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Members lobby for human, animal rights
Irvington students form `anarchist' club
BY DANA HULL
Mercury News Staff Writer

Irvington High School has a chess club, a ski club and the Little Saigon
Vietnamese club. But a group of sophomores have recently formed the school's
first real political club and call themselves the Anarchist Student Union.

The club's goal is to bring issues such as sweatshop labor and the
controversial decisions of the Fremont school board to the forefront of
campus discussions. The students gather every Wednesday during their lunch
period and have a faculty adviser.

``We're surprised that we got the club approved,'' said club president Anna
Propas, 15. ``We're the misfits of Irvington. We don't conform to what
society thinks is normal.''

Anarchy technically means an absence of government and lack of order.
However, it has taken on different meanings and attracts adherents from
across the political spectrum. There are eco-anarchists, communist
anarchists, radical anarchists and libertarian anarchists. And not all
people who call themselves anarchists agree on the movement's terminology or
various schools of thought.

Anarchy has a long political history, both in the United States and abroad,
from the reform efforts of Emma Goldman during World War I and afterward to
the trial and execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in the
1920s. The explosive word often engenders images of pipe bombs and Molotov
cocktails, or black-clad young people in Seattle smashing Starbucks windows
during the recent World Trade Organization riots.

``When a lot of people think of anarchy, they think of violence,'' said Ian
Morris, 15. ``It's really a form of self-governance and self-rule. But most
people don't realize that.''

The universal symbol for anarchy -- an ``A'' in a circle -- appears
spray-painted at youth hangouts all over the Bay Area. And Bound Together
Books, an anarchist bookstore in San Francisco's Haight neighborhood, has
become a mecca for young people interested in learning more about the issue.

At Irvington, the small club is made up primarily of Anna and a dozen of her
friends, many of them vegans and vegetarians who care deeply about animal
rights. Several expressed frustration that their peers seem consumed by
shopping and buying the latest trendy consumer goods. But the students also
agreed that their immediate challenge is explaining to other students what
anarchy means.

Proponents say anarchy has become increasingly attractive to young people in
part because much of their behavior -- skateboarding, smoking, being late to
school, punk-rock fashion -- has been criminalized. The spate of school
shootings last year has inspired school districts across the country to
crack down with stringent dress codes, metal detectors and tough truancy
laws, leaving little room for the teenage rebellion once seen as a normal
rite of passage.

Irvington's students do not advocate total chaos, and in fact appear willing
to work within ``the system.'' Many anarchy club members regularly attend
Fremont Unified school board meetings, and have eloquently spoken to
trustees about the need to improve Irvington's honors program.

Irvington's administration also has been supportive of the club's efforts to
politicize the high school campus.

``Initially, the name anarchist sort of caught our attention,'' said
Irvington Principal Pete Murchison. ``But I'm a former social studies
teacher, and as a learning institution I think it's important that we give
kids a number of opportunities to connect with each other. They are very
politically active students, and they have a lot of insight as to what is
going on.''

This spring, the club plans to investigate whether the company that
manufactures graduation caps and gowns uses sweatshop labor and to push
school officials to find an alternative manufacturer.

Members say they hope to raise political awareness about global issues and
are articulate in expressing their point of view.

``Even the U.S. government has fallen into a lull on many important
free-trade issues concerning human rights and economic development in Third
World countries,'' said Anna Propas. ``It's not so much that they ignore the
issues but chose half solutions rather than facing the underlying issue or
the cause of the problem.''

Members of the Anarchist Student Union also hope to shake their fellow
students out of what they call political apathy.

``At Irvington everybody has their clique and they just like to follow along
with the crowd,'' said Ariel Schwitalla, 15. ``We're the salmon running
against the stream.''