The Western Sydney University IYSSE Annual General Meeting elaborates the socialist perspective against war and genocide

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) club at Western Sydney University (WSU) held a successful annual general meeting (AGM) on October 23. The meeting ensures the survival of the one and only socialist, anti-war club in the world. working-class campus in the western suburbs of Australia’s largest city.

Students participated in person at WSU’s Parramatta South campus, and online via Zoom. In total, more than twenty people were present, including WSU students and employees. The quorum requirement of ten current IYSSE club members was met, a new director was elected, and the IYSSE club’s goals of promoting a socialist and anti-war perspective on campus were affirmed.

Western Sydney University students support the IYSSE campaign against the Gaza genocide and imperialist war

The General Assembly followed a powerful special general meeting on October 8, initiated by the IYSSE at WSU. That meeting, attended by more than forty students, voted overwhelmingly in favor of the IYSSE motion, which condemned Israel’s war crimes and the support given to the Zionist state by imperialist powers internationally, including Prime Minister’s Australian Labor government Anthony Albanese.

That motion called on students to campaign in the working class for a socialist alternative to the capitalist system that leads to imperialist militarism and dictatorship.

The urgency of this perspective was highlighted the next day with the violent arrests of two WSU students for participating in a peaceful protest on campus. A third student was arrested later that week. These arrests, the IYSSE has warned, are in line with efforts by Labor governments – state and federal – to ban all opposition to the genocide and war.

Under the circumstances of the intensification of police state measures against anti-war demonstrators, the turnout at the IYSSE AGM was significant.

Students joined the IYSSE AGM because the club presents a way forward in the fight against war. They have taken an important political stand, supporting the IYSSE’s right to remain affiliated, and also defending the right of students to take political action on campus.

In the lead up to the meeting, IYSSE members and supporters campaigned at the Parramatta South campus and the Liverpool, Bankstown and Parramatta City campuses. Students responded strongly to the club’s opposition to the genocide in Gaza and the danger of nuclear war on a global scale.

Many agreed with the IYSSE analysis that protests based on moral calls for governments to stop the genocide had failed, and that a new path forward is needed, based on socialism and a turn to the working class.

IYSSE members also spoke to students about the violent suppression of anti-genocide protesters on campus and the broader attack on anti-war protesters worldwide. These stepped-up attacks coincide with a deepening US-Israeli assault in the Middle East, including attacks on Lebanon and now Iran – a provocation that increases the threat of a region-wide conflagration.

Following the formalities of the AGM, returning club president Zach Diotte released a report outlining the escalating conflict in the Middle East, more than a year after the genocide against the Palestinian people began.

He emphasized that the genocide in Gaza is not an isolated episode. The criminal methods of Israel and its imperialist paymasters – which have already spread to neighboring areas – can only be understood if placed in the context of the eruption of militarism around the world.

Diotte explained that the barbarism now unfolding in the region is part of a decades-long attempt by US imperialism to subjugate the entire Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa.

“Above all, the US and its imperialist allies have Russia and China in their sights,” Diotte said. “NATO powers are already engaged in a war with Russia that threatens the use of nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the US and its allies in the Asia-Pacific – led by Australia – are preparing for a military confrontation with the biggest rival to US global dominance: China.”

Diotte warned that we are witnessing the first images of a third world war which, if not prevented by the intervention of the working class, would lead to nuclear Armageddon.

The report analyzed the protest movement that emerged after October 7, 2023 and continued throughout the year. The pseudo-left leaders of the protests have only offered a bankrupt perspective that will lead the students to a dead end, suppressing the critical issues and obscuring the complicity of the Labor government and the unions. Instead, protest leaders have presented the genocide as one issue that can be ended by making a moral appeal to those in power.

In fact, the Labor government has not only failed to respond to these calls, but is also vilifying protesters as anti-Semitic and using police state measures to suppress opposition.

Diotte put forward the need for a new perspective, explaining that the struggle against genocide and imperialism in Gaza can only be developed as a struggle against the capitalist system that is the cause of war.

“Imperialism is powerful, but not invincible. There is a force in society that is stronger,” Diotte said. “That force is the global working class that produces all the wealth in society. The ruling capitalist class exploits the working class to gain profits and private wealth.”

IYSSE members explained at the AGM that the same conditions under capitalism that lead to war and authoritarianism also lead to a movement of workers against militarism and austerity. It is to this movement that students must turn and imbue a socialist perspective.

After the meeting, IYSSE members spoke to some of the students present.

Asia student of information and communications technology, agreed with the perspective of the working class taking independent action. He said: “We can stop distribution and that will just stop their supply and they will have nothing left to fight with. They will have no weapons or equipment. That’s a very good point, one that I hadn’t thought about at all.”

Asi continued: “I assumed that before I found this club, those in power would take care of business. But now it’s different: I feel like there are better solutions and better ways to deal with the situation. I read somewhere that as soon as people stop talking, problems arise. Having discussions, gaining new insights, perspectives and opinions brings new light to the situation.”

Daniela law student, said: “It was important to discuss what is happening in Gaza and the need for students and youth to take action. There is a possibility that further wars will escalate around the world. The government supports the war and the actions of the Israeli government – both Labor and Liberal. It’s twofold… I think we need to turn to the working class to try to put pressure on the government to respond.”