SYDNEY WRITERS’ FESTIVAL
Wendy Were, the artistic director of this year’s festival, speaks of 2009 as a year of great change, where Obama’s “lofty ideas” of “hope and optimism” reign supreme. Despite this positive affirmation, published on the Sydney Writers’ Festival website, it seems that Were is more concerned with ‘playing it safe’ this year.
The Sydney Writers’ Festival has long been home to the exciting and often unsettling voices of intellectuals from across the globe. Unfortunately, the 2009 program seems to be far more lukewarm than previous years. The one event dealing explicitly with the notion of free speech, The Author’s Right To Speak, focuses on repression of ideas in Iran: far safer than looking towards home soil.
What fails to get a mention is Were’s own direct repression of dissent. Festival News, a publication written and distributed by student journalists from the University of Technology, Sydney, fails to make an appearance after last years’ fiasco; and now Wendy Bacon, head of Journalism at UTS, has been denied a place on a panel that was programed for this year.
It is unfortunate for the truly brilliant minds participating this year that Were’s hypocrisy has compromised the integrity of the festival.
18-24 May. Various venues throughout Sydney. Free-$190, 9250 1988 or www.swf.org.au
