Sydney Festival
In November last year, I received word that Sydney Festival, one of the premiere art events in Australia, had sought and received $20,000 in funding from the Israeli government to put on a production by an Israeli artist; in turn Israel became a “Star Partner” and has its logo emblazoned on the Sydney Festival website. For more on how and why this is bad, I urge you to read Jennine Khalik’s piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, and this statement by the other organisers, Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah, Dr Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Dr Paula Abood, Dr Jumana Bayeh, Alissar Chidiac, Sara Saleh and Fahad Ali. I’m not going to cover that ground again, or go into the innumerable human rights abuses, war crimes, and cruelty exhibited by the Israeli regime on a daily basis. I want to talk about how this started, and where it’s ended up now.
At that time, discussions were taking place privately between artists and the Sydney Festival board; I was one of about 20 people who signed a letter to the board asking them to drop their partnership with the Israeli embassy. While I had work presented as part of SF last year, I am not part of the 2022 season—I signed because it was the right thing to do, in solidarity with my kin, who asked it of me. I’m explaining this because it’s often the case, when things do enter the public arena, that people resent protestors for their perceived disruption and it colours their reaction. Surely there was another way to handle this? they think. You know, quietly. Out of sight. Out of mind.
It’s almost always the case that things become public for a reason: all other avenues have failed. None of the artists involved wanted to withdraw. Arab Theatre Studio is a tiny community arts organisation in Western Sydney that was finally starting to make its presence known; the ensemble Dandana had a number of events; Bankstown Poetry Slam is a nationally recognised organisation giving a much-needed platform to young poets in our community. Having Dr Mohammed Ahmad on the board of directors would have been fantastic for so many reasons. It is enormously difficult to get any kind of traction as an artist, especially coming from a disadvantaged background; we know all too well when we are being used as a token, a colourful gesture, a tick in the box.
That’s what makes this situation so depressing. In private, the multi-million-dollar Sydney Festival decided that $20,000 in Zionist funding for one event was more important than a dozen events with Arab and Palestinian artists, worth more than a seat on their board of directors. I’m an Arab Muslim from Western Sydney and all my life I have seen this kind of decision-making take place, over and over; our lives, our communities, our pain, our entire homelands are disposable according to the West.
Let me be clear: this is not an Arab Muslim issue, though that plays a part, it’s a Palestinian issue (of all faiths and none), a settler colonial issue, a Zionist issue. I’m articulating my own experience simply to say I have some sense of the pain that comes from seeing your entire existence deemed dismissible, disposable, too difficult. It’s rare, though, to see it presented in such dismal financial numbers.
Sydney Festival made a choice, in private, that this funding—this partnership—was worth more than the Palestinian call to boycott Israeli products while Israel continued to murder and terrorise them. They decided it was worth more than the careers and effort of dozens of artists. And so, the public withdrawal occurred, with a corresponding call for others to join, which they have: Barkaa, Amy McQuire, Nazeem Hussain, Khaled Sabsabi, Bindi Bosses, Hybrid Formz, Yumi Stynes, Meredith Burggmann & Yvette Andrews, Tasnim Hossain, Marrugeku, Karla Dickens, and Marcus Whale, among others.
They bet that they could dismiss this quietly, and they bet wrong. Subsequently, I’ve seen the pressure that was building begin to be swung against the organisers—sadly, this is the predictable norm. Whenever something becomes too loud, whenever that call for solidarity impinges on the daily routine of people who truly want not to have to care about this, they turn not on the institution that failed everyone, but on the individuals who have been forced to risk their careers because of an unethical choice that turned an arts festival into an unsafe environment, one that principally stated I do not value your life or the lives of your kin.
Please resist this predictable norm, and keep your focus on Sydney Festival. If you are an artist or organisation choosing to continue with your participation in the festival, for whatever reason, that’s a decision entirely your own. We all make decisions in this capitalist hellscape that are unfortunately necessary (or at least we imagine them to be). Choosing to continue does not mean, however, that you need to speak over the Palestinians that are desperately organising for their survival; you do not need to tell them how to protest, or why actually your refusal is the correct choice, or why doing so is actually magically in solidarity with them anyway, or any of the other nonsense that’s been trotted out.