by Erin Milne
Every week the QUT Socialists club sets up stalls on campus to hand out leaflets for protests, collect signatures on community petitions, and talk to left-wing students about the need for socialism as an alternative to the horrors of capitalism.
Occasionally, there’s a post or two on Stalkerspace where the author complains that although they agree with us on most things, or support the message, we are just too “confronting” “annoying” or “aggressive”, and therefore should be ignored or even banned.
Honestly, I find these posts boring, tired, and conservative. Some people obviously think it’s cool or subversive to not care about the world, and that fighting to change it is a bit “cringe” or “intense”. I disagree. I think that, given the crimes of our system – the genocide in Gaza, climate catastrophe, the rise of the far right and so on, committing yourself to fighting for a better world is the only option; what else could you do?
In this article I’d like to try to convince you to grab a leaflet, or stop for a chat next time you see us on campus.
This week statistics have come out showing that Australians have participated in over 900 pro-Palestine protests since 2023. Australia is second internationally in terms of protests with over 10,000 attendees. This is not an accident! It’s thanks to the determination of pro-Palestine activists who have spent the past two years building every protest against all odds (including the Australian government trying to shut down the historic Sydney Harbour Bridge March and the National March for Humanity after!).
Sometimes, right wingers argue there’s no point in protesting. Street marches won’t free Gaza, so why bother?
To that I’ll say this: what is the alternative? To do nothing? I’m proud to have been a part of building the 50,000+ strong Brisbane march and both of QUT’s Special General Meetings for Palestine. The impact of protests is incontestable — Palestinians in Gaza wrote thank you signs and made videos after the Sydney Harbour Bridge March, and more Australians oppose the genocide now than ever before. Protests alone can’t free Palestine, or end oppression. But they are an important part of building our side, the side of the oppressed. They teach us how to organise and fight, build confidence, and importantly, show that there are people who won’t sit by and watch the world burn.
Australian university campuses have a long, vibrant history of student radicalism. Students helped to lead campaigns against the Vietnam war and South African apartheid. These mass movements were built by dedicated radicals spending their time arguing to students on campus that they should care about these issues. We call them heroes now, but back then they were also called “confronting” and “divisive”!
If left-wing people just accepted that being a fighter is too “divisive”, we wouldn’t win anything. If you want to challenge the status quo and win, you have to be dedicated and persistent and use every opportunity you can to promote your cause. You’ve got to talk to people, make arguments to them, and convince them to be a part of the fight. Protesting and striking is meant to be disruptive, that’s how we force the rich and powerful to listen.
In Socialist Alternative, we’ve been involved in numerous campaigns, and most recently we helped organise the pro-Palestine Special General Meetings that involved thousands of students on campuses across the country. We didn’t do that by just sharing Instagram tiles — we stopped and leafleted students and argued that they should join the campaign!
Right now pro-Palestine activists are facing a very real and serious increase in repression on university campuses across the country. The QUT Carumba Institute now has huge limitations on its scope and academic freedoms for hosting pro-Palestine academics at the anti-racism symposium at the beginning of the year. The Bendigo Writers Festival was boycotted by tens of writers for its extremely censorious code of conduct, which targeted pro-Palestine speech. A lot of this repression and censorship is being carried out in the name of “psychosocial safety”, implying that activism, especially Palestine activism, threatens students and staff.
Describing bread and butter activist organising strategies as something to be avoided or scorned, as some on stalkerspace do, plays into the narrative being spun by the government and university administrations. How many times has David Crisafulli called pro-Palestine activists divisive and aggressive? Repeating their anti-protest, anti-left rhetoric only gives them greater room to crack down on activism and progressives in general.
I think that when you hear sniping about Socialist Alternative, you should ask yourself whether that person is right-wing and disagrees with us politically. And if you want to actually learn about socialist ideas or get involved in activism on campus, then you should investigate us and decide what you think yourself, rather than just believing campus gossip. That’s why we host meetings on a range of topics, write our newspaper Red Flag and our book Introducing Marxism, and talk to people at stalls.
We know that not everyone agrees with us or is interested in what we have to say, that’s just life! If you don’t want to chat, “no thanks” or “I’m not interested” will do. But if you are left-wing, if you are angry at capitalism and the state of the world, you should get involved. We need more socialists and activists who want to destroy injustice and inequality once and for all.
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Erin is the QUT Guild Education Officer for 2025. They are a revolutionary socialist and a member of Socialist Alternative. They have written articles for Glass and Red Flag on socialist politics and activism in Brisbane.
This piece was submitted for the 2025 Annual Edition of Glass.
