Festival boss stares down author, sponsor cancellations
Louise Adler was hoping for a civil conversation in a garden about books.
Instead, the director of Adelaide Writers’ Week is dealing with calls to resign, allegations she has invited authors of hate speech and writers and sponsors pulling out.
“I’m not running a political festival here, I’m running a literary festival,” she told AAP.
The controversy began with statements by two authors on Adler’s bill, Palestinian American Susan Abulhawa and Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd.
Among other comments, El-Kurd has compared the state of Israel to the Nazi regime, while Abulhawa has declared “DeNazify Ukraine” on Twitter, a line used to justify Putin’s invasion.
This prompted Ukrainian writers Olesya Khromeychuk and Kateryna Babkina to withdraw from the event, together with Ukrainian-Australian Maria Tumarkin, who argued the Palestinian writers’ commentary was a form of “genocide cheering”.
“They do not exist in the space of discourse only and do not represent something that can be classified as merely a contentious political opinion,” she said in an online statement.
Louise Adler AAP Image/Kristoffer Paulsen
Adler is disappointed the writers have pulled out.
“They’ve opted to step away, which is their prerogative, thank God we live in a democracy, you can choose not to come, you can choose not to engage,” she said.
She argues the Palestinian authors were invited for their books rather than their tweets and cautioned that with more than 150 other writers participating and 44,000 tickets sold, there is no mass exodus underway.
But sponsors are quitting too, with Minter Ellison withdrawing after five years of backing Writers’ Week.
“We do not agree with those views. We have strongly expressed our reservations to the festival,” the law firm said in a statement.
In a recent letter to The Australian, Black Inc publisher Morry Schwartz said Adler had invited authors of hate speech, an allegation she rejects, and has called on her to resign.
“I won’t dignify that with a response,” Adler said.
“You have to think what is behind the outrage? Why do we not have space for people who have dissenting views to actually articulate them?”
Tumarkin has declined to be interviewed, but she believes Australian literary festivals are simply not robust enough to handle writers with irreconcilable views about genocide or ongoing wars.
“Tolerance, difference of opinion, dialogue, openness, civic discourse… they’re useless in the face of dehumanisation and violence…” Tumarkin said.
Ironically, the festival’s theme for 2023 was “Truth be Told” – a look at relativism, truth in fiction and the importance of truth in an age of misinformation.
It gets better: “The world has finally reopened, and we are discovering our social selves, our pleasure in gathering together,” Adler enthuses in her program introduction.
Writers’ Week isn’t the only festival to face controversy and cancellations, with several artists pulling out of Bluesfest after controversial Sydney band Sticky Fingers was added to the line-up.
Author Dennis Glover, a guest of Writer’s Week in 2021 whose books are published by Schwartz’s Black Inc, believes writers should insist on reasoned public debate and refuse to play along with crackdowns on speech.
“If you’re a progressive, you have to believe in two things. You have to believe in democracy and you have to believe in freedom of speech and you can’t really make exceptions,” he said.
“All we manage to do by calling for people not to be heard is undermine our own respect for freedom of speech and democracy and we train people to think that’s okay, when it’s not.”
Glover said that ultimately, what happens in Adelaide would have very little effect on conflicts in the rest of the world, and on this point at least, Tumarkin agrees.
“Literary festivals are just, you know, festivals. They are not hallowed spaces, they are not public squares. The blood of the nation doesn’t travel through them to the nation’s brain all that often,” she said.
“With all the controversy, it’s a wonder anyone has time for books. At any rate, a garden in Adelaide sounds like a nice place to read one.”
The co-CEO of the The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Alex Ryvchin, told J-Wire: “The festival organisers have shown a serious failure of judgement. The explanation that they are fostering debate and supporting free speech by platforming antisemites is nothing short of extraordinary. No other form of prejudice would be excused in this way. If this were about debate or diversity of views, there would be pro-peace Palestinians and mainstream Jewish and Israeli writers present. It is about amplifying the views of the festival director.
Adelaide Writers’ Week goes from March 4 to March 9 at the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Gardens.
AAP/J-Wire
Dennis Glover is naive. Would he make no exceptions then for known fascists speaking at Adelaide Writers Festival, for a book such as Mein Kampf to pose as literature? Does he really believe it’s useful to hear views that are laced with hatred and that have an agenda in accordance with that? Being the progressive he pronounces himself to be, does he really believe in the black and white stances he proposes, without nuance, without exception?! How is that progressive in real terms?
Louise Adler should recognise her mistake and rectify it. She will not come well out of this despite her protestations. Her history of ‘neutrality’ and objectivity in relation to everything that might be discussed, no matter the realities on the ground, and her intellectual rhetoric in regard to it, does nothing but bolster self-image.
Adler has form ,she appeared as Notorious and obesssed anti Israel activist Antony Loewensteins Editor and friend at the Al,Age writers festival along with other Israel critics Robert Richter and Julian Burnside telling the packed anti Israel audience what a great guy their friend Antony was .