WEBVTT - How cancelling a Palestinian writer blew up Adelaide Writers Week 0:00:01.240 --> 0:00:09.840 I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to seven Am. It 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:13.400 started with the removal of a Palestinian author from Adelaide 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:17.480 Writer's Week and ended with the cancelation of the entire event. 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.439 The writer at the center of it all is Runder Abdulphutter. 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.520 Last week, the festival board said she'd been dropped for 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:29.840 cultural sensitivity after the Bondai terror attack. The decision sparked 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:33.560 a massive backlash, with more than one hundred writers pulling out, 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:38.519 including literary superstars and world leaders. Now the program director 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:42.280 and the festival board have all resigned and Australia's most 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:46.120 important writers festival is off today. 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.640 In Daily, journalist Helen Carracolac. 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:53.320 On questions of political influence and what the cancelation means 0:00:53.640 --> 0:01:09.040 for the future of the arts. It's Wednesday, January fourteenth. Helen, 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:11.680 thanks for speaking to us. When did you first get 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:12.560 wind of this story? 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:17.160 So I closely monitor arts news in essay, and Writers 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.440 Week in particular has had controversy around it in the past. 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:24.240 So I was monitoring the Writer's Week website last Thursday 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:27.440 on January eighth, and I noticed that the author doctor 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:31.400 Randa Abdolpheta. Her picture was removed from the website and 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.800 shortly after the festival board put out a statement confirming 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:37.640 that they had removed her. So we jumped on this 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:40.399 immediately because we knew as one of the most high 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.880 profile literary festivals in the country that this would be huge. 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:46.240 How did the board justify its decision? 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:49.520 So in the statement they said that it would not 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:54.520 be culturally sensitive to program Randa after the Bondai attacks. 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:56.960 But to be honest, we really haven't heard much from 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:01.160 the board at all, and it's really unclear what they've 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:03.160 been thinking in the lead up to this. 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.040 Can you tell me a bit more about Ruanda absolut flutter? 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.200 Who is she? Why she become so controversial? 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:09.839 Yeah? 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:14.800 Absolutely so. Ruanda is a Sydney Bourne, Palestinian author. She 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:19.840 wrote a novel in twenty twenty five called Discipline. That's 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.320 what she would have spoken about at Adelaide Ryder's Week 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:28.120 and Discipline is a novel that follows an academic and 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.480 a journalist navigating censorship in the wake of Israel's war 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:35.600 on Gaza. But she's been targeted because of past comments 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:39.680 that she's made and other media and critics point to 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:44.000 things like social media posts where after the October seven attacks, 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.800 she had a picture of a Palestinian paratrooper as her 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:50.400 profile picture. But Randa has made it very clear that 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:53.640 she's not anti Jewish, and she objects to what's happening 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.880 in Gaza and towards Palestinian people, but that she is 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:57.840 not anti Semitic. 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:01.760 Indeed, the first email that I received simply said that 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:06.959 I was being disinvited because of cultural insensitivity, because of 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:10.280 cultural sensitivities. It was only when I read the statement 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:12.240 on mind that I even learned about a reference to 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.040 so called past statements. And you know, a matter of 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:18.320 basic procedural fans as a former lawyer, but i'd be 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.040 entitled to know what those statements are. 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.440 Yeah, they've not specified which ones at this stage from 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:24.840 anything I've seen. Have you? 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:28.399 Do you believe you've made statements which are antisemitic? 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:33.720 No? Never, I reject that wholeheartedly. I stand for the 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:35.960 principle that we are all equal. I stand for the 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:40.600 rights to do Palestinians, Muslims, everybody of every racial and 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:43.600 religious group to live in freedom and equality and dignity. 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.440 I am simply a Palestinian who has a father who 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:49.520 is dispossessed of his land. I'm the daughter of a 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:53.560 refugee who is calling for an end to sett a colonization, apartheid, 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:55.200 in genocide. What's so wrong about that? 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:57.760 And very quickly after it was revealed that the board 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:01.800 had axed Abdul Fatta La and more writers started pulling out. 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:05.480 Who are some of them? And how significant was it? 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:09.240 It was extremely significant, And this happened very quickly and 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.040 it was changing by the minute. So within hours of 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.720 the announcement we had about thirty that pulled out. First 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.040 we had Peter Grest, who's a very well known journalist 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.440 for the time that he spent captive in Egypt. We 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:26.200 had Mars Franklin Award winner Michel de Kretza. We had 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:30.800 Jana Savara Farkas, the Greek finance minister who's also an author, 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.800 Zadie Smith. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda r Dern has 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:38.839 also dropped out, and the nationally loved authors Helen Ghana 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:41.520 and Trent Dalton were among them as well. 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:44.880 It's pretty hard to have a Writer's Week without Manny Ryders, though, 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.719 so was it inevitable that eventually the Writer's Week wouldn't 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:49.160 go ahead. 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:55.440 I think this was unprecedented, but not unpredictable. We knew 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:58.000 that the writers would have a passionate reaction to this. 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:00.760 We saw something similar happen at the end Togo Writers 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.320 Festival recently as well, where writers were asked to sign 0:05:04.360 --> 0:05:07.480 a code of conduct which limited what they were able 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.680 to speak out on and there was a boycott I 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:14.800 think of about fifty writers. Then this is definitely a 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:20.479 politically charged environment and it's a shame because Adelaide Festival 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.040 in twenty twenty five Writers Week alone had a record 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:27.600 breaking one hundred and sixty thousand attendees and that was 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:32.120 after forty years of programming this literary festival. The festival 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:35.920 is free, which also means that more people come along 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:39.000 and the writers have a better chance of making book sales. 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:42.720 This is going to have a massive impact on South Australia, 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.760 both as our reputation as the festival state, but also 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:49.560 because of the economic benefit that we're. 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:51.760 Losing coming up. 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.320 Even with the festival in crisis, the Premier still backs 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:58.400 the decision to act runder abdulphutter. 0:06:03.560 --> 0:06:03.800 Helen. 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:07.880 The South Australian Premier, Peter malinowskis he's been very vocal 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:10.599 in supporting the board, and we learned that he spoke 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.160 to the board before they made their announcement. 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:17.839 I made it very clear to the board, very clear 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:20.520 to the board that I did not think it was 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.520 wise to have someone who has been accused of anti 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:31.839 Semitism at best or done it at worst, appearing at 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:32.839 adlaied Ryder's Week. 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:35.719 Is that unusual and what is the connection between the 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:38.080 state government and the Adelaide Festival. 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.680 Yeah, so the state government funds the Adelaide Festival and 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:44.640 it is not as unusual as you might think for 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.440 the Premier to have his say. He has made his 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:51.160 view on certain Writers Week participants very clear in the past. 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.520 In twenty twenty three, he also said that he disagreed 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:58.120 with the participation of a Palestinian author. At the time, 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:03.080 that author had said controversial things about Ukraine, which caused 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:05.679 a few Ukrainian writers to pull out of the twenty 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:10.920 twenty three festival. But Malanowska said back then that he'd 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.239 considered defunding it, but chose not to because he didn't 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:18.200 want to take South Australia down a path where politicians 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:20.840 decide what is culturally appropriate. 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:25.320 And Balanowskis isn't legally allowed to direct the board. But 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.120 is there a sense that by making his position known 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:30.080 he could have influenced them? 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:32.600 Well, this is where everyone is toing and throwing at 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:36.440 the moment. So the Premier denies that he had influenced 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:36.840 the board. 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.640 Once that board is appointed, that completely independent as a 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:42.520 matter of law, as they well should be. That's a 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:45.720 principle that I support. Some of your opinions sought or 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.280 offered in this instance are both. 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.520 He said, though he made his opinion clear, he did 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:56.240 not pressure them. And the thing that keeps coming up 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.680 is that even if that's the case, the big question 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:02.880 is if the board agreed with this decision, why did 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:03.480 they resign? 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.280 Helen, What can you tell us about who was on 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.200 the board that made the decision. 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:08.840 Yeah. 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.600 So, at the time the decision was announced, the board 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:15.080 was chaired by Tracy Whiting. Some of their other members 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:20.400 included a council representative, a ad laid airport manager, a lawyer, 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.640 a journalist and public speaker. A big criticism of the 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:29.239 board is that there were not any artists or people 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.320 with arts expertise on it at the time. That this 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:37.720 decision was made. There have also been leaks coming out left, 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:41.760 right and center since this announcement. On Thursday, there was 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:45.080 a board member, Tony Berg. He is prominent in the 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:50.280 arts locally and previously chaired the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce. 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.280 So Tony Berg resigned from the Adelaide Festival board in 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:58.600 October twenty twenty five, and in his resignation letter, which 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:03.160 was leaked, very clear that he was against Randa's participation 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:04.080 in Riter's. 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:04.839 Week, Helen. 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:09.720 Even as this whole situation's imploded, Malinowskis has really doubled down. 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:12.400 Can you tell us what he said and how Runda 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:13.760 Abdulphatt is responding. 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:18.880 Yeah, So, doctor Ruanda Abdulphetar has taken legal action. She's 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.880 gotten her lawyers to already write to the board and 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:25.839 request further information about why they made the decision to 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:30.559 drop her. But the premiere. Although he has been clear 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:34.080 that he did not politically interfere, he did make his 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:40.400 opinion known after director Louis Adler's resignation on Tuesday. He 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:46.480 said that if the situation were reversed and a Zionist 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:50.520 had carried out an attack at a mosque. He would 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:55.360 also have held the same position and not let someone 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.080 who was a Zionist speak at Writer's Week in the 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:00.920 politically charge environment. 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.760 I mean, can you can you imagine if a far 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:11.679 role it's honest, walked in to a city mosque a 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:15.440 murdered fifty people. Can you imagine that? 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.160 As premier of this start, why would active. 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:23.000 Or support my far rights onest goron a writer as 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:26.440 wor exposing where it towards seven pole? 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:29.119 Of course something. 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:32.360 The reverse is happened with substance. 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:33.679 I'm not going to support that. 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:37.959 All the direct quote from the premiere Randa has considered 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:42.280 defamatory and is having emergency meetings with her lawyers about 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:43.520 how she's going to proceed. 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:48.240 Yesterday, the South Australian Arts Minister announced new board members 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:52.360 to replace those you've stepped down. Who are they and 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:54.719 what do their appointments tell us about the future of 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:55.400 the festival. 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.479 The new board members include an arts leader, a newsreader 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.840 and a fine nets guru. So it's quite an interesting makeup. 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:06.360 We've got the chair in Judy Potter, who has led 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.360 this same board before from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty three. 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:13.280 But the interesting one is Rob Brookman. Brookman is an 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:16.400 interesting appointment because he was a signatory to a letter 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:21.880 just a few days prior urging his predecessors to reinstate 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.840 Randa to the Writer's Week lineup. I think a lot 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:28.600 of attention will be on him to see what the 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:31.120 board does next. The new board is going to meet 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.480 for the first time on Wednesday and sort of carve 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.800 out a path for the twenty twenty six festival, which 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.760 will not include Adelaid Rider's Week. They do seem confident 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.959 that they'll bring back Adelaid Rider's Week in twenty twenty seven, 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:47.680 but I think there'll be a lot of questions around 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.160 what that looks like and who's able to speak. 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:53.360 The decision to program rund abdul Phutter in the first 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:58.120 place was presumably made by festival director Louise Adler, and 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:01.880 she's regularly invited pro Palace writers to her event in 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:05.240 the past, and on Tuesday before it was canceled, she 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:09.760 resigned saying she couldn't be party to silencing writers. Can 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:11.840 you tell us more about what Adler had to say 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.920 and about what this whole saga means for the future 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:17.800 of artistic expression in Australia. 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:21.480 Yeah, so we knew early on that Adler and her 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:24.920 team on the Riters Week's staff didn't agree with this decision, 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.080 so shortly after the announcement last Thursday, there was an 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:31.520 email that was leaked from the Writers Week programming team 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:34.960 where they said they absolutely supported Randa and thought she 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:39.400 was a valued participant. Then on Tuesday morning, when Adler 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:44.800 announced her resignation, she was pretty scathing. She called Adelaide 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:48.800 Radaswiek the canary in the coal mine and warned her 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:51.920 friends and arts colleagues that they should be aware of 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:56.079 the future and wrote that they are coming for you. 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:58.960 She said that the move is a threat to freedom 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:02.640 of speech and this has created a world where lobbying 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.600 and political pressure gets to determine who speaks. 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:11.080 Helen, thank you for joining us, thank you for having me. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:15.760 And just a note that the former chair of the 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:20.160 Adelaide Festival, Tracy Whiting, is also a director of Solstice Media, 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:35.560 the publisher of seven Am. Also in the news, Prime 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:39.120 Minister Anthony Alberanesi is calling for Parliament to join together 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:43.319 and pass an extensive bill changing offenses around hate crimes 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.880 and tightening gun laws, saying Australia needs a moment of 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:51.439 national unity. The draft of the Combating Anti Semitism, Hate 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:55.200 and Extremism Bill was released this week, which proposes to 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:59.520 create new offenses, increase penalties for existing hate crimes and 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:04.640 intant use additional security checks for anyone obtaining firearms. Labor 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:08.040 will need opposition or crossbench support to pass the legislation, 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:13.000 and Kevin Rudd's resignation as Australia's Ambassador to the United 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.440 States will be the end of his public life. The 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.800 former Labor Prime Minister says he will conclude his posting 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.760 on the thirty first of March to become the global 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:27.360 president of the international relations group the Asia Society, and 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:31.560 to head the society's Center for China Analysis. Prime Minister 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:36.040 Anthony Albernezi has denied a fractured relationship between Ambassador Rudd 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.720 and the Trump administration influenced the decision to step down 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:43.840 a year early. I'm Nicole Johnston. This is seven am. 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:44.760 See you tomorrow.