How politcially active are students of today if they are rated against their parents. The Australian Electoral Commission have recently published a study on student political activism within Australia. Below you can see the relative attitudes of students in 1987, 1992 and 2004 to various forms of protest.

It seems to portray a general perception that appealing to mainstream politics is a waste of time these days. In times past many more students believed that an effective form of protest was to write to the Prime Minister, their local politician or to the newspaper. Now students see little value in this form of protest. Perhaps it reflects a general perception that politicians these days are just not interested in listening to the ordinary person, and in particular, the young ordinary person. Politicians are seen as patronising and insincere, are cardinal sin when it comes to young people.

A consequence, sadly, is that a number see the alternative as violence. Whilst those who consider the use of violence, such as "Damaging things as a form of protest" and "Fighting with police", is still small it has significantly increased.

Consistent with gender stereo types young males are far more oriented to physcial action such as occupying buildings and young females to more abstract forms of protest such as writing letters.

So what issues would motivate students to protest. Possibly the war in Iraq, which the government wanted and most Australians didn't, has had an impact but "peace/anti-war movement" is the clear winner.

Generally it is the issues associated with more liberal attitudes that grab the attention and the enthusiasm of students, which makes you wonder what happens to them when they get older. How do we go, as a teenager, from a position of compassion for assylum seekers, belief in human rights and a rejection of war to a situation where the majority of Australians reelect a government that repudiates these very values?

It seems that our society manages to turn compassionate liberal young people into closeminded adults consumed by fear and selfishness that willingly swallow the messages of terror and greed dished out by the federal government; that are prepared to overlook the fact that we violate the UN conventions on the treatment of refugees and, in doing so, give traction to the very islamist activists of whom they are so scared.

A couple of days ago I was witness to a conversation on a bus where two late teenage girls, who were clearly the best of friends, were chattering away about things in general. It became clear as the conversation progressed that one was an Jew and the other a Muslim. This is the Australia that so many of us want. The best weapon against islamist terrorism is an Australia society where young Muslims, when they are approached by Islamist radicals, say "Get stuffed! Those people are my friends"

There are sad, isolated Muslims who are succeptible to this form of propoganda, just as there sad, isolated Christians, Jews and Hindus. We should be increasing social services to these people not placing them in a situation where they feel they have a righteous vindication for their misguided actions.

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