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Palestinian-Australian writer Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah has engaged a lawyer to demand clarity on why she has been removed from the Adelaide Writers’ Week line-up.
Last Thursday, the Adelaide Festival board announced that while it was not suggesting “in any way” that Abdel-Fattah or her writing had any connection with the Bondi attack, given her past statements “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi”.
Academic and writer Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah.
More than 50 top local and international writers have now boycotted the event including Zadie Smith, Masha Gessen, Helen Garner, Trent Dalton and Michelle de Kretser.
“What has happened to me is a litmus test because double standards show up quickly when it comes to Palestinians,” Abdel-Fattah told this masthead on Sunday.
“Many cultural bodies and politicians can defend human rights in the abstract, but struggle when it requires standing up to political pressure or accepting discomfort. Palestine is where commitments to anti-racism, free expression, and universal dignity are most often qualified.”
Michael Bradley of Marque Lawyers, representing Abdel-Fattah, said that “the moral indefensibility of the Adelaide Festival board’s actions has been amply evidenced by the reaction it’s provoked. It also trampled on Randa’s human rights, and the board will have to answer for that.”
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The legal letter specifies board members should “retain all documents in their possession, including emails, texts and messages on disappearing messaging apps” as these may be required for the purposes of litigation.
Three board members have since resigned from the Adelaide Festival. No official notification was provided but the names Daniela Ritorto, Donny Walford and Nick Linke have been removed from its website.
Speaking on Sunday at a Free Palestine rally in Melbourne, Palestine Advocacy Network president Nasser Mashni weighed into the debate.
“When the board of the Adelaide Writers’ Week said, ‘We don’t want you, Dr Randa, people will feel uncomfortable’ ... what did writers of good conscience do? They said, ‘F--- you. F--- you, [South Australian Premier Peter] Malinauskas. F--- you, Adelaide Writers’ Week.’”
Malinauskas has backed the literary event’s decision to remove Abdel-Fattah.
On Saturday, a letter signed by 11 former leaders of the festival condemned the board’s decision and called for its reversal. Signatories included Neil Armfield, Peter Goldsworthy, Jo Dyer, Kath Mainland and Peter Brookman.
“Wickedness thrives in darkness and prejudice thrives in ignorance born of silence,” the letter, sent to the festival board and Malinauskas, says.
“An about-face may be embarrassing but it is both the right thing to do and will cauterise the growing damage to this much loved and internationally significant South Australian cultural institution.”
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The Adelaide Festival board is now made up of Tracey Whiting, Leesa Chesser, Mary Couros, Brenton Cox and Jennifer Fuller (government observer). Chesser, a former South Australian state MP was a co-convener of the Parliamentary Friends of Israel group, established in 2014.
Sydney-based Abdel-Fattah had been scheduled to speak about her new novel, Discipline, which examines ideas of truth and censorship. In recent years, she has come under fire for past social media posts which said Zionists had “no claim to cultural safety” and that institutions that considered “fragile feelings of Zionists” were “abhorrent”.
She has also been criticised for use of an image of a parachutist under the Palestinian flag which she made her Facebook profile photo the day after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Adelaide Writers’ Week sits under the banner of the Adelaide Festival.
Louise Adler, who has helmed the writers’ week to great acclaim for the past three years, has not spoken publicly since the decision.
Jeremy Leibler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, said the decision to withdraw Abdel-Fattah’s invitation was correct.
“It is beyond comprehension how they extended the invitation in the first place to someone who has called for Zionists ... to have no cultural safety in this country,” he said. “Someone who days after the worst terrorist attack on Jewish civilians [October 7] that included the rape, murder and kidnapping of civilians, celebrated it as resistance.”
With Rachael Dexter
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