Summer…
With the wrapping up of second semester SAW has gone on holidays for the Summer. We’ll be back in February and guarantee we’ll be making it extremely difficult for the uni to continue participating in the Defence Materials Technology Centre throughout 2011. All the unfinished parts of our blog should be complete by then, too.
Happy holidays! 
Broad Left Illawarra
Recently people from a range of organisations have gotten together to form Broad Left, a monthly newsletter for activist and community news and events in the Illawarra. It’s a great step towards connecting the various progressive groups and activists in the region with eachother, who often struggle on unaware of the existence of other local sympathisers.
Broad Left can be found at broadleft.net or on Facebook here. Editions come out at the start of each month.
SAW also came in for a mention this month following our occupation of the Defence Materials Technology Centre. Sweet!
Occupation! SAW takes over the Defence Materials Technology Centre
Yesterday, with polls finding that 60% of Australians wished for an immediate withdrawal of occupying forces from Afghanistan, politicians on both sides of parliament pledging that Australian troops would remain there for at least another decade, and the Sydney Morning Herald announcing that “Australia digs in for war with no end”, Students Against War took matters into our own hands and occupied the university’s Defence Materials Technology Centre, bringing its operations to a total, grinding halt.
The Environment Collective has 3,000 signatures on a petition asking for 100% renewable energy on campus and has been ignored by administration, the Save UOW Music group has over 700 members and has experienced a similar fate, and so we decided that, instead of asking someone to stop UOW’s war research for us - well, we’d simply move in and stop it ourselves!
The day began with our members taking radio interviews for WaveFM, i98FM, ABC Illawarra and Sydney station 2SER. Then, at about lunchtime, alerted by texts, word-of-mouth and e-mails, a small crew of 12 formed up on the Jugglers’ Lawn, chatted to journalists from WIN News that we’d invited, and tested out our musical instruments. (Part of the absurdity of the Defence Materials Technology Centre is that, although money can be found for this $85 million program, the university is completely eliminating its music program and refusing to purchase more renewable energy due to alleged lack of funding.)
Then, when everyone had assembled, we strolled into the Engineering building, down the corridor, and simply walked right in through the conveniently wide open door of the DMTC offices. After a brief chat with staff (“Look, if you insist on staying you’re disrupting my work.” “That’s the idea.”) we declared the vacated offices ours, and settled in to see what the uni had in store for us.
While we waited we made ourselves at home, reading, talking, laughing, sitting round, jamming on our instruments, and making the offices a bit more visually interesting. Meanwhile WIN News sat outside and did a report on us.
Then security finally came, we had a chat with them, and… then nothing much happened! We just stayed in the empty offices, waited around for a few hours stopping any research from being carried out, then marched out with much noise and fanfare, and went off to the bar and drank beer… watched the whole time by three or four incredibly paranoid security guards.
And thus SAW ended the year with a bang, with about ten times the participants that we’d begun with, thousands and thousands of leaflets and posters distributed, many successful events carried out, and media and campus notoriety. We’ll be back in 2011 with ten times the number of people again :)
Update 27 Oct: SAW has been made aware that on the day of the occupation both the Mckinnon Building and the admininistration block were in lock down and swarming with security guards in anticipation of student protests. This needlessly caused disruption for students and staff and wasted university resources at a time when the music program is facing the axe. It was also ineffective in preventing the student anti-war actions which occurred in another part of the university.
Documentary Films Tell the Story of Atomic Bomb Survivors
Witness to Hiroshima tells the story of atomic bomb survivor Keiji Tsuchiya through the medium of twelve watercolour pictures painted by Mr Tsuchiya from his memories of the event.
Further information about the film is available at http://witnesstohiroshima.com/index.htm.
Atomic Mom is a documentary about two women, both mothers, who have
very different experiences of the atom bomb. After decades of silence,
a daughter’s quest for truth leads to the exchange of an olive branch
between an American Scientist and a Hiroshima Survivor.
Further information at http://www.atomicmom.org/
SAW looks to the future
SAW's hott new banners ready for next year
A few Sundays ago, Students Against War met outside of our usual Tuesday 12.30pm timeslot and, with the luxury of several hours to think and talk things over rather than just the usual one hour space, we dwelt at length on the future of the group, strategy, and long-term goals.
In between discussion of possible events, future actions and group decision-making procedures, SAW finally began the process of formulating objectives for our campaign against war research at Wollongong Uni and for the group more generally, almost seven months after our campaign kicked off with a protest on the first day of first semester.
As such, we decided that we want to:
- Force the university to completely terminate its relationship with the Defence Materials Technology Centre
- Bring about a total and permanent ban at UOW on the undertaking of any research for arms manufacturers, the Australian Defence Forces or any other military bodies, similar to the ban the university has on accepting money from or performing research for the tobacco industry
- Pressure the university to create an undergraduate subject on the history of the success of non-violent action in halting aggression and shifting authoritarian regimes in more democratic dimensions, rather than warfare
- Fight against war, militarism, racism and nationalism on campus and in society generally
We figure that such an ambitious campaign is going to take many long years of struggle, and that these objective are going to need considerable fleshing out and development as SAW grows and attracts more support, but we SAW-sters have no illusions about this: we’re in for the long haul, and we intend to win!
Naughty naughty…
SAW’s message has evidently spread far and wide since the dark days at the beginning of the year when we comprised of two people, since graffiti has popped up recently on the bridge between UOW and the Illawarra TAFE campus demanding “No war research at UOW!!!”
Now, to set the record straight, Students Against War totally, utterly and completely deplore such monstrously terroristic actions. A more upstanding, proper and responsible group of people than the members of SAW could not possibly be found, and we’d sooner travel to the other side of the world, illegally invade a foreign country, brutally occupy, terrorise and bomb them into utter ruin, then insist they be thankful for it, than indulge in such criminality. Only those rich enough to afford to pay for a billboard should be allowed to have their messages seen in public space. If any other irresponsible supporters of SAW should get it into their heads to write really great messages anywhere where heaps of people will see them, you can be assured that we’ll be the first to come and applaud as the forces of order swarm in from all directions to TASER you to death… serves you right, commie!
SAW’s Helen Caldicott night draws the crowds
Last Thursday over 50 people packed out Theatre Three in the Communications Building to hear former Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr Helen Caldicott’s speech on the nuclear industry and depleted uranium ammunition, by far the biggest crowd SAW has ever pulled for an event. We were also lucky enough to listen to a truly moving welcome to country from indigenous elder Uncle Dootch Kennedy, and have the prodigiously talented local choir Ecopella perform a few pieces from their amusing repertoire of songs with a social conscience. And on top of that we raised about $200 for SAW (in addition to $170 from our BBQ) and got dozens of new signups. All this for a collective that, a few months ago, consisted of two people! Not bad!
Dr Caldicott went through the devastating environmental consequences of uranium mining – a single uranium mine at Roxby Downs in South Australia, for instance, uses 42 million litres of water a day (for free) - and the total impossibility of ever storing uranium safely. We learnt about the slightly insane system where the world’s 22,000 odd nuclear weapons are all irreversibly locked in to be shot off by computer within a single hour at the push of a few buttons. And she then described in heartbreaking detail the devastating consequences of the coalition’s use of millions of rounds of depleted uranium ammunition in Iraq and Afghanistan – which has led to such a spectacular rise in birth defects that doctors have in many cases simply warned parents not to ever have children. She labelled this a war crime, harshly condemned UOW for designing weapons platforms that will almost certainly be firing these toxic munitions, and wished us well in our efforts to boot the Defence Materials Technology Centre out of UOW.
Then she praised us for our efforts in opposing the madness, called for revolution, and then SAW all went out to dinner and gorged ourselves silly on Thai.
