Empty Words, Emptying Stages

Cultural institutions rarely silence writers outright. More often, they do something quieter and more sinister: dress up exclusion as cautious care or dutiful responsibility.

On Thursday 8 January, the Board of the Adelaide Festival informed Palestinian-Australian writer Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah that, in the wake of the Bondi massacre, they “do not wish to proceed” with her programmed appearance at next month’s Adelaide Writers’ Week. To explain this extraordinary decision, the Board made only vague references to Dr Abdel-Fattah’s “past statements.” In view of these unspecified statements, “it would not be culturally sensitive” to retain Dr Abdel-Fattah’s presence on the program.

This kind of censorship does not announce itself as a limit on free expression. It avoids bans and rules, and instead relies on process, tone, and risk management to do the work. The Board exercised its power quietly, without ever naming what was being taken away. The effect does not stop with Dr Abdel-Fattah. It reshapes what other writers feel able to say, and what audiences are permitted to hear. By isolating one writer as a potential risk, the institution produces a broader chilling effect in which participation itself becomes precarious. Public debate shrinks not because anyone is ordered to be silent, but because speech itself has been recoded as the risk.

Others are not required to be silenced; they are invited to self-regulate.
The space narrows without instruction.

When organisations are under pressure, they often rely on bureaucratic language to manage risk. The harm done is painted as mere misunderstanding, or contextual. Calls for accountability are recast as unfair and disruptive pressure. People who push back are treated as problems to be managed, while the offending institution presents itself as being careful and responsible under strain.

This self-protective behaviour can be read as an instance of DARVO, a term used in psychology to describe a common deflection technique when individuals or institutions are challenged or asked to account for harm. The acronym comes from the pattern itself: Deny the harm or its relevance, Attack the person who names it, and Reverse Victim and Offender so that the accuser becomes the injured party.

When the Adelaide Festival Board’s statement is read closely, it follows the DARVO pattern almost line for line. The Board denies relevance, responsibility, and causation while still making a decisive intervention. This form of denial works by making the decision slippery rather than testable.

By insisting that their choices are a matter of judgement rather than a breach of any rule or standard, the Board places itself beyond scrutiny. While they expect consequences for their decisions, those consequences cannot be assessed in any concrete way. Responsibility is pushed away into time and abstraction. References to “the last weeks commencing a review” and judgements that may change “as the landscape and context evolves” present the decision as both settled and temporary at once. It is described as necessary, but with provisions. It is decisive while being detached from any clear principle. The outcome is clear, but the justification remains out of reach.

The Board does not accuse Dr Abdel-Fattah of any specific misconduct. There is no claim that she broke any rule or caused any past harm. Harm is instead implied as a future possibility, attributed to the fact of her attendance. Risk is suggested indirectly through unspecified “past statements” that invoke an undefined idea of “cultural sensitivity”. Dr Abdel-Fattah’s presence alone is associated with “community tensions” or “pressure”.

The Board creates a reputational risk without saying what Dr Abdel-Fattah’s statements were, when they were made, or which standard they failed to meet. Nothing concrete is named. The language seems solid from a distance but dissolves the moment you try to hold it. The risk feels real enough to justify exclusion but remains too nebulous to be answered. Dr Abdel-Fattah remains cast as the problem to be managed, rather than an invited participant with a right to be there. There is an underlying racist logic here; this framing only makes sense if Dr Abdel-Fattah’s Palestinian identity is itself racialised as an inherent source of risk.

The Board also disavows its own agency in excluding Dr Abdel-Fattah. By positioning this exclusion as a “request” that she remove herself, an institutional decision is remade into an individual choice. Dr Abdel-Fattah’s exclusion is recast as her own voluntary withdrawal. The Board wields its power while ducking ownership of the outcome, so that when the expected disruption eventuates, it can be attributed to her response, rather than the Board’s decision. Power moves, then steps aside.

The clearest DARVO move in the Board’s statement is their reversal of victimhood. The Board presents itself, and the Festival, as the harmed party. They are “shocked and saddened”, doing their best to prevent any “discomfort and pressure”, while trying to protect staff and volunteers. And when things inevitably go wrong, responsibility can again be redirected back to Dr Abdel-Fattah, now labelled as the source of disruption.

The Board anticipates criticism of their decision but frames those objections as a harm being done to them and other participants. Disagreement is reshaped from something to answer into something to contain, enforcing exclusion without ever making an accusation. Any collective response to their decision can be treated as a threat to workers or unnamed “others,” rather than as scrutiny of those who made the decision. Accountability is recast as cruelty and criticism becomes harm.

Similarly, responsibility is spread out and blurred. Reviews, sub-committees, external advice, government engagement, and changing context all push the Board’s decision-making towards anonymous processes that leave institutional authority intact. No single actor appears responsible while the Board retains control.

The most audacious feature of the Board’s statement is its unresolved contradiction. In the same breath that it insists Dr Abdel-Fattah’s work has no connection to the tragedy at Bondi, the Board admits her removal is because of Bondi. The two claims are left sitting side by side, awkward and unexplained. This is not a slip. It is the mechanism. Relevance is denied, acted on, then waved away.

Together, these processes clear writers out of public space while insisting nothing improper has occurred. The Board’s statement reflects a governance style where curatorial decisions are shaped by risk management and image control rather than by literary or artistic judgment. In this context, the absence of explicit wrongdoing is no safeguard, it’s what makes exclusion possible. No rules need to be broken for someone to be removed.

This fiasco was not inevitable. Adelaide had a recent example of how this pattern can be interrupted: the collapse of the Bendigo Writers’ Festival in August 2025, when over fifty programmed writers boycotted the event in solidarity with Dr Abdel-Fattah. In that instance, initial responses from the two organisations responsible for the Festival delivery—the City of Greater Bendigo and La Trobe University—were steeped in bureaucratic doublespeak: reviews, governance frameworks, reputational risk, and vague assurances that lessons would be learned. It appeared the regional Festival would simply fade away in a fog of procedure, with no one responsible and nothing repaired.

However, at the City of Greater Bendigo meeting on 15 December, councillors did something institutions rarely do: they took responsibility. They acknowledged the harm caused by the attempted Code of Conduct, expressed regret for its impact on Dr Abdel-Fattah and others, and admitted their processes had failed. Reputational damage was not treated as an external force or unfortunate inevitability, but as the result of decisions made—and therefore open to correction.

The revised motion explicitly re-anchors the festival in freedom of expression and non-discrimination. It states that future operating principles must be rights-based, co-designed, and publicly consulted upon. And it makes clear that no external partner should be able to dictate the terms of participation. In other words, the institution reclaimed its purpose instead of treating that purpose as a liability.

This is not a claim that Bendigo “got it right”. The debate was contested, the margin narrow, and financial risks remain. But the contrast with Adelaide is stark. Where the Adelaide Festival Board blurred responsibility into judgement, context, and process, Bendigo’s council eventually chose a different path: it named harm, owned its decisions, and articulated why the festival exists. The difference was not governance, process, or advice. It was the presence of people willing to say, publicly and on the record: we made this decision, it caused harm, and this is what we stand for.

Risk governance does not automatically empty institutions of meaning. It does so when no one inside them is willing to own decisions, state principles plainly, or accept the consequences. Bendigo showed that the pattern can be interrupted—but only when responsibility is taken personally, not buried procedurally.

By contrast, in Adelaide, decisions framed as protective and necessary failed to stabilise the institution they were meant to defend. On Sunday 11 January, following the mass withdrawal of writers in solidarity with Dr Abdel-Fattah, the Adelaide Festival Board held an emergency meeting that led to the resignation of multiple board members and the chair. The Festival has been left without a legally constituted board and with a damaged global reputation. Then, on Tuesday 13 January, Louise Adler resigned as director of Writers’ Week, explaining that she “cannot be party to silencing writers.”

This is all the predictable outcome of governance driven by risk avoidance rather than purpose. When responsibility is displaced and decisions are justified through vagueness, instability does not disappear, it multiplies. What is presented as care produces collapse.

Yet even as the Board implodes, the responsible parties refuse to acknowledge harm or wrongdoing. The Chair departed not with explanation or accountability, but with another layer of procedural opacity— “bound by certain undertakings”—the final expression of a governance culture unable to speak plainly even as it collapses.

Seen this way, the original statement from the Board reflects a broader pattern across cultural institutions: decision-making driven by risk avoidance. Under this approach, choices are not justified by the purpose of the institution—in this case, hosting debate, challenging ideas and engaging with disagreement—but by their capacity to limit reputational or political exposure. Rubbery language is stretched to cover the decision, responsibility is pushed into process, and accountability sinks into reviews and procedures.

The impact is not limited to the writer or artist who is excluded. By singling out one person as a potential risk, the institution sends a wider message. Participation itself becomes uncertain. Writers are not told to be silent; they learn to monitor themselves. The boundaries of what feels safe to say shrink without anyone having to explain where those boundaries lie. The space closes in quietly. This is how platforms empty themselves while continuing to claim openness.

The paradox is that this approach weakens the very institutions it is meant to protect. When debate and artistic risk are treated as dangers, they are not addressed or worked through. They are removed. Over time, the institution loses credibility because it no longer stands for anything. The Adelaide case shows how a writers’ festival can become inhospitable to writers without ever naming censorship. When an institution begins to treat its own purpose as a risk, power does not sustain culture but slowly withdraws from it.

Finally, the biggest and often overlooked risk is this: when institutions trade clear standards and fair process for vagueness and discretion, they dismantle protections for everyone—themselves included.

Natasha Joyce is a historian and community researcher based in central Victoria. She can most often be found in a library, on a train, or at a community meeting. Her work focuses on Victorian goldfields childhood and the intersections of cultural history, institutional power, and dissent, and is grounded in her commitment to building accessible, resilient public culture.