Also known as the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism, there is little detail about the group on their website. 5A has been approached for comment.
Elizabeth McCarthy, program director of the Queenscliffe Literary Festival, which is held over two weekends in October, describes the actions of the authors who withdrew from Bendigo Writers Festival as “deeply admirable”.
“As festival curators we should call this what it is: a vicious campaign against particular writers and against the existence of Bendigo Writers Festival itself,” she alleges.
“It is deeply admirable that writers have pushed back in solidarity and said, ‘we won’t be hounded like this and we are boycotting’.”
Lucy Hayward, at the Australian Society of Authors, agrees, saying she heard from several authors after the Bendigo festival fallout.
“We are becoming increasingly concerned about the overreach we’re seeing in codes of conduct for public appearances, which has the effect of stifling freedom of expression,” she says.
“Freedom of expression is a fundamental right, and the work of authors needs to be respected and valued,” the ASA said in a statement.
“Of particular concern is when sponsors of festival sessions seek to impose guidelines around appropriate and inappropriate speech… Authors are engaged by festivals precisely because of their expression of ideas.”
Elizabeth McCarthy, the program director of the Queenscliffe Literary Festival.Credit: Suzanne Phoenix
Webb argues there is no need for codes of conduct because legislation is already in place. “You’re operating within the bounds of the law – that’s the code of conduct, but that’s with everything, it’s not just festivals.”
Two years ago, Webb wrote a statement called On Freedom of Expression, which sits on the Sydney Writers’ Festival website. “Not long after October 7 [2023] we could see that these conversations were going to be very emotive and very polarising. I crafted that [piece] on freedom of expression and why it’s so important. That has helped us define, articulate and talk about our values,” she says.
This year, more than 100,000 people attended the SWF in May, including an impressive cohort of twenty-somethings, Webb says. “We [had] a number of Jewish-Israeli authors, we also had a number of Arab-Australian voices, and Palestinian voices, and we want to hear their lived experiences.
“We need to get much more comfortable with difficult, complicated conversations.”
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