Former Greek finance minister and international author Yanis Varoufakis is among a growing list of prominent writers who have withdrawn from Adelaide Writers’ Week in protest over the cancellation of an event featuring Palestinian Australian author, lawyer and activist Randa Abdel-Fattah.
Varoufakis’ withdrawal adds international weight to the boycott, which now includes Miles Franklin winners Michelle de Kretser and Melissa Lucashenko, alongside journalists, academics and writers such as Peter Greste, Evelyn Araluen, Amy McQuire, Clare Wright, Chelsea Watego, Bernadette Brennan and Amy Remeikis.
The protest follows a decision by the Adelaide Festival Board to cancel Abdel-Fattah’s scheduled appearance, where she was to discuss her new novel Discipline, set during Ramadan and centred on the lives of two Muslim characters from different parts of the world.
In a statement, the Adelaide Festival Board said it would “not be culturally sensitive to continue to program [Abdel-Fattah] at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi,” referring to the Bondi Beach shooting in December.
The board said it was reviewing festival operations in light of the “current national community context” and its role in “promoting community cohesion.”
“This suite of decisions has been taken with the genuine view that they provide the best opportunity for the success and support of the Adelaide Festival, for Adelaide Writers’ Week and the communities we seek to serve and engage,” the board said.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas confirmed his government supported the board’s decision.
Abdel-Fattah responded on Instagram, describing her removal as a “blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.”
“What makes this so egregiously racist is that the Adelaide Writers Festival Board [sic] has stripped me of my humanity and agency, reducing me to an object onto which others can project their racist fears and smears,” she wrote.
She said the decision was a “despicable attempt to associate me with the Bondi massacre” and predicted further withdrawals, citing a similar mass boycott of the Bendigo Writers Festival last year.
The controversy has reignited debate about artistic freedom, censorship and the growing influence of risk management and commercial considerations on arts programming, as Adelaide Writers’ Week prepares to begin on February 27.
Source: ABC News
