The Lessons We Can Learn

"‘Free Hong Kong’; shouts reverberate around our train carriage as we pull into West Kowloon station. Hundreds of protestors push their way through the automated doors as we coil our way onto the street. Graffiti stains the concrete walls which fly past my face as I and other students hurriedly clamber towards the front line. What was previously our home, our community, our school has become a war zone. The black and blue colours of the Riot Police flash warnings in the distance – like animals displaying signs of danger to their prey. I thumb the cross around my neck, the cool metal of the chain distracts me from the momentary suffocation of the first smoke bomb; despite the protection from my flimsy face mask, I can still taste ash at the back of my throat. Kuan-Yin from my Economics class yells ‘Go’ and I drop my necklace and push off, remembering who I’m doing this for – my family, Hong Kong and freedom everywhere." – Reimagining of the 2019 Hong Kong Protests

The 1959 Student for a Democratic Society can and must be learnt from. The 1960s and 1970s were times of major political change in the USA, catalysed by hundreds of demonstrations advocating for civil rights, or against the Vietnam War. A major aspect of these protests was the student movement, with the SDS’ formation in 1959 and their subsequent ‘Port Huron’ manifesto, expressing concern towards the ‘presence of the Bomb’ which ‘brought awareness that we ourselves...and millions of abstract others might die at any time’ – motivating the Berkeley Free Speech protest (1964) and eventually culminating in the membership of 100,000 people. However, the most infamous SDS event was the Kent State University protest. On 4 May 1970, the Ohio National Guard shot four university students and wounded nine who were demonstrating against Nixon’s escalation of the Vietnam war into Cambodia. The violent events at this particular protest – starting with the students burning of the Reserve Officer Training Corps’ building and concluding in the Police’s use of tear gas and ammunition – whilst appalling, remind us of the power young people have. While the eventual withdrawal of troops in Vietnam is likely more to do with the rising Vietnam Congress

by E Lewis Lower Sixth

than domestic issues, the SDS protests inspired a nation wide protest which not only created a war on two fronts but changed American history. In 1942, two teenage siblings, Hans and Sophie Scholl, along with several of their school friends and philosophy teacher, took on the Nazi Regime. Starting at the University of Munich, these students began producing handmade leaflets as part of their resistance movement, ‘The White Rose’, openly denouncing Adolf Hitler and the atrocities his party committed, including providing knowledge about the Holocaust, epitomizing the statement ‘knowledge is power’. Lilo Furst-Ramamdo made homemade stencils to make the phrase ‘Down with Hitler’ to be put on leaflets and graffitied on local buildings. While all five leaders of the group were executed, including the Scholl siblings, they died after refuting major parts of the Nazi arguments. We can all take a lead from these brave young people who used very humble means to rebut this formidable totalitarian administration in taking a stance against corruptness. Perhaps the most famous recent student movement is the climate crisis protests, specifically the controversial 2019 school strikes, with around 1.4 million students walking out of school in total. Jake Woodier, who works for the Student Climate network said the purpose of these strikes was to call for ‘urgent government action’ as there is the general feeling among young people that governments haven’t done enough to tackle these increasingly worrying issues. However, this form of protest has been especially contentious with school minister Nick Gibb, who stated that these reasons didn’t justify missing school. One Extinction Rebellion activist made the very poignant statement that ‘Parents have left their children to clear up the Climate and Ecological Crisis they have created’ and perhaps that’s the real message to take from these student protests, that children are taking on issues-whether those be corrupt governments, dictatorships, unjust conflicts or the climate crisis – that should have either been handled by adults or experts rather than the youngest in our society. These stories of young campaigners teach us that age isn’t a barrier when campaigning for our rights and the rights of others. 45