BY ALISON DELLIT
"The massive number of young people who had the confidence to walk out of school, stand up to their teachers and protest against the war on Iraq was amazing", Kylie Moon told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly. A leader of the student anti-war organisation Books Not Bombs, Moon is embarking upon a tour of Australian cities and campuses to help build the campaign against the occupation of Iraq.
Books Not Bombs was responsible for a string of student strikes, held across Australia in March and April, against the federal government's support for the US-led invasion of Iraq.
The spectacle of tens of thousands of young people holding militant anti-war demonstrations, which disproved claims that young people are apathetic about politics, provoked strong reactions. The actions were condemned by the big business media, conservative 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ of the peace movement and state and federal governments. However, they were strongly supported by left-wing unionists, anti-war activists, teachers and parents.
The controversy hurled Moon into the media spotlight and she was deluged by requests for interviews. The often hostile coverage resulted in death threats and abusive phone calls, as well as supportive comments in the supermarket and on the street. "It's been an experience", she said with a grin.
The 25-year-old is no stranger to controversy. Since she was 14, she has been fighting for social change, putting her energy into environmental, peace, international solidarity and anti-racist campaigns. Growing up in the Victorian logging town of Healesville, she developed "progressive ideas" while very young.
"I was really angry about how much was wrong with the world. It was in the height of the rule of Victorian Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett, and people were losing their jobs and going bankrupt. We almost lost our house — a sheriff even knocked on the door. That was part of what radicalised me.
"I was always pretty critical of the corporate media and the way it controls what people think. At 14, I refused to wear the school uniform and wrote long essays explaining why. I was vegan then, and had to go to a doctor in the city for vitamin injections. On one trip in 1993, I bought a copy of 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, with a 'Save the forests' cover; with it I got a leaflet for an anti-pollution rally. I was so excited!
"I rang the number and got leaflets sent out to me. They were black and white, so my friends and I painted them and stuck them up around the school. I was quite scared when I went to the rally, it was my first. But I had a great time!
"After the protest, we had a meeting of the Environmental Youth Alliance; I was so impressed. There was this guy with a speech impediment and I thought, 'They're going to give him so much shit', but everybody listened to him. I thought, 'These people are just different'."
After getting more involved in environmental activism, Moon joined the socialist youth organisation Resistance, of which she is now the national coordinator. "Everybody — my parents and teachers — had always said things like 'money is bad', so when I started reading about socialism, I just thought, 'These ideas are amazing. These people understand it. It's all written down!'. I wanted everybody to read it."
Since then, taking part in diverse struggle against injustice has become a major part of Moon's life. For many years, she helped mobilise solidarity in Australia with political activists in Indonesia fighting against Suharto's dictatorship. When the news of Suharto's resignation came over the radio in 1998, she was sitting with some members of Indonesia's Peoples Democratic Party, which was then a banned organisation.
"It was one of the most inspirational moments of my life", she said. "All that hard work that the Indonesian comrades had put in for years — all the suffering and the sacrifices by those who were killed — it had paid off!"
Moon also counts the Melbourne S11 protest in 2000 against the World Economic Forum as a "highlight". "It had such a huge impact on so many people. On the last day, as we marched through the city, you could see so many people joining in, giving support to the anti-corporate-greed protesters."
Moon has also fought corporate greed on campuses. In 1999, she was one of the many University of Western Sydney students who were campaigning for a "log of claims" that would reduce class sizes and library fines, and stop threatened course cuts. The university was occupied for nearly three weeks, before the administration caved in to students' demands.
The formation of Books Not Bombs is a "really positive step forward", Moon told GLW. Pointing out that most of the group's activists are high school students, she commented that "things are different from when I was at Healesville High. Many more students are interested in campaigning for social justice."
"Books Not Bombs is not going to fold just because the 'hot' war in Iraq is over", Moon promised. "We want to campaign against the US-led occupation of Iraq, and against Washington's future wars and occupations. We will be protesting at the June 24-26 arms fair in Canberra."
"There is nothing more inspiring", she told GLW, "than seeing young people develop the confidence to take political action and seeing that they can make a difference and change the world".
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, May 14, 2003.
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