Excellent OpEd by Richard Flanagan on the significance of @adelaidefest canceling @RandaAFattah
https://x.com/MaryKostakidis/status/2009620423445766346
‘With Australians horrified by the Bondi mass murder, insidiously linking a writer with that massacre is an appalling slander, vile in itself. But in saying one Australian writer cannot speak, inevitably more and more Australian writers will find themselves also unable to speak – first at festivals, soon in universities, then on public broadcasters.
And the categories of what is unsayable and who is silenced will inevitably grow. Today it is Gaza, but next it could be the environment or social policy. As we see in the United States, the slippery categories of terrorism and community cohesion are ever-growing as forces of oppression.
Randa Abdel-Fattah is charged with having given profound offence with past social media posts – but then so too has Tony Abbott been charged with giving profound offence to many Indigenous Australians in the past. Both have new books out, both were invited to speak at the AWW, yet only Tony Abbott remains welcome. Some may not like what Randa Abdel-Fattah has to say, but then others may not like what pro-Israel writers who are also to speak at AWW have to say either. And that is the point – all deserve to be heard.
It is no secret that this decision came about because of intense political pressure from the South Australian government. The festival board’s statement clearly implies this and goes further by announcing a new “special committee” to oversee all future programming that will have “ongoing engagement with relevant Government agencies and the appointment and/or advice of external experts”. For special committee read political commissars overseen by the state. For external experts read lobby groups. And yet we know that a society that allows its politicians and special interest groups to decide who gets to speak and who doesn’t is on a dangerous path.’
posted by Satish Sharma at
02:36
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