A former director of Adelaide Writers' Week says this year's beleaguered literary event is "untenable" as organisers admit they've received a "significant" community response to a decision to drop a Palestinian Australian author.
But there's no official word yet on whether the event will proceed without a majority of its scheduled speakers, who've announced they will no longer appear following the removal of author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah from the program.
The Adelaide Festival board last week said Abdel-Fattah would no longer appear at Adelaide Writers' Week because it would not be "culturally sensitive" following the Bondi Beach terror attack referring to "past statements" she had made, which they did not specify.
SBS News on Sunday reported that three board members, as well as the chair, resigned following a crisis meeting, after the number of authors cancelling their scheduled appearance reportedly hit close to 100.
An Adelaide Festival spokesperson confirmed on Monday afternoon that former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern had also withdrawn from the festival, but did not provide details about when she withdrew or her reasons.
Jo Dyer, who was director of Adelaide Writers' Week until 2022, said this year's event — due to start on 28 February — was "untenable" without 80 per cent of its scheduled writers.
"It has virtually no writers left in its lineup," Dyer told SBS News.
She said it was a "sad state of affairs" to watch the festival turmoil amid the "unprecedented" turn of events.
"It's only been a few days that this crisis has engulfed the organisation," Dyer said.
"I have heard of nothing, ever in the history of the festival which has undermined the international standing of the Adelaide Festival as much as the events of the last few days."
It's estimated around 80 writers have cancelled their appearance at the Adelaide Writers' Week event. Source: AAP / Joanna Kordina
She said she didn't agree with the "egregious incursion on the principle of freedom of artistic expression" made by the board's decision.
"People come to these events specifically to hear views with which they may not be familiar. Some of them are going to be uncomfortable. Some of them, people are going to disagree with, a bit mildly or vehemently," she said.
"But what writers forums like Writers' Week have shown is that if we are able to have these conversations in civilised ways."
With this year's literary event in limbo, Julian Hobba, Adelaide Festival Corporation executive director, issued a statement on Monday saying: "Following the Adelaide Festival Board's decision on Thursday 8 January and the significant community response, Adelaide Writers' Week and Adelaide Festival are navigating a complex and unprecedented moment and will share further updates as soon as we are able."
Concerns after board resignations
Dyer has also raised questions over whether the board is still functional in its current composition.
The Adelaide Festival Corporation Act 1998 stipulates the board must consist of a maximum of eight members, appointed by the governor, with at least two women and two men.
The board currently consists of three women and one man — Leesa Chesser, Mary Couros, Brenton Cox, and Jennifer Fuller as the government observer.
Dyer said the board appears to be no longer "lawfully constituted".
"It's very difficult for the organisation, generally, to operate without a functioning board. Quite apart from anything else, is that the board of directors are always very important around festival time," she said.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said he's received advice on Sunday night the board is still formally, constitutionally capable of making decisions, and that the act didn't stipulate a minimum number of board members.
But he had raised concerns about the reputational damage to the festival and the potential economic hit.
"The people who run the festival which is the board as they should have got this into a pretty awful situation, which is unfortunate," he told reporters on Monday.
Malinauskas has said he is prevented by law from directing the board. But last week, the premier said he had made "it clear that the state government did not support the inclusion of Dr Abdel-Fattah" in the festival program when asked for his opinion.
Speaking to the ABC on Monday, Dyer accused the premier of heaping "unbearable pressure on the board to rescind the invitation to Dr Abdel-Fattah", which she said was "completely inappropriate".
Who is Randa Abdel-Fattah?
Abdel-Fattah had been scheduled to appear at Writers' Week to discuss her new novel, Discipline, about an academic and journalist facing censorship, set against the backdrop of the 2021 Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.
She is a lawyer, an award-winning author of multiple novels and an academic at the Department of Sociology at Macquarie University.
Abdel-Fattah is the daughter of Palestinian and Egyptian parents, and has been a vocal critic of Israel's treatment of Palestinians.
She has previously faced criticism from the Coalition, as well as from some Jewish organisations and media outlets, over comments about Israel and Zionism, including an alleged post saying Zionists had "no claim or right to cultural safety".
An $870,000 Australian Research Council grant that Abdel-Fattah received to examine Arab and Muslim Australian social movements was suspended for almost a year amid an investigation into her expenditure and potential conflicts of interest. She was cleared of any wrongdoing and it was reinstated.
Liberal senator Sarah Henderson said she commended the board's decision to remove the Palestinian Australian author, saying it was "deeply disappointing" she had been invited in the first place, saying the academic had posted an image of a Palestinian paratrooper on her Facebook page a day after the October 7 attacks.
Abdel-Fattah confirmed she had posted an image of a person parachuting with a Palestinian flag in the wake of October 7 in an interview with the ABC on Monday afternoon, but said she was unaware at the time of the scale or severity of the attacks.
She said the post was intended as a symbolic expression of besieged Palestinians "breaking out of their prison", and that she did not support the killing of civilians.
On Monday morning, Abdel-Fattah told ABC radio her objections and critique of Zionism, a political ideology, were being conflated with antisemitism.
"I have never, ever attacked Jewish people," she told ABC radio on Monday morning.
"I am attacking a political ideology and the state which is carrying out a genocide against my people."
A report last year by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry — which does not speak on behalf of the world body and has faced harsh Israeli criticism — found that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
Israel has repeatedly denied is committing genocide in Gaza and rejected the report's findings.
Abdel-Fattah has labelled the board's decision to dump her from the event as "extremely racist" and an "obscene attempt" to associate her with the Bondi Beach terror attack.
She is currently considering her legal options.
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