- Thinking About It by Zee Feed
- Posts
- On censorship.
On Friday, Michelle de Krester was awarded the 2025 Stella Prize – Australia’s most prestigious literary award for women writers – for her book, Theory & Practice. It is a novel about feminism, race and living one’s values, although it did not (and will not) get the hype or buzz that feminist writing by white women in Australia consistently receives.
The acceptance speech de Krester gave comes at a critical point for the arts, the media and – quite frankly – the entirety of Australian society. I don’t know if I’ve done a good enough job in this newsletter of making it clear just how aggressively the efforts to censor and silence the truth of Israeli genocide continue to be.
On Wednesday, First Nations author Karen Wyld was stripped of a $15,000 grant by State Library of Queensland for tweeting support of Palestinian resistance, after complaints made to the library by Qld Arts Minister John-Paul Langbroek and Premier David Crisafulli. Wyld had won the grant for a manuscript documenting seven generations of stolen Indigenous children.
If journalism is supposed to speak truth to power, art is to speak to the truth of the human experience – very often that includes critiques of the powerful. In the almost two years since October 7 2023, government censorship of Australian artists and journalists has only increased. Some of the names whose experiences you might have missed: Omar Sakr, Alison Evans and Jinghua Qian; Khaled Sabsabi; Antoinette Lattouf; Randa Abdel-Fattah; SaVĀge K’lub; Jayson Gillham; Overland journal editors Jonathan Dunk and Evelyn Araluen, and Clementine Ford; Peter Lalor; every major writer’s festival in the country; journalists and staff at the ABC, SBS, Nine newspapers, and Guardian Australia.
That’s not even taking into account the censorship that’s been going on long before this, which I’ve written about before.
Last year I did a short stint working in-house for a start-up brand developing a podcast that would profile high-profile Australians for a Gen X and Baby Boomer audience. I shortlisted soccer legend Craig Foster as a potential guest (my parents love him, as I assume most ethnic households do!) One of the brand’s co-founders told me to scratch Foz’ name from the list because he is outspoken about human rights, and it might upset the brand’s Jewish investors. This podcast wasn’t going to be a biting journalistic endeavour; it was a light entertainment, puff interview stuff. That’s the extent to which critics of Israel are being silenced in every facet of life.
So, with all that in mind, I’m sharing some of de Krester’s speech below – I’ve highlighted the parts that resonated with me most.
Read or watch Michelle de Krester’s speech in full here.
“Recently, two groups of women have been on my mind. In the first group are Jo Case, Sophie Cunningham, Monica Dux, Christine Gordon, Foong Ling Kong, Rebecca Starford, Louise Swinn and Aviva Tuffield: the founders of the Stella Prize. My respect and gratitude to those eight women, who rejected business as usual, who decided to make the world a more equitable place, and whose activism resulted, against the odds, in the Stella Prize and the transformation of our literary landscape.
Even if I knew the names of everyone in the second group, there wouldn’t be time to read them out, for they’re the women and girls of Gaza. They’re the women and girls murdered, maimed, starved, raped, tortured, terrorised, orphaned, bereaved, incarcerated, dehumanised, displaced, in business as usual for Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing – war crimes for which Australia provides material and diplomatic support.
That complicity has had serious consequences for Australian democracy. We’ve seen scholars, creatives and journalists silenced, their funding revoked and their contracts cancelled for expressing anti-genocide views. We’ve seen precious rights eroded and authoritarian laws rushed in on the flimsiest of pretexts. We’ve seen our institutions and our media betray the principles they’re supposed to uphold. We’ve seen language suffer Orwellian distortions. We’ve seen our leaders pander to the anti-Arab racism of that global bully the United States. And all of this damage has been done to prop up Israel: a brazenly cruel foreign power, whose leaders are internationally wanted criminals.
A crucial aim of this program of suppression is to intimidate. In Australia today it isn’t those applauding mass murder who have cause to be afraid, but those speaking out against it. Principally targeted are Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, First Nations people, people of colour, queers.
All the time I was writing these words, a voice in my head whispered, You will be punished. You will be smeared with labels as potent and ugly as they’re false. Career own goal, warned the voice.
Many of you will be familiar with that voice, and its seductive message of acquiescence and self-preservation. It urged me to offer you an uplifting narrative about female solidarity – I could tell you about some of the fantastic women who’ve inspired and supported me. Or I could speak to you about the creativity of Australian women, and add a little marketing plug for myself and my fellow writers, asking you to support us by buying our books.
Unlike the women and girls of Gaza, I’m not brave. Fear is a formidable and insidious opponent. It convinces us to censor ourselves, to obey in advance, to down the Kool-Aid before it’s been offered. I’m still afraid. But I’ve just accepted a prize that is not about obedience. It’s not about feel-good narratives, it’s not about marketing, it’s not even about creativity – Stella is about changing the world.
And I remembered all of you. You’re here because you share Stella’s glorious vision of a more just and equitable world – that other world that is possible.
I’ve always believed that the wish to help others is a hard-wired human instinct, and so I ask you – I beg you – to join us in speaking out for Palestine. Help us fight the lie that equates our peaceful opposition to genocide with sympathy for terrorism. Help us fight the lie that equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Help us fight the lie that Palestinian lives don’t matter. Help us fight the undermining of democracy. Help us to fight fear.
Literature, philosophy and religion all ask a question that each of us is called upon to answer: How shall I live? How shall you and I live? As humans, acting from conscience? Or as bots, dead inside?
In her essay about Gaza, ‘Learning To See In The Dark’, Ali Martin, the Australian human rights lawyer, writes of the need to translate compassion and outrage into resistance and change. Citing Martin Luther King Jnr, she reminds us of actions, great and small, that bend the arc of history towards justice.
We have two weapons that the powerful dread: words and the truth. That’s why truthful speech is being closed down, and why it’s essential to resist silence.
The Gazan poet Plestia Alaqad has written about the ‘outpouring of love and solidarity’ that she found in Australia. She goes on: ‘This generosity of spirit […] is a reminder that despite the challenges we face, there are many who are willing to walk alongside us.’ I draw courage from her words, and from the mighty rejection of business as usual embodied in the Stella Prize. And I dare to hope that against the odds, working together, speaking out together, in Australia we may yet bend the arc of history towards justice.
Always was, always will be. And free Palestine.”
Smart stuff on the Internet 💭
All the stuff I found on the web that made me think, smile, or have an ‘aha!’ moment. Spend your Sunday reading them – you'll be better off for it:
State and federal MPs describe death threats and vile abuse in wake of Joanna Howe’s anti-abortion campaign on Guardian Australia
Remember how last week I wrote that forced birthers in Australia are getting more aggressive, inspired by the US? Here’s an update on the tactics of one of the leaders of the forced birth movement in Aus. “Staff in the office of the Queensland Labor leader, Steven Miles, called the police after Howe entered their office last year and the person with her began filming without consent, while she asked a staff member about abortion and refused to leave when asked.”
Fernwood's 'biologically born females' only rule broke Elara's hope for a safe workout space on SBS
Friend of Zee Feed Alexandra Koster has produced this important deep dive. "In 2021, Fernwood sought an exemption from Queensland's Anti-Discrimination Act 1991, concerned about members' religious freedom and psychological safety, as well as fears that their women-only fitness model "could give rise to a complaint by a man that Fernwood is directly discriminating against men". It's unclear on what grounds Fernwood Fitness is excluding trans women, but at present, their publicly available 11-page membership terms and conditions do not reference sex or gender eligibility criteria.”
Why Does Everything Sound Like an Audition Song for ‘The Voice’? on Rolling Stone
Calling Benson Boone “Voice audition pop” is so accurate, I’m jealous of the always excellent Larisha Paul for coining it! “The production must be sparse, so the vocal isn’t overpowered. The vocal tone has to be distinct enough to spark intrigue. And within a minute and a half, it needs to build into a dramatic octave jump, one final Hail Mary in case the audition is nearing its end and no buzzers have been pressed.”
'Somebody needs to do it' on Taylor Lorenz’s YouTube
Incredible video essay by journalist Taylor Lorenz about Trump assassination memes – it’s a very comprehensive review of America’s sociopolitical landscape, and how this has led to “collective trauma, political cynicism, [and] decaying faith in democratic institutions.” Memes are so much more than just online jokes, and this is proof!