.

We quickly got support from Socialist Youth, and Socialist Party public
reps wrote and called to complain. We used IndyMedia and local and national
media to get our story out there, we even managed to get on the front page
of the regional paper.

We contacted Trade Unionists and public reps and convinced them to help us
out. The school was bombarded with phone calls, letters, faxes and emails –
so much they refused to take any of the calls! ith this stream of
complaints, media attention, union demands and possibly staff pressure the
principal was left with no option but to give in.

In Ardscoil we have seen this back in September over the right to leaflet. The reality is schools are scared by the growing annoyance of young people and our political ideas. They are trying to stop all thoughts of fight back in order to turn us into ‘good’ workers.

It’s not only in school that we are under attack: companies are driving
down our wages and the government are criminalizing us with ASBOs. This huge
victory for the youth movement shows that we can beat attacks on our rights
through organisation and struggle.

What we need is to organise throughout the country, spreading the ideas of
struggle and socialism but also setting up student action groups and linking
up into a national, fighting school students' union and political force.

Cian Prendiville