In a significant blow to the festival’s lineup, approximately 80 writers have now canceled their appearances at the Adelaide Writers’ Week. The wave of withdrawals has sparked concern and criticism from various quarters, with some questioning the festival’s current trajectory and management.
Among the voices calling for change, Dyer stands out as a notable figure. He, along with a group of former festival leaders, has penned an open letter advocating for the reinstatement of Abdel-Fattah, a move they believe could help restore the event’s stature and credibility.
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.”
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.
