Axis of Hope: papers

Marie O'Halloran: Teachers and the War on Iraq

Marie O'Halloran is President of the NSW Teachers Federation.

Thank you very much and thank you for the invitation this evening. I also acknowledge the Gadigal people, the traditional owners of this land. And I'm here tonight representing the NSW Teachers' Federation and the Australian Education Union and we represent together about 155,000 public school and TAFE teachers across Australia.

At our conference in January, a conference of teachers from across the nation, the teachers resolved to oppose this war unequivocally. We saw no justification for this war and I want to emphasise that our opposition is unequivocal. It was not dependent on the UN sanctioning a war. Because we saw the role that the US and others were taking as a role of intimidation. And we took this position in the interests of the innocent children and families of Iraq, in recognition of the terrible devastation, the widespread death and destruction that an attack on Iraq would cause.

Teachers, the job of teaching or teachers' jobs, it's built on hope. Being a teacher is built on hope. Hope that we can make a difference in the lives of the individual child that you teach and hope, particularly in public schools and TAFE colleges, that you can make a difference to society, that you can be part of creating a more just society. We used to say that our schools were microcosms of society. We used to say that we hoped our schools were microcosms of society, reflected society, but in the Australia that we live in today, the Australia characterised by the way this Federal Government treats refugees, for example, and the way we've entered this war, what we're actually believing now is that our schools must be microcosms of a more just society. And this is a particular line that the Teachers' Federation and the teaching profession has taken. And it's interesting that there's been quite overt savaging by talk-back radio of the role that teachers have taken, because teachers have such an important position in the lives of children. There's been a savaging of the Principals' Council, for example, high school principals, who came together and quite properly opposed this war and attack on Iraq, have been savaged through the media, as indeed have teachers. But, and regardless of that, as teachers we consider this, this creating of a more just society, to be one of the fundamental responsibilities to our society and the children we care for. In fact, Article 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child obliges us - and our government, which is a signatory to this convention ñ to ensure that, quote, the education of the child shall be directed to the preparation of the child for responsible life in a free society in the spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality of sexes and friendship amongst all people, national and religious groups and persons of indigenous origin. Peace is teachers' business, regardless of what anyone says. Peace is the business of the curriculum and peace is union business.

We all agree that war is terrible, under any circumstances. But an unjustified war like this war is criminal. A most chilling reminder of war for teachers ñ or anyone, for that matter, but the teachers in particular visit the War Memorial in Canberra, take our students to the War Memorial in Canberra. A recent visit by a teacher to the Australian War Memorial brought home the tragedy of war. That teacher read the seemingly endless list of names of people killed in war engraved on the walls. Having read all the names, the teacher stared at the blank space. The blank space dedicated for the names of soldiers in wars not yet fought. Those spaces could very well be engraved with the names of our students, our former students, who have already been deployed to fight in this war. John Howard, in his rush to join this war, is endangering the lives of our students, past and present, and let me point out that our concerns are not limited to the wellbeing of Australian students but students across the globe.

I won't go through the reasons why we oppose this war, I'm sure you've heard that at length tonight, arguments against the war. But for the point of view of our children, the children who are in our charge as teachers, the period in the lead up to the war has been dominated by reports of unrelenting preparation for this war. Unrelenting images of war, day by day. With the threat of war looming ahead ñ sorry, with the war plastered on our newspapers and television sets, the concept of that war in playing on our children's minds. I can't even begin to think what it's like for the children in Iraq. But for our children now, in our classrooms, they are coming to our schools, asking for guidance. They are coming to our schools wanting to talk about this war. And yet, we are being told by some conservative forces that teachers should not express an opinion or help these children in any way. Even the magazine, New Idea, ran a competition recently asking kids to tell us what they would do to make the world a better place. And some of the responses, you could probably tell them to me. Make people stop wars, said a ten year old from New South Wales. Trying to stop wars, said a ten year old from Queensland. Ending all wars, said a thirteen year old from Queensland. Encouraging world peace, said a fourteen year old from Victoria. I would destroy all weapons, bombs and nuclear missiles, said a fourteen year old. Make sure the war with Iraq would stop, said an eleven year old. The importance of peace and working to achieve peace is clearly not lost on our young. History is replete with examples of politicians committing other people's children to certain death, trauma and injury in war. And yet, what of [inaudible two or three words] rallies. I'm not sure how many of you have heard the media on these, but the constant criticism of young people being involved in these rallies, young adults who have determined that they are opposed to peace, and yet the criticism that they would rally. And yet, our children are seen, or our young students, as too young to rally. But the children of Iraq for some reason are not seen as too young to die. How can our children not be old enough to make a decision about what they think about this war? [APPLAUSE]

And while the pressure builds up on teachers in public schools not to take so-called political positions, that's simply another piece of wedge politics, another way to feed the view that teaching is subversive and to feed the view that somehow teachers are not doing the right and proper thing by their children. We only have to refer back to the Rights of the Child to know that the position we are taking is the correct position.

We believe the means of addressing global conflict should primarily be through the agency of the United Nations and, again, I'm sure you've heard those arguments tonight. But what I will say is that when I made the statement that was read out by our host about the role of the UN being perverted to become one about a force for war rather than peace, that was, I think, somewhat naîve, now that we see that indeed there was perhaps no, or perhaps an underlying agenda, that the role of the UN does need to be destroyed or diminished in order for the United States to recast the world in its own image. Destroying of the role of the UN is in many ways one of the worst aspects. We commend those Australian political parties and individuals who have unequivocally opposed an attack on Iraq, unequivocally, regardless of the role of the UN, including the Greens and the Democrats and many ALP figures. We as teachers have committed ourselves to participate in and work towards building the broadest possible coalition of anti-war forces ever seen in Australia, so that we can stop this war in Iraq, we can stop any future wars of the US moving into Iran. We have authorised our own members to be involved in stop work action. We will work with the Labour Council and the labour movement to have some coordinated action. Peace is union business and we very much want to be involved in this coalition. Thank you.