So on October 8 2023 marching through Sydney’s opera house yelling ‘where are the Jews or fuck the jews’ was pretty calm? Bondi beach just ‘happened’. How amazing that it just ‘happened’.
I assume Helen means relative to the UK. But even if the weekly protests weren't on the scale of destruction that we've seen circa 2020 America, they nevertheless contribute to a climate of impunity when it comes to antisemitism. If Australia's arts sector can straight up ban Jewish figures with no repercussions, if protesters can block whole city blocks with no jail time, if social media figures can post endless bile with applause, and if Islamists can continue to spout unambiguously racist and violent threats about Jews with no action by the authorities, then it's no surprise that that environment led to one of the nation's worst massacres.
Permission structure for murder in tne open. Not ‘Bondi Beach happened’. It happened because Australia made it happen and let it happen. Happily. Easily.
Yes, several claims in this article made me question whether my view of reality is way off...
My perception of the pro-Pal protests is that they were deliberately intimidatory, a kind of war over public space to establish "turf". This clearly succeeded - and was aided by police who escorted pro-Israel protestors away due to safety concerns, effectively handing the streets to their opponents. It is this milieu that may have tipped the terrorists into acting.
Also disagree with the claim there has been no cancelling of pro-Jewish/zionist associates - Julie Szego has covered this pretty well.
The Lattouf thing was a bungle. She should have never been hired in the first place given her explicit partisanship. The ABC caved to pressure and failed to follow process - all they had to do was let her serve out a couple of shifts.
Albo a popular, smiling PM? He is a crumpled Insp Columbo missing the charisma and intellect.
So, if I'm reading correctly, the Jews are a pain in the ass but they don't shoot people and the Palestinians are pretty laid back until they start shooting people. Fascinating place, Down Under.
Leftists doing art badly? There is no other possible result from Leftism. Any evidence to the contrary is probably just a soft hearted guy who is generous with other people's money.
It’s worth noting that Sajid and Naveed Akram were/are brown Indian Muslims, something that has been pointed out to me /repeatedly/ by Arab-speaking Syrian & Lebanese friends.
[Arabs consider themselves white; no, I don’t make the rules.]
One observation, Thomas Friedman is neither a "Dr." nor a "Jewish lobby figure," conventional or not.
He's a journalist and is, ironically, hated by conventional Jewish lobby types because he's often critical of Israel.
Right after Oct 7, he advised Israel not to invade Gaza, because he foresaw a trap and a quagmire.
He's definitely pro-existence of Israel as a Jewish state, which makes him a hate object to Palestinian activists, but I'd put him in the moderate-realist wing of the US Jewish community, so he gets shot at from both sides.
Interesting, and not surprising Wiki is wrong/unclear. There’s actually been an—as yet unconfirmed—update on his part of the story that I hope to include tomorrow (I’m assuming the fog of news will clear overnight; I’m in London and it’s bedtime here).
While I'm confident he at least has several honorary Ph.D.'s, I don't think he's earned such and he doesn't refer to himself as "Dr." I have for decades considered him the most mediocre Pulitzer recipient as his observations are banal and he writes pablum poorly, but his only real offenses are aesthetic. It sounds like he has good character.
Most Pulitzer Prize winners are mediocre - almost by definition.
As for his writing, I haven't read him for years (apart from the Op-Ed on Gaza I referred to), but I have a Strange New Respect for his coverage of both Gulf wars. I'm that old. I might write about it.
I could not agree more about ceasing government funding of the arts. Why taxpayers should contribute to the production of self aggrandising dross and drivel is beyond me. If people want it they will pay for it themselves.
Art has zero marginal cost to share: shifting towards lower marginal cost to consume by funding fixed costs has clear welfare benefits. Translating out of the jargon, because books are easily pirated and photographs are easily taken, it can easily make sense to fund it rather than having individual consumers pay (and even in cases with higher marginal costs it's still not the majority: rehearsals can be more expensive than a tour even for a successful company).
That said, I think the current evidence is clear on the impact of government funding of the arts, and it's largely negative. I think there's more value in making it possible for an artist to support themselves on 20 hours a week of work.
I read both sides of the issue and have no loyalty ties either way - the really obvious thing is that both partisans are utterly convinced the media (whatever variety) is conspiratorially biased against them. The anti-zionists are utterly convinced the ABC/BBC/etc are under the thumb of the Jewish lobby, the pro Israel side the exact converse. Since they assume the other side is playing dirty they feel entitled to do the same.
My perception about the recognition of Palestine is very different - and I don't believe it has anything to do with Aus/ALP politics. This would not explain the fact it was a coordinated move with other countries like France/UK etc.
Basically for decades the ME conflict was played out like theatre - where everybody stated they believe in a 2 state solution, while clearly seeing Israeli govts do everything possible to sabotage that possibility. Playing along was no longer possible once Netanyahu explicitly made it clear that the objective was always maximal annexation. So the recognition was a forced foot-in-the-door move to stop the possibility of a Palestinian state being extinguished.
Now everybody is unhappy - the pro-Zionists, and the pro-Palestinians who correctly see that this has come so late that a state is no longer realistically viable.
As for the WB, Israel has tried many times to give it back, yet the Palestinians have always refused. Bill Clinton in 2000 at the Camp David Summit did all he could to get Arafat to sign a peace agreement, which would have resulted in an internationally recognized state, but every offer was rejected. This is from Benny Morris:
"The Clinton proposals, offering a two-state settlement, stipulated that Israel must withdraw from between 94 and 96 percent of the West Bank and, implicitly, 100 percent of the Gaza Strip, in which the Palestinian Arab state would then be established. Israel would compensate the Palestinians for the loss of the 4–6 percent of the West Bank that they would be “ceding” with a patch of Israeli territory amounting to “1 to 3 percent” of the West Bank as well as allowing the Palestinians a “safe passage” corridor between Gaza and the West Bank through Israeli territory. The 4–6 percent of the West Bank retained by Israel would include the large settlement concentrations, such as the ‘Etzion Bloc, which held some 80 percent of the territory’s settlers."
In 2008 Ehud Olmert offered Abbas almost the same exact deal, which was also rejected, sans counteroffer:
Love your work. However, I’m not Australian so I may be missing some implied tone/intent.
But, “Okay, Australia is a filthy rich country compared to the UK and US,” is not true. Not in absolute terms, purchasing power parity terms, or per capita.
Apologies if I missed an Aussie-ism.
Also, been twice, one of the best places on earth. Not a hater. Just seemed like an obviously wrong statement from a level-headed person.
Great piece. The underlying problem, or the one causing the collapse of the literary festivals, is not a pernicious Jewish Lobby per se but simply the fact that they have used legislation designed to favour the Muslim lobby more effectively against the Muslim lobby than the Muslims have against the Jews. The solution is to remove all of this minority favouring legislation including all the anti discrimination laws and their institutional trappings. Helen's solution to stop the money would have the same effect in practice. Why not do both? The second thing is an insight into the irony of South Australian politics. The liberals have just appointed an incredibly small "c:" economic conservative (has no idea of how to balance a budget let alone knowing why you should ) who is a left wing cultural retard who for all the world looks and sounds like a female HR manager. She is going to face off against the Labour Premier who although economically left believes that the budget should balance if only because working families have to balance their budgets. Not only that he (not a she) is culturally very right wing.. He loves the country. Wonder who will win the coming election?
“We need more starving artists forced to work normal day-jobs while being stigmatised as losers and weirdos by plumbers and shop assistants—they may even learn something.”
I think great pain produces great art. Your ‘modest proposal’ might actually let a hundred blooms blossom forth, (which would be one hundred more that the current artistic community have managed. )
But cultural revolutions can have unintended consequences. Thank you for a well reasoned and thought provoking article, Helen.
Literary artists have forgotten that brilliance is borne from struggle, not entitled privilege and speech without consequences. I have had a glimpse at the highest level of non-government oversight of government fund distribution for the arts - filled with wastage and self-serving distribution. I would have to agree with your position on defunding artists. Let them work.
South Australia is beautiful country inhabited by the strangest people I've had the displeasure of knowing. It also has the highest number of serial killers per capita. Adelaide Writer's Festival implosion is the least of its issues.
Thank you for filling in the blanks about what's gone down with AWF that is welcomed departure from the outrage on social media among the literati.
The censorious cancellation culture of literacy groups detailed here has great similarities to Scotland (esp Edinburgh) as demonstrated by its treatment of Jenny Lindsay.
I don’t understand why this seems prevalent amongst such groups.
I would have expected writers to match a normal distribution for their locale’s population with a vast majority having a wide mix of views and ideologies and a small minority with more extreme views at each end of the distribution. I would also expect a relatively high intellectual capacity and as such some openness of mind so discussion rather than cancellation should take to the fore.
Maybe I’m just very naive but how have these areas of culture allowed themselves to be taken over by such vicious minorities ?
I can understand how that can happen in a technical bureaucracy such as local Councils and the NHS where a narrow focus or political self interest can come into play but not in writing where the desire to intellectually explore ideas and options is what I had thought drove the players.
All of those questions are really good but each one requires a separate post, not to mention research. There is some evidence (this is from Musa al-Gharbi’s book & substack) that the academy and arts attracts people who are intelligent but agreeable, so you get herding effects and cowardice/preference falsification.
Other intellectual professions (law, engineering), meanwhile, attract intelligent but disagreeable people.
Writing also didn’t used to be a political monoculture, either, something Lindsay also documents. I need to do more research on this, as some of it will be selection effects/self-selection effects.
Note: I have added an addendum to this piece, as there is some additional evidence circulating that may explain one element of the story thus far.
C’mon. No mention of Chili? Very disappointing ?
So on October 8 2023 marching through Sydney’s opera house yelling ‘where are the Jews or fuck the jews’ was pretty calm? Bondi beach just ‘happened’. How amazing that it just ‘happened’.
I assume Helen means relative to the UK. But even if the weekly protests weren't on the scale of destruction that we've seen circa 2020 America, they nevertheless contribute to a climate of impunity when it comes to antisemitism. If Australia's arts sector can straight up ban Jewish figures with no repercussions, if protesters can block whole city blocks with no jail time, if social media figures can post endless bile with applause, and if Islamists can continue to spout unambiguously racist and violent threats about Jews with no action by the authorities, then it's no surprise that that environment led to one of the nation's worst massacres.
Permission structure for murder in tne open. Not ‘Bondi Beach happened’. It happened because Australia made it happen and let it happen. Happily. Easily.
Yes, several claims in this article made me question whether my view of reality is way off...
My perception of the pro-Pal protests is that they were deliberately intimidatory, a kind of war over public space to establish "turf". This clearly succeeded - and was aided by police who escorted pro-Israel protestors away due to safety concerns, effectively handing the streets to their opponents. It is this milieu that may have tipped the terrorists into acting.
Also disagree with the claim there has been no cancelling of pro-Jewish/zionist associates - Julie Szego has covered this pretty well.
The Lattouf thing was a bungle. She should have never been hired in the first place given her explicit partisanship. The ABC caved to pressure and failed to follow process - all they had to do was let her serve out a couple of shifts.
Albo a popular, smiling PM? He is a crumpled Insp Columbo missing the charisma and intellect.
I agree. This was a very slanted piece. Irresponsible.
So, if I'm reading correctly, the Jews are a pain in the ass but they don't shoot people and the Palestinians are pretty laid back until they start shooting people. Fascinating place, Down Under.
Leftists doing art badly? There is no other possible result from Leftism. Any evidence to the contrary is probably just a soft hearted guy who is generous with other people's money.
It’s worth noting that Sajid and Naveed Akram were/are brown Indian Muslims, something that has been pointed out to me /repeatedly/ by Arab-speaking Syrian & Lebanese friends.
[Arabs consider themselves white; no, I don’t make the rules.]
Oh Helen you are a breath of fresh air plz continue the onslaught - the puerile and vacuous morons must be exposed and crushed
Very interesting.
One observation, Thomas Friedman is neither a "Dr." nor a "Jewish lobby figure," conventional or not.
He's a journalist and is, ironically, hated by conventional Jewish lobby types because he's often critical of Israel.
Right after Oct 7, he advised Israel not to invade Gaza, because he foresaw a trap and a quagmire.
He's definitely pro-existence of Israel as a Jewish state, which makes him a hate object to Palestinian activists, but I'd put him in the moderate-realist wing of the US Jewish community, so he gets shot at from both sides.
Interesting, and not surprising Wiki is wrong/unclear. There’s actually been an—as yet unconfirmed—update on his part of the story that I hope to include tomorrow (I’m assuming the fog of news will clear overnight; I’m in London and it’s bedtime here).
While I'm confident he at least has several honorary Ph.D.'s, I don't think he's earned such and he doesn't refer to himself as "Dr." I have for decades considered him the most mediocre Pulitzer recipient as his observations are banal and he writes pablum poorly, but his only real offenses are aesthetic. It sounds like he has good character.
Most Pulitzer Prize winners are mediocre - almost by definition.
As for his writing, I haven't read him for years (apart from the Op-Ed on Gaza I referred to), but I have a Strange New Respect for his coverage of both Gulf wars. I'm that old. I might write about it.
I could not agree more about ceasing government funding of the arts. Why taxpayers should contribute to the production of self aggrandising dross and drivel is beyond me. If people want it they will pay for it themselves.
Art has zero marginal cost to share: shifting towards lower marginal cost to consume by funding fixed costs has clear welfare benefits. Translating out of the jargon, because books are easily pirated and photographs are easily taken, it can easily make sense to fund it rather than having individual consumers pay (and even in cases with higher marginal costs it's still not the majority: rehearsals can be more expensive than a tour even for a successful company).
That said, I think the current evidence is clear on the impact of government funding of the arts, and it's largely negative. I think there's more value in making it possible for an artist to support themselves on 20 hours a week of work.
'“Peter Malinauskas shat in our trousers” really doesn’t sound in damages, lit-gits of Australia'.
I have repeated this sentence a dozen times to myself and I still have no idea what it means.
I read both sides of the issue and have no loyalty ties either way - the really obvious thing is that both partisans are utterly convinced the media (whatever variety) is conspiratorially biased against them. The anti-zionists are utterly convinced the ABC/BBC/etc are under the thumb of the Jewish lobby, the pro Israel side the exact converse. Since they assume the other side is playing dirty they feel entitled to do the same.
My perception about the recognition of Palestine is very different - and I don't believe it has anything to do with Aus/ALP politics. This would not explain the fact it was a coordinated move with other countries like France/UK etc.
Basically for decades the ME conflict was played out like theatre - where everybody stated they believe in a 2 state solution, while clearly seeing Israeli govts do everything possible to sabotage that possibility. Playing along was no longer possible once Netanyahu explicitly made it clear that the objective was always maximal annexation. So the recognition was a forced foot-in-the-door move to stop the possibility of a Palestinian state being extinguished.
Now everybody is unhappy - the pro-Zionists, and the pro-Palestinians who correctly see that this has come so late that a state is no longer realistically viable.
"the objective was always maximal annexation"??
Israel completely withdrew from Gaza, rooting out whole communities, tearing down homes and tearing up graveyards, in 2007—some "maximal annexation"!
They even left behind 3000 greenhouses as a gesture of goodwill, which were almost immediately looted and destroyed:
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9331863
As for the WB, Israel has tried many times to give it back, yet the Palestinians have always refused. Bill Clinton in 2000 at the Camp David Summit did all he could to get Arafat to sign a peace agreement, which would have resulted in an internationally recognized state, but every offer was rejected. This is from Benny Morris:
"The Clinton proposals, offering a two-state settlement, stipulated that Israel must withdraw from between 94 and 96 percent of the West Bank and, implicitly, 100 percent of the Gaza Strip, in which the Palestinian Arab state would then be established. Israel would compensate the Palestinians for the loss of the 4–6 percent of the West Bank that they would be “ceding” with a patch of Israeli territory amounting to “1 to 3 percent” of the West Bank as well as allowing the Palestinians a “safe passage” corridor between Gaza and the West Bank through Israeli territory. The 4–6 percent of the West Bank retained by Israel would include the large settlement concentrations, such as the ‘Etzion Bloc, which held some 80 percent of the territory’s settlers."
In 2008 Ehud Olmert offered Abbas almost the same exact deal, which was also rejected, sans counteroffer:
https://archive.is/20250224014705/https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g0dv7rxxvo
You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
Love your work. However, I’m not Australian so I may be missing some implied tone/intent.
But, “Okay, Australia is a filthy rich country compared to the UK and US,” is not true. Not in absolute terms, purchasing power parity terms, or per capita.
Apologies if I missed an Aussie-ism.
Also, been twice, one of the best places on earth. Not a hater. Just seemed like an obviously wrong statement from a level-headed person.
We are higher in wealth per adult. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
Looks from there like Aus is higher in median wealth than US, lower in mean wealth.
Great piece. The underlying problem, or the one causing the collapse of the literary festivals, is not a pernicious Jewish Lobby per se but simply the fact that they have used legislation designed to favour the Muslim lobby more effectively against the Muslim lobby than the Muslims have against the Jews. The solution is to remove all of this minority favouring legislation including all the anti discrimination laws and their institutional trappings. Helen's solution to stop the money would have the same effect in practice. Why not do both? The second thing is an insight into the irony of South Australian politics. The liberals have just appointed an incredibly small "c:" economic conservative (has no idea of how to balance a budget let alone knowing why you should ) who is a left wing cultural retard who for all the world looks and sounds like a female HR manager. She is going to face off against the Labour Premier who although economically left believes that the budget should balance if only because working families have to balance their budgets. Not only that he (not a she) is culturally very right wing.. He loves the country. Wonder who will win the coming election?
“We need more starving artists forced to work normal day-jobs while being stigmatised as losers and weirdos by plumbers and shop assistants—they may even learn something.”
I think great pain produces great art. Your ‘modest proposal’ might actually let a hundred blooms blossom forth, (which would be one hundred more that the current artistic community have managed. )
But cultural revolutions can have unintended consequences. Thank you for a well reasoned and thought provoking article, Helen.
Our small town had a Woolworths. It’s Missed.
Literary artists have forgotten that brilliance is borne from struggle, not entitled privilege and speech without consequences. I have had a glimpse at the highest level of non-government oversight of government fund distribution for the arts - filled with wastage and self-serving distribution. I would have to agree with your position on defunding artists. Let them work.
South Australia is beautiful country inhabited by the strangest people I've had the displeasure of knowing. It also has the highest number of serial killers per capita. Adelaide Writer's Festival implosion is the least of its issues.
Thank you for filling in the blanks about what's gone down with AWF that is welcomed departure from the outrage on social media among the literati.
The censorious cancellation culture of literacy groups detailed here has great similarities to Scotland (esp Edinburgh) as demonstrated by its treatment of Jenny Lindsay.
I don’t understand why this seems prevalent amongst such groups.
I would have expected writers to match a normal distribution for their locale’s population with a vast majority having a wide mix of views and ideologies and a small minority with more extreme views at each end of the distribution. I would also expect a relatively high intellectual capacity and as such some openness of mind so discussion rather than cancellation should take to the fore.
Maybe I’m just very naive but how have these areas of culture allowed themselves to be taken over by such vicious minorities ?
I can understand how that can happen in a technical bureaucracy such as local Councils and the NHS where a narrow focus or political self interest can come into play but not in writing where the desire to intellectually explore ideas and options is what I had thought drove the players.
I’m confused.
All of those questions are really good but each one requires a separate post, not to mention research. There is some evidence (this is from Musa al-Gharbi’s book & substack) that the academy and arts attracts people who are intelligent but agreeable, so you get herding effects and cowardice/preference falsification.
Other intellectual professions (law, engineering), meanwhile, attract intelligent but disagreeable people.
Writing also didn’t used to be a political monoculture, either, something Lindsay also documents. I need to do more research on this, as some of it will be selection effects/self-selection effects.
They need caffeine and the Blue Color touch 😉
Meet my Tribe.
Relate well to Aggression, get to march in parades.
Free float rides.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19eXXwNcMt/?mibextid=wwXIfr