Free speech or ‘genocide cheering’? Ukranian authors withdraw from Adelaide Writers’ Week

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 03:35:02 +1100

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://theconversation.com/free-speech-or-genocide-cheering-ukranian-authors-withdraw-from-adelaide-writers-week-200550>

"This week, Ukrainian writer Maria Tumarkin announced her withdrawal from
Adelaide Writers’ Week, along with fellow Ukrainians Olesya Khromeychuk and
Kateryna Babkina. (Tumarkin writes that she doesn’t support calls for
resignations, cancellations, or boycotts of the event.)

A statement posted on Tumarkin’s website quotes from letters the three Ukranian
writers wrote to Writers’ Week director Louise Adler about the festival’s
inclusion of Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa, who has shared a tweet from
Putin: “DeNazify Ukraine”, and stated:

Zelenskyy would rather drag the world into the inferno of World War III,
instead of giving up NATO ambitions. He would rather pull us all into
slaughter than allow Ukraine to prosper as a neutral nation.

According to Denis Muller, writing on The Conversation last week, arguments
against Abulhawa’s language are “fundamentally political”.

Tumarkin’s statement takes issue with this perspective:

Statements in which Zelensky (who’s Jewish) is called a Nazi, fascist,
someone responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and/or WWIII are not
anti-Zelensky and/or pro-Putin. They are forms of genocide cheering (a step
up from genocide apology). They do not exist in the space of discourse only
and do not represent something that can be classified as merely a
contentious political opinion."

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

Comment via email

Home E-Mail Sponsors Index Search About Us