On November 17th, the whole world welcomes the International Day of Students. This date marks 80 years after John Opental and 9 other student leaders were murdered by the Nazi occupation forces in Czechoslovakia. This episode marks the first act of students’ resistance against fascism. In the aftermath, 1200 Czechoslovak students are deported to the death camps.

It was also on November 17,1974, that the students of the Polytechnic School of Athens overthrew the military junta which, under the orders of NATO and Washington, ruled Greece through fascist terror.

The YCL-LJC supports the various organizations and events taking place in Canada and elsewhere in the world, to celebrate this day dedicated to student struggles. It is an important moment to remember the importance of the student movement’s actions throughout the world. 

Throughout the world, youth and the working class bear the burden of the systemic crisis of capitalism. This is why hundreds of thousands of students took the streets from Santiago to Bagdad against not only a series of austerity measures, but against regimes inherited by Pinochet or the US invasion.

In Canada, where the average student debt is $ 30,000 and it is estimated that 300,000 students are required to complete internships for which they are unpaid or poorly paid, the last year was also marked by a certain revival of mobilizations. In Québeec, tens of thousands of students went on strike against unpaid or poorly paid internships. In Ontario, students opposed Doug Ford’s attacks on education as a public service. Franco-Ontarians have even been able to force this conservative government to come back on his initial decision not to build a francophone university in Ontario. Across the country, last September, students played a key role in environmental mobilizations, in which close to one million people participated.

These are clear examples of why we need an organised, united and militant student movement; one that sees itself as part of the broader struggle against capitalism and imperialism, that targets big companies while building links with students across the world. This genuinely internationalist student movement is yet to be built in Canada, unfortunately.