File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2000/anarchy-list.0001, message 480


Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2000 10:05:03 -0500
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Irvington, CA high school students form `anarchist' club


Woo hoo! We should see if these kids want to join the new anarchist
youth network, Anarchist Youth Action/Network of Anarchist Youth. So
far, AYA-NAY has chapters in two places, Etiwanda, California and
Bainbridge Island, Washington.

The AYA/NAY page is located online at: 
http://www.infoshop.org/kidz/nay.html

------------------

Members lobby for human, animal rights
Irvington students form `anarchist' club

http://www7.mercurycenter.com:80/premium/local/docs/anarchists23.htm

BY DANA HULL
Mercury News Staff Writer

Irvington High School has a chess club, a ski club and the Little Saigon
Vietnamese club. But a group of sophomores have recently formed the
school's first real political club and call themselves the Anarchist
Student Union.

   The club's goal is to bring issues such as sweatshop labor and the
controversial decisions of the Fremont school board to the forefront of
campus discussions. The students gather every Wednesday during their
lunch period and have a faculty adviser.

   ``We're surprised that we got the club approved,'' said club
president Anna Propas, 15. ``We're the misfits of Irvington. We don't
conform to what society thinks is normal.''

   Anarchy technically means an absence of government and lack of order.
However, it has taken on different meanings and attracts adherents from
across the political spectrum. There are eco-anarchists, communist
anarchists, radical anarchists and libertarian anarchists. And not all
people who call themselves anarchists agree on the movement's
terminology or various schools of thought.

   Anarchy has a long political history, both in the United States and
abroad, from the reform efforts of Emma Goldman during World War I and
afterward to the trial and execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo
Vanzetti in the 1920s. The explosive word often engenders images of pipe
bombs and Molotov cocktails, or black-clad young people in Seattle
smashing Starbucks windows during the recent World Trade Organization
riots.

   ``When a lot of people think of anarchy, they think of violence,''
said Ian Morris, 15. ``It's really a form of self-governance and
self-rule. But most people don't realize that.''

   The universal symbol for anarchy -- an ``A'' in a circle -- appears
spray-painted at youth hangouts all over the Bay Area. And Bound
Together Books, an anarchist bookstore in San Francisco's Haight
neighborhood, has become a mecca for young people interested in learning
more about the issue.

   At Irvington, the small club is made up primarily of Anna and a dozen
of her friends, many of them vegans and vegetarians who care deeply
about animal rights. Several expressed frustration that their peers seem
consumed by shopping and buying the latest trendy consumer goods. But
the students also agreed that their immediate challenge is explaining to
other students what anarchy means.

   Proponents say anarchy has become increasingly attractive to young
people in part because much of their behavior -- skateboarding, smoking,
being late to school, punk-rock fashion -- has been criminalized. The
spate of school shootings last year has inspired school districts across
the country to crack down with stringent dress codes, metal detectors
and tough truancy laws, leaving little room for the teenage rebellion
once seen as a normal rite of passage.

   Irvington's students do not advocate total chaos, and in fact appear
willing to work within ``the system.'' Many anarchy club members
regularly attend Fremont Unified school board meetings, and have
eloquently spoken to trustees about the need to improve Irvington's
honors program.

   Irvington's administration also has been supportive of the club's
efforts to politicize the high school campus.

   ``Initially, the name anarchist sort of caught our attention,'' said
Irvington Principal Pete Murchison. ``But I'm a former social studies
teacher, and as a learning institution I think it's important that we
give kids a number of opportunities to connect with each other. They are
very politically active students, and they have a lot of insight as to
what is going on.''

   This spring, the club plans to investigate whether the company that
manufactures graduation caps and gowns uses sweatshop labor and to push
school officials to find an alternative manufacturer.

   Members say they hope to raise political awareness about global
issues and are articulate in expressing their point of view.

   ``Even the U.S. government has fallen into a lull on many important
free-trade issues concerning human rights and economic development in
Third World countries,'' said Anna Propas. ``It's not so much that they
ignore the issues but chose half solutions rather than facing the
underlying issue or the cause of the problem.''

   Members of the Anarchist Student Union also hope to shake their
fellow students out of what they call political apathy.

   ``At Irvington everybody has their clique and they just like to
follow along with the crowd,'' said Ariel Schwitalla, 15. ``We're the
salmon running against the stream.''

   

-- 
Chuck0

Mid-Atlantic Infoshop
http://www.infoshop.org/

Leonard Peltier Freedom Month 
Executive Clemency For Peltier!
http://www.freepeltier.org/lpfreedommonth.html

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now!
http://www.infoshop.org/gulag/mumia_idx.html

"A society is a healthy society only to the degree 
that it exhibits anarchistic traits." 
        - Jens Bjørneboe

   

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