Flier
- Title
- Conscription - Advice and Discussion
- Imprint
- Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Melbourne, circa 1969
- Abstract
Leaflet of SDS "anti-conscription group" – for distribution to secondary students.
Note reference to "discussion and advisory service".The major campaign focus of SDS at the outset and for several years thereafter was opposition to conscription and the Vietnam War. It would not be far-fetched to say that in Melbourne, the campaign against conscription was led by SDS members, with Hamel-Green and Newell in particular being at the forefront. SDS played a key role in the eventual formation of the Draft Resisters Union (DRU).
The strong influence of pacifism within SDS meant the group initially often stood on the opposite side of anti-war debate to the Monash student radicals. This division began to erode when the more conservative leadership of the Moratorium movement in 1969 and 1970 appeared to be attempting to isolate student militants in general. A gradual rapprochement between the Monash Labor Club and SDS began to be discernible. - [Ken Mansell]