Speaker 1: I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to seven Am. It
Speaker 1: started with the removal of a Palestinian author from Adelaide
Speaker 1: Writer's Week and ended with the cancelation of the entire event.
Speaker 1: The writer at the center of it all is Runder Abdulphutter.
Speaker 1: Last week, the festival board said she'd been dropped for
Speaker 1: cultural sensitivity after the Bondai terror attack. The decision sparked
Speaker 1: a massive backlash, with more than one hundred writers pulling out,
Speaker 1: including literary superstars and world leaders. Now the program director
Speaker 1: and the festival board have all resigned and Australia's most
Speaker 1: important writers festival is off today.
Speaker 2: In Daily, journalist Helen Carracolac.
Speaker 1: On questions of political influence and what the cancelation means
Speaker 1: for the future of the arts. It's Wednesday, January fourteenth. Helen,
Speaker 1: thanks for speaking to us. When did you first get
Speaker 1: wind of this story?
Speaker 3: So I closely monitor arts news in essay, and Writers
Speaker 3: Week in particular has had controversy around it in the past.
Speaker 3: So I was monitoring the Writer's Week website last Thursday
Speaker 3: on January eighth, and I noticed that the author doctor
Speaker 3: Randa Abdolpheta. Her picture was removed from the website and
Speaker 3: shortly after the festival board put out a statement confirming
Speaker 3: that they had removed her. So we jumped on this
Speaker 3: immediately because we knew as one of the most high
Speaker 3: profile literary festivals in the country that this would be huge.
Speaker 2: How did the board justify its decision?
Speaker 3: So in the statement they said that it would not
Speaker 3: be culturally sensitive to program Randa after the Bondai attacks.
Speaker 3: But to be honest, we really haven't heard much from
Speaker 3: the board at all, and it's really unclear what they've
Speaker 3: been thinking in the lead up to this.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a bit more about Ruanda absolut flutter?
Speaker 2: Who is she? Why she become so controversial?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Absolutely so. Ruanda is a Sydney Bourne, Palestinian author. She
Speaker 3: wrote a novel in twenty twenty five called Discipline. That's
Speaker 3: what she would have spoken about at Adelaide Ryder's Week
Speaker 3: and Discipline is a novel that follows an academic and
Speaker 3: a journalist navigating censorship in the wake of Israel's war
Speaker 3: on Gaza. But she's been targeted because of past comments
Speaker 3: that she's made and other media and critics point to
Speaker 3: things like social media posts where after the October seven attacks,
Speaker 3: she had a picture of a Palestinian paratrooper as her
Speaker 3: profile picture. But Randa has made it very clear that
Speaker 3: she's not anti Jewish, and she objects to what's happening
Speaker 3: in Gaza and towards Palestinian people, but that she is
Speaker 3: not anti Semitic.
Speaker 4: Indeed, the first email that I received simply said that
Speaker 4: I was being disinvited because of cultural insensitivity, because of
Speaker 4: cultural sensitivities. It was only when I read the statement
Speaker 4: on mind that I even learned about a reference to
Speaker 4: so called past statements. And you know, a matter of
Speaker 4: basic procedural fans as a former lawyer, but i'd be
Speaker 4: entitled to know what those statements are.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they've not specified which ones at this stage from
Speaker 5: anything I've seen. Have you?
Speaker 2: Do you believe you've made statements which are antisemitic?
Speaker 4: No? Never, I reject that wholeheartedly. I stand for the
Speaker 4: principle that we are all equal. I stand for the
Speaker 4: rights to do Palestinians, Muslims, everybody of every racial and
Speaker 4: religious group to live in freedom and equality and dignity.
Speaker 4: I am simply a Palestinian who has a father who
Speaker 4: is dispossessed of his land. I'm the daughter of a
Speaker 4: refugee who is calling for an end to sett a colonization, apartheid,
Speaker 4: in genocide. What's so wrong about that?
Speaker 1: And very quickly after it was revealed that the board
Speaker 1: had axed Abdul Fatta La and more writers started pulling out.
Speaker 1: Who are some of them? And how significant was it?
Speaker 3: It was extremely significant, And this happened very quickly and
Speaker 3: it was changing by the minute. So within hours of
Speaker 3: the announcement we had about thirty that pulled out. First
Speaker 3: we had Peter Grest, who's a very well known journalist
Speaker 3: for the time that he spent captive in Egypt. We
Speaker 3: had Mars Franklin Award winner Michel de Kretza. We had
Speaker 3: Jana Savara Farkas, the Greek finance minister who's also an author,
Speaker 3: Zadie Smith. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda r Dern has
Speaker 3: also dropped out, and the nationally loved authors Helen Ghana
Speaker 3: and Trent Dalton were among them as well.
Speaker 1: It's pretty hard to have a Writer's Week without Manny Ryders, though,
Speaker 1: so was it inevitable that eventually the Writer's Week wouldn't
Speaker 1: go ahead.
Speaker 3: I think this was unprecedented, but not unpredictable. We knew
Speaker 3: that the writers would have a passionate reaction to this.
Speaker 3: We saw something similar happen at the end Togo Writers
Speaker 3: Festival recently as well, where writers were asked to sign
Speaker 3: a code of conduct which limited what they were able
Speaker 3: to speak out on and there was a boycott I
Speaker 3: think of about fifty writers. Then this is definitely a
Speaker 3: politically charged environment and it's a shame because Adelaide Festival
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty five Writers Week alone had a record
Speaker 3: breaking one hundred and sixty thousand attendees and that was
Speaker 3: after forty years of programming this literary festival. The festival
Speaker 3: is free, which also means that more people come along
Speaker 3: and the writers have a better chance of making book sales.
Speaker 3: This is going to have a massive impact on South Australia,
Speaker 3: both as our reputation as the festival state, but also
Speaker 3: because of the economic benefit that we're.
Speaker 2: Losing coming up.
Speaker 1: Even with the festival in crisis, the Premier still backs
Speaker 1: the decision to act runder abdulphutter.
Speaker 2: Helen.
Speaker 1: The South Australian Premier, Peter malinowskis he's been very vocal
Speaker 1: in supporting the board, and we learned that he spoke
Speaker 1: to the board before they made their announcement.
Speaker 5: I made it very clear to the board, very clear
Speaker 5: to the board that I did not think it was
Speaker 5: wise to have someone who has been accused of anti
Speaker 5: Semitism at best or done it at worst, appearing at
Speaker 5: adlaied Ryder's Week.
Speaker 1: Is that unusual and what is the connection between the
Speaker 1: state government and the Adelaide Festival.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the state government funds the Adelaide Festival and
Speaker 3: it is not as unusual as you might think for
Speaker 3: the Premier to have his say. He has made his
Speaker 3: view on certain Writers Week participants very clear in the past.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty three, he also said that he disagreed
Speaker 3: with the participation of a Palestinian author. At the time,
Speaker 3: that author had said controversial things about Ukraine, which caused
Speaker 3: a few Ukrainian writers to pull out of the twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three festival. But Malanowska said back then that he'd
Speaker 3: considered defunding it, but chose not to because he didn't
Speaker 3: want to take South Australia down a path where politicians
Speaker 3: decide what is culturally appropriate.
Speaker 1: And Balanowskis isn't legally allowed to direct the board. But
Speaker 1: is there a sense that by making his position known
Speaker 1: he could have influenced them?
Speaker 3: Well, this is where everyone is toing and throwing at
Speaker 3: the moment. So the Premier denies that he had influenced
Speaker 3: the board.
Speaker 5: Once that board is appointed, that completely independent as a
Speaker 5: matter of law, as they well should be. That's a
Speaker 5: principle that I support. Some of your opinions sought or
Speaker 5: offered in this instance are both.
Speaker 3: He said, though he made his opinion clear, he did
Speaker 3: not pressure them. And the thing that keeps coming up
Speaker 3: is that even if that's the case, the big question
Speaker 3: is if the board agreed with this decision, why did
Speaker 3: they resign?
Speaker 1: Helen, What can you tell us about who was on
Speaker 1: the board that made the decision.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, at the time the decision was announced, the board
Speaker 3: was chaired by Tracy Whiting. Some of their other members
Speaker 3: included a council representative, a ad laid airport manager, a lawyer,
Speaker 3: a journalist and public speaker. A big criticism of the
Speaker 3: board is that there were not any artists or people
Speaker 3: with arts expertise on it at the time. That this
Speaker 3: decision was made. There have also been leaks coming out left,
Speaker 3: right and center since this announcement. On Thursday, there was
Speaker 3: a board member, Tony Berg. He is prominent in the
Speaker 3: arts locally and previously chaired the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce.
Speaker 3: So Tony Berg resigned from the Adelaide Festival board in
Speaker 3: October twenty twenty five, and in his resignation letter, which
Speaker 3: was leaked, very clear that he was against Randa's participation
Speaker 3: in Riter's.
Speaker 2: Week, Helen.
Speaker 1: Even as this whole situation's imploded, Malinowskis has really doubled down.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us what he said and how Runda
Speaker 1: Abdulphatt is responding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, doctor Ruanda Abdulphetar has taken legal action. She's
Speaker 3: gotten her lawyers to already write to the board and
Speaker 3: request further information about why they made the decision to
Speaker 3: drop her. But the premiere. Although he has been clear
Speaker 3: that he did not politically interfere, he did make his
Speaker 3: opinion known after director Louis Adler's resignation on Tuesday. He
Speaker 3: said that if the situation were reversed and a Zionist
Speaker 3: had carried out an attack at a mosque. He would
Speaker 3: also have held the same position and not let someone
Speaker 3: who was a Zionist speak at Writer's Week in the
Speaker 3: politically charge environment.
Speaker 5: I mean, can you can you imagine if a far
Speaker 5: role it's honest, walked in to a city mosque a
Speaker 5: murdered fifty people. Can you imagine that?
Speaker 4: As premier of this start, why would active.
Speaker 5: Or support my far rights onest goron a writer as
Speaker 5: wor exposing where it towards seven pole?
Speaker 2: Of course something.
Speaker 4: The reverse is happened with substance.
Speaker 5: I'm not going to support that.
Speaker 3: All the direct quote from the premiere Randa has considered
Speaker 3: defamatory and is having emergency meetings with her lawyers about
Speaker 3: how she's going to proceed.
Speaker 1: Yesterday, the South Australian Arts Minister announced new board members
Speaker 1: to replace those you've stepped down. Who are they and
Speaker 1: what do their appointments tell us about the future of
Speaker 1: the festival.
Speaker 3: The new board members include an arts leader, a newsreader
Speaker 3: and a fine nets guru. So it's quite an interesting makeup.
Speaker 3: We've got the chair in Judy Potter, who has led
Speaker 3: this same board before from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: But the interesting one is Rob Brookman. Brookman is an
Speaker 3: interesting appointment because he was a signatory to a letter
Speaker 3: just a few days prior urging his predecessors to reinstate
Speaker 3: Randa to the Writer's Week lineup. I think a lot
Speaker 3: of attention will be on him to see what the
Speaker 3: board does next. The new board is going to meet
Speaker 3: for the first time on Wednesday and sort of carve
Speaker 3: out a path for the twenty twenty six festival, which
Speaker 3: will not include Adelaid Rider's Week. They do seem confident
Speaker 3: that they'll bring back Adelaid Rider's Week in twenty twenty seven,
Speaker 3: but I think there'll be a lot of questions around
Speaker 3: what that looks like and who's able to speak.
Speaker 1: The decision to program rund abdul Phutter in the first
Speaker 1: place was presumably made by festival director Louise Adler, and
Speaker 1: she's regularly invited pro Palace writers to her event in
Speaker 1: the past, and on Tuesday before it was canceled, she
Speaker 1: resigned saying she couldn't be party to silencing writers. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us more about what Adler had to say
Speaker 1: and about what this whole saga means for the future
Speaker 1: of artistic expression in Australia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we knew early on that Adler and her
Speaker 3: team on the Riters Week's staff didn't agree with this decision,
Speaker 3: so shortly after the announcement last Thursday, there was an
Speaker 3: email that was leaked from the Writers Week programming team
Speaker 3: where they said they absolutely supported Randa and thought she
Speaker 3: was a valued participant. Then on Tuesday morning, when Adler
Speaker 3: announced her resignation, she was pretty scathing. She called Adelaide
Speaker 3: Radaswiek the canary in the coal mine and warned her
Speaker 3: friends and arts colleagues that they should be aware of
Speaker 3: the future and wrote that they are coming for you.
Speaker 3: She said that the move is a threat to freedom
Speaker 3: of speech and this has created a world where lobbying
Speaker 3: and political pressure gets to determine who speaks.
Speaker 1: Helen, thank you for joining us, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: And just a note that the former chair of the
Speaker 1: Adelaide Festival, Tracy Whiting, is also a director of Solstice Media,
Speaker 1: the publisher of seven Am. Also in the news, Prime
Speaker 1: Minister Anthony Alberanesi is calling for Parliament to join together
Speaker 1: and pass an extensive bill changing offenses around hate crimes
Speaker 1: and tightening gun laws, saying Australia needs a moment of
Speaker 1: national unity. The draft of the Combating Anti Semitism, Hate
Speaker 1: and Extremism Bill was released this week, which proposes to
Speaker 1: create new offenses, increase penalties for existing hate crimes and
Speaker 1: intant use additional security checks for anyone obtaining firearms. Labor
Speaker 1: will need opposition or crossbench support to pass the legislation,
Speaker 1: and Kevin Rudd's resignation as Australia's Ambassador to the United
Speaker 1: States will be the end of his public life. The
Speaker 1: former Labor Prime Minister says he will conclude his posting
Speaker 1: on the thirty first of March to become the global
Speaker 1: president of the international relations group the Asia Society, and
Speaker 1: to head the society's Center for China Analysis. Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Anthony Albernezi has denied a fractured relationship between Ambassador Rudd
Speaker 1: and the Trump administration influenced the decision to step down
Speaker 1: a year early. I'm Nicole Johnston. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: See you tomorrow.