GERMANY / BELGIUM
Students strike hack
ON Tuesday, November 24, exactly one year after
"Black Sunday" — the date of the far-right Vlaams
Blok's electoral breakthrough - high school and university students of the two biggest cities in Flanders, Antwerp and Ghent, went on strike and massively flooded into the streets. This was an unexpected success:
10,000-strong demonstrations in both cities.
This is a big step forward for the anti-racist and antifascist struggle. The youth have met the Vlaams Blok threat head-on - the same
Vlaams Blok which claims to have the support of a majority of youth. They have shown that the relationship of forces can be changed through mass mobilizations.
International Viewpoint spoke with Nadine Peeters, a 21-year old university student in Antwerp and spokesperson for the organizing committee
AJOKAR (Anti-racist
Committee of Antwerp
Youth). She is also a national leader of the Jeune
Garde Socialiste, Belgian youth section of the Fourth
International.
OW do you explain this
H enormous success?
Everything happened very quickly. The Vlaams Blok had been preparing a victory celebration 1 1
December 21, 1992
BELGIUM for quite a long time, to commemorate the first anniversary of its electoral breakthrough. One year ago, electorally it became the biggest party in Antwerp. Its victory celebrations were seen as a real provocation, especially considering that they were to take place in the Antwerp neighbourhood of Borgerhout, where many North African immigrants live.
The united movement that was created after November 24, 1991, to react to racism and the social crisis decided to organize a demonstration and a party. The Charta '91 citizens' movement, the Anti-fascist Front, the "Hand in Hand" coalition of unions and new social movements and its youth group "Color Team" and the anti-racist neighbourhood committee of Borgerhout united under the name "A totally different Antwerp".
We decided to call a strike and street demonstrations in the morning with high school and university students, following the example of Ghent where these types of activities were already being prepared.
The success is due to the fact that a majority of youth are ready to mobilize against racism and the far-right. We had already seen that the day after last year's elections, when students in Louvain and Ghent immediately descended into the streets. • So, there was a willingness to struggle. All that was needed was a good initiative?
Yes, that's right. And ours was perfectly timed — coming as it did in the wake of the neo-Nazi attacks in Germany and
Raining on the Vlaams Blok's parade ON November 24 anti-racists and anti-fascists took over centre stage in the streets, in the media and in political life - and not the Vlaams Blok (VB), in spite of its promise to celebrate the first anniversary of its spectacular electoral breakthrough.
The stakes were high, and there was a real test of strength, even though this took place without direct confrontations (aside from the partial destruction of one of the fascists' offices and the overnight occupation of the B's meeting room).
Initiated during the November 9 demonstrations - called by the European Network Against Racism and for Equality - people were surprised by the size, combativeness and diversity of the response.
First, there were the high school strikes and demonstrations in Antwerp and Ghent. Indeed, the ensemble of anti-racists and antifascists of Antwerp made themselves heard through the youth.
That same evening, there was a torchlit demonstration that brought together 3,000 people thanks to a broad unity around the Anti-fascist Front, followed by a meeting and party where Gilles Perrault brought greetings from French anti-fascists.
At the same time, 2,000 people celebrated the success of another undertaking: the one-year long collection of 500,000 signatures on a petition demanding the right to vote for immigrants.
On Sunday, November 22, in an auditorium filled with more than 1,000 concerned citizens, the dozen government ministers, the secretary of state and the leaders of political parties got an ear full.
Invited by Charta '91, the movement of concerned citizens born out of the anti-racist demonstrations, they had to reply to one question: "Given that the victory of the Vlaams Blok is due first and foremost to the social crisis, what changes have you made in your policies to resolve this crisis since the November 24, 1991 elections?"
If the Vlaams Blok has not yet gone down in the polls, at least the anti-racist and anti-fascist movement is continuing the upswing which started with the 150,000-strong demonstration of March 23, 1992. This is the meaning of the activities planned for the International Day Against Racism next March and the mass demonstration planned for the city of Ghent in May 1993. - Fran-
Spain. And in Antwerp, a member of the
Young Socialists was nearly killed by a gang of fascists while putting up posters for the unitary meeting. He was only saved thanks to emergency surgery. A few weeks before, the fascists had attacked
I WO bookstalls which were selling books on the Vlaams
Blok.
All this sparked the reaction from youth. This is the biggest demonstration by high school students
12 that Antwerp has seen çois Vercammen * since 1973 against Vanden Boeynants, the minister who wanted to suspend postponements of military service.
• In Belgium, there are several school boards. Did they all participate?
Traditionally, the state schools were always most heavily involved in the high school activities. But this time, students from the private Catholic boards massively participated for the first time. There were rows and rows of young women in blue uniforms singing anti-racist songs and shouting their rejection of the
Vlaams Blok.
• Did the anti-racist groups support your action?
We received strong support.
From our first meeting, representatives of the Anti-fascist
Front and Hand in Hand came out to help us. The Socialist
Party teachers union and Public Service
Employees Union-Teachers (CGSP) of Antwerp immediately helped us with the passage of a motion of solidarity and a memo to the schools requesting that students leaving school to participate in the action not be punished. • What were the demande nut what were the demands put forward in your platform?
It was a simple and completely correct platform: for tolerance and democracy (put forward by Hand in Hand), for equal rights, against racism and fascism, against the Vlaams Blok, and in order that we never forget November 24, 1991.
We distributed 20,000 leaflets in about 40 schools. We explained that we wanted to strike because, like immigrants, high school students do not have the right to vote, and therefore striking was the only way to make themselves heard. • On the fringes of the demonstration, a minority of youths smashed up the far-right's well-known meeting place. Shop
International Viewpoint # 241 • December 21, 1992
windows and cars were also smashed. The press has spoken of violent youths, singling out immigrant youth in particular.
True enough, there was some smashing up. The committee says this is regrettable, but it is necessary to keep everything in proportion. The important thing is that there was a spirited and combative demonstration of 10,000 youths against racism and fascism.
Moreover, the youths — and not only immigrant youth — that participated in the smash-up have to endure daily provocations from the far-right in the neighbourhoods of Antwerp. These are youths who have been hit by the crisis and see no way out. For them, and rightfully so, politicians are cheats without answers.
The quality of education has been sacrificed in the interests of austerity. There are no jobs, aside from insecure and low-paid work. Indeed, what we are seeing is the well-known boomerang effect; there is nothing fundamentally different between Los Angeles southeast side and the French banlieues. The explosive situation is entirely the work of the authorities. • The Socialist Party mayor of Antwerp has said that the organizers will have to pay for all the damage. What do you plan on doing?
We refuse to pay, period. We organized a youth demonstration against the rise of racism and fascism in a city where the political leaders have failed to fulfill the social needs of the majority of the population. They have laid the groundwork for the far-right. We do not accept any of this.
It is necessary to organize broad solidarity right away. Three well-known figures in Antwerp, including a Green Party deputy of Moroccan origin, have already launched a campaign of solidarity against payment for the damages.
We have to specifically address ourselves to working people. In a context of budget cuts, on both the local and national levels, the charges levelled against the youths might be used as a pretext to make a union response that much more difficult. • What are your plans after this recent success?
On November 24 we decided to announce that our committee, AJOKAR, would continue. We have called for the formation of AJOKAR committees in every school. We want to mobilize on a unitary basis for anti-racist activities on a national and pan-European level. *