If you’ve ever been foolish enough to subject yourself to the grim spectacle of so-called ‘writer’s festivals’, you’ll know just how dreary they really are. ‘Lefty Groupthink Festivals’ would be a much more honest description. These are dull exercises in group affirmation by people who live by Homer Simpson’s ‘Code of the Schoolyard’: Never say anything unless you’re sure everyone feels exactly the same way you do.
The last thing they are about is free speech. These are, after all, the very places where furious mayhem erupts because a white writer dares to wear a sombrero. I kid you not.
So, unlike many on the centre-right, I’m not about to be fooled when these censorious clowns start whining about their free speech.
At least 30 speakers at the Bendigo Writers Festival last week refused to participate because a “code of conduct” was forced on some of their panels by one of its sponsors, La Trobe University. The few sessions sponsored by the university were required to be “inclusive, thoughtful … avoid(ing) language or topics that could be considered inflammatory, divisive, or disrespectful”.
Which is exactly the kind of anodyne censorship that the chattering elite have been forcing on us for years. So, what’s got their rainbow knickers in such a twist all of a sudden? Have they belatedly become converts to the free speech cause?
Of course not.
What they’re really in such a tizz about is that they were politely asked not to be drooling anti-Semites.
The code of conduct required participants to commit to La Trobe University’s Anti-Racism Plan, a 17-page document, which accepts the Universities Australia definition of antisemitism. That definition has not been accepted by all universities and has been the subject of controversy, with some arguing that it unreasonably restricts criticism of Israel. The definition states that criticism of Israel is not itself antisemitic.
So, where’s the problem? They can, per the code of conduct, criticise Israel – and, this being a drearily typical lefty gab-fest, you bet they will – but they’re asked not to be anti-Semitic.
Given the fury of their tantrums, the logical conclusion is that they had planned to be very, very, anti-Semitic.
Yet, with a presumably straight face, we get this stunning exercise in bare-faced hypocrisy:
Bookish Bendigo, the local bookshop, has withdrawn from the event, saying: “Writers are our heroes. They are educators, agitators, commentators, illuminators. They hold up a mirror to society and they hold us accountable. They should never be silenced.”
Except that that’s exactly what these luvvies have been doing for years. Especially to Jews.
How many writers protested on principle when Nina Sanadze, a Jewish-Australian sculptor with pro-Israel sympathies, was doxxed and bullied by Palestinian activists in 2024? I suspect few to none. They are not protesting for their artistic freedom so much as demanding the hegemony of their own politics.
‘Stars’ of the Bendigo Writers Festival have included the odious Clementine Ford, who was part of the group who published the anti-Semitic ‘Jew List’, doxxing Jewish-Australian creatives. Also joining the boycott tanty is Randa Abdel-Fattah, the ‘academic’ who infamously led children in a chant extolling anti-Jewish violence.
There’s no word yet if a torch-lit parade around Golden Square was planned as part of the ‘writer’s festival’. No doubt much to the participants’ disappointment the town’s synagogue was demolished in 1920. All those brown shirts and not a Jewish window to smash.
Don’t be fooled: the writers boycotting this festival were never interested in free speech.
