If it weren’t so serious, it would be laughable. A code of conduct for a writers’ festival?

Yet that was the requirement asked of authors if they wanted, after having been invited, to take part in one section of the Bendigo Writers Festival. Understandably, many refused and did not attend.

Warwick McFadyen

The code was applicable to the festival’s La Trobe University’s events, which were going to be co-curated by Professor Claire Wright, who has resigned, as has Overland magazine editor Evelyn Araluen and academic and author Randa Abdel-Fattah. The code required of writers that they commit to La Trobe’s Anti-Racism Plan, which accepts the Universities Australia definition of antisemitism and, which critics say, stifles criticism of Israel. This definition is sourced from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. It is the definition antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal relied on in her recent report to the government, and which has been widely criticised.

In pulling out of the festival, one of the authors, Paul Daley said: ‘‘This is a shameful episode in Australian literary life.’’ Daley is being too kind. The code states of writers that they have ‘‘conversations that are inclusive, thoughtful and welcoming to diverse perspectives. Avoid language or topics that could be considered inflammatory, divisive, or disrespectful.’’

Of course, organisers can put in place whatever conditions they want. It’s their event, after all. But a festival of writers is a different kettle of fish to, say, a festival of tobacconists. Any condition on a writer’s freedom of speech is a silencing not only of their words, but their mind. Inevitably, it is as George Orwell defined it in 1984, groupthink.

Reacting to the festival’s conditions, the Human Rights Law Centre said: ‘‘[This would] prevent critical discussions at panels and events on matters related to Palestinian liberation and human rights, First Nations land rights, Indigenous sovereignty, migrant diasporas, Donald Trump’s presidency, feminism and a variety of other topics which may be considered ’divisive’, non-’sensitive’ to those who hold alternative political views, which may ’cause public concern’ and which may fall afoul of La Trobe’s definition of antisemitism.’’

The centre also raised the issue of ‘‘an environment of increasing censorship and ’culture wars’ within the media and political space which often targets marginalised and racialised groups’’.

One could argue that the writers are being just a touch too precious, that how could you argue against being kind and considerate? Except for this: any code of conduct in the world of letters is repression. Turning the page on that, what then follows, a writer sent to the metaphorical gulag of shame perhaps, or moved into Orwell’s Room 101? And who would be the arbiters of the code? And what due process, right to appeal, the bringing of witnesses, cross-examination would there be?

Writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry have been fighting against their words and thoughts being suppressed since pen first touched paper. Indeed, from the Bible to Lady Chatterley’s Lover it has been so, and is still going on. It is surely a cosmic irony that it has occurred in that tranquil piece of serenity called Bendigo. It also shows the line that time draws through the ages.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the state repression of one of the finest voices in world poetry – Russian Anna Akhamatova. In 1925, her work was banned in the Soviet Union (the same year Hitler’s Mein Kampf was published), and remained so until the death of her tormentor Josef Stalin in 1953.

Akhamatova’s crime? Dissent. She bore witness to the persecution and death of millions, and at an intimate level. Her first husband, Nikolai Gumilev, was executed and her son and partner were sent to the Gulag. Contemporaries were also rounded up, such as friend and fellow poet Osip Mandelstam, deported to a labour camp, where he died. Her homage to this purge was the poem Requiem written over many years and inspired by a stranger recognising her outside a prison, and pleading with her to record the terror of the times with her words. And she did.

Requiem is a monument to the spirit to resist and extol the best and worst in people. That persistence surely is seen in how ‘‘dissident’’ writers in the Stalin era kept their words alive, oftentimes through themselves simply memorising them and passing them onto others. This was the oral resistance. It ran in parallel with the birth of samizdat, the underground publication of writers. These were matters of life and death, both literally and metaphorically. The fight continues worldwide. Every issue of the British magazine Literary Review has a page headed Silenced Voices. It tells of the circumstances of a writer, anywhere in the world, who is being persecuted by the state because of their work.

In reacting to authors departing the Bendigo festival, a La Trobe University spokesman said: ‘‘La Trobe supports diversity of perspectives and ideas … La Trobe is committed to ensuring all our events, including events for which we are a sponsor, are safe, inclusive and equitable for all members of our community.’’

This rather misses the point. Words are the breath of a writer. If they are silenced, the writer suffocates. Indeed, it should be obvious that without hearing what others say, the only victor is ignorance.

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/08/bendigo-writers-festival-fiasco/

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