Writers’ Week wrecked by power, parochialism and a Premier’s conscience

Dr. A once world-leading literary festival has been reduced to rubble by political interference, narrow-minded thinking and a Prime Minister who mistakes personal conscience for public duty, writes Michael Galvin.

There was a period in the 1970s when South Australia was known for two things: Arts Festival/Writers’ Week and the State Premier, Don DunstanA flamboyant champion of all forms of art, including Writers’ Week.

Every two years, university graduate students from across Australia would save their money to travel to what used to be called, without irony, the “Athens of the South”. To see the performance of likes Peter Brook, Philip Glass, Michael Nyman et al. And go to Writers’ Week.

Adelaide was rightly seen as the Australian leader in the internationally significant Arts Festival and Writers’ Week. In the Australian national context, he was the undisputed leader, not the follower. Margaret Atwood goes even further, saying Adelaide led the way not just in Australia but around the world.

Now, of course, every regional town and village trying to attract tourist money has some sort of writers’ festival, and most capital cities have followed in Adelaide’s footsteps and established their own annual arts festivals. Adelaide’s lead was followed by the rest of Australia.

When this writer moved to Adelaide in 1990, Adelaide Writers’ Week was still the Australia’s literary event of the year for writers and readers. And until a week or so ago it probably still was.

While a key factor was undoubtedly the quality of writers willing to travel to Adelaide to speak at Writers’ Week, its success also had to do with the general atmosphere: the ease of mingling with famous writers from around the world, an urban city with a liberal political class and a reputation for tolerance, balmy Mediterranean weather, gorgeous parkland close to the CBD.

Adelaide Writers’ Week had it all, including a leader. Louise AdlerThe person who ensured that Writers’ Week remained at the top in recent years.

Now, of course, Writers’ Week 2026 is nothing more than a pit of nothingness, its reputation in tatters, the focus of recriminations and general malice, the cowardly behavior of people who should know better, and a Prime Minister who seems so stubborn in his own struggle. “social harmony” And “cultural sensitivity” (sic!) He doesn’t realize how much his own reputation has been destroyed in just a few days.

premier Peter Malinauskas He proves that the art community’s suspicions were right: he cares (and probably knows) golf, race cars, and football much more than art.

In South Australia you learn to live with a certain degree of cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, anything that seems world-class is celebrated with great enthusiasm, but with a touch too defensive. (“Look at what we’ve achieved in little old Adelaide. Whatever you guys in Sydney or Melbourne think, aren’t we great?”)

On the other hand, the feeling of being small and far from the national or international spotlight produces a kind of lobotomy effect: Nothing that happens here will be noticed or matter much by the wider world, so it doesn’t really matter what happens here. Do whatever you want. Nobody else will care. Local is the name of the game.

This tension results in Adelaide simultaneously acting like a smaller version of a city like Sydney or Melbourne, and as if it were just another, slightly larger, insular country town.

The Writers’ Week debacle makes it absolutely clear that the latter is more true than the former. After the collapse of the Union Bendigo Writers Festival It is inexplicable that last year the Festival Board and the Prime Minister failed to see what the consequences of their actions and decisions would be. Local forces acting as if it would go unnoticed by anyone, as if it were a minor incident in their own small city.

For example, when the migration of writers accelerated immediately after the outbreak of the crisis, Norman Schülerrepresentative Jewish Community Council of South Australiahe said it was “I was very surprised” through boycott. I’m not just surprised, not too surprised, but very surprised A lot surprised.

One wonders what circles (or echo chamber) Schueler had to step into after Bendigo six months ago. But his reaction and the initial response of the Festival Board anonymous statement – so many greasy words, so little real meat – kind of proves the point about local insularity.

Interestingly, the number of Jews living in South Australia was 1,145. SA Government website.

Not all of them are Zionists, so the community for which Schueler speaks so bravely is actually small. But he clearly has the Prime Minister’s ear. HE that’s what he told us.

Judging by the January 2 decision, the Prime Minister appears to be living in a similar narrow-minded echo chamber the letter he wrote It was handed over to the Festival Board of Directors and on January 11 to the Murdoch media, whose relentless, dramatic support for Israel’s actions seems to have no limits.

The only principle that seems important in the Prime Minister’s letter is what his individual conscience tells him is right. There is no mention of Bendigo, no awareness that this could happen in Adelaide as well. There was no awareness that what he was asking for would likely lead to the collapse of Writers’ Week. There is no awareness that he may have misunderstood the facts of what happened Thomas Friedman at the previous Writers’ Week.

Not only do we have a letter on record from the previous Board Chairman refuting Friedman’s claim that he was not invited, but Malinauskas is so censorship focused that he actually praises the Board for this separate egregious act of censorship, if it actually happened.

Winners and losers

There is no clear winner in this sad story. But there are many losers.

The biggest loser was the Prime Minister. Never again will Peter Malinauskas swoop down North Terrace like a Colossus, past most of Adelaide’s universities and arts institutions. His reputation as a man of proud virtue, always capable of knowing what was best for his state, is over. Writers’ Week was destroyed on his watch.

The Prime Minister’s Labor MPs were also damaged. What have we heard from them about this crisis? Crickets. Are we really to believe that all these MPs believe that Malinauskas’s much-quoted conscience (especially in relation to himself) is a more accurate guide to moral and political reality than the 180 or so writers from around the world who have withdrawn from the event on the issue of conscience?

Books and readers are among the obvious losers, as are those whose income depends on such events (authors, publishers, the hospitality industry and the staff who make Writers’ Week a unique event). (Malinauskas, in one of the disturbing interviews he conducted in the days following his dismissal) Randa AbdülfettahHe claimed that the state did not lose any income because the festival was largely free. The downstream impacts on the livelihoods of many people who lose income seem to be little on his mind.)

The Zionist cause is also a loser. These people may have won the battle to have a Palestinian Australian writer removed from the programme, but at the cost of many more people asking questions about the insidious lobbying going on behind the scenes. It would do their cause no good to play any part in the destruction of the most important literary event in Australia.

Questions will be asked not only about how and what role lobby groups played in this decision. But more generally about the role of behind-the-scenes lobby groups in Australia. (A good example is the Zionist lobby on any issue related to the State of Israel’s actions against Palestinians since October 7.)

And the renewed focus on the politics of the Gaza genocide doesn’t help the Zionist cause either – the term is used here too. United Nations report into the subject.

Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah’s hearing may have been cancelled. Yet opinion polls It shows that the majority of Australians believe Israel’s war in Gaza is deeply wrong.

winners

In addition to selling more books than he probably imagined, Abdülfettah front page story Her decision to retract the invitation led to her views, past and present, being made more public than she would have achieved in hundreds of Writers’ Weeks.

And despite Malinauskas’s dire warnings in his letter of January 2 that Abdel Fattah’s ideas, if voiced loudly at the Festival, would lead to the collapse of social harmony and great harm, the sky did not fall.

What’s next?

First of all, it is hoped that the insult case against the Prime Minister will continue. just as Bruce Lehrmann While the libel trial brought much-needed clarity to dark, unpleasant, and ultimately criminal words and actions, the same process of disclosure can occur here as well. What does “cultural security” mean? What is the proper use of a Prime Minister’s power? When is the line crossed when a Prime Minister decides to go after someone? What does the Prime Minister mean by ‘full of hate’? And so on.

Secondly, Albanese’s ersatz is hoped for. Royal Commission Hate speech, antisemitism and related issues will investigate this entire dishonorable issue.

It’s impossible to believe it these words The last people we will hear about Peter Malinauskas are:

“Can you imagine if a far-right Zionist walked into a mosque in Sydney and killed 15 people? Can you imagine that, as Premier of this state, I would actively support a far-right Zionist going to Writers’ Week and spouting hateful rhetoric against Islamists? Of course I wouldn’t.”

Dr Michael Galvin is an adjunct researcher at the University of Victoria and a former media and communications academic at the University of Victoria. University of South Australia.

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