Really important conversations are not safe
The Bendigo Writers Festival, to take place this weekend, has faced intense criticism for its late request for a code of conduct, which authors believe would restrict their ability to exercise free speech. 48 Participants withdrew, and the Festival has essentially collapsed.
As it should.
Kate Mildenhall, who was to moderate a book club session about the nature of censorship in literature, said: “I have not, in my time, seen a code of conduct like this.”
“It’s no secret that we are living in an incredibly risk averse environment at the moment,” Julie Amos, Festival spokesperson, told the ABC. “We encourage discussions about these issues.“We’re not trying to shut them down. We just want to make sure those really, really important conversations happen in a safe way.”
In a safe way is code for not offending the sponsors. Or, do not say anything that we do not agree with.
Writing is not supposed to be safe. Great writing pushes every boundary. The writers and comedians are the ones who hold truth to power, especially when the political class has bent the knee.
The backlash against ‘woke’ is a backlash against being able to have an opposing view that doesn’t reinforce domination, supremacy and colonialism.
For too long, victims have leveraged their victim status to silence the world when atrocities are committed by their hands.
Really really important conversations are not safe. They are never safe.
When we prevent the really important conversations from happening, conversations where people feel extremely uncomfortable, and are confronted with truths they refuse to face, we become complicit in the acceptance of evil. Evil that says my race, my rights, my religion is superior to yours.
To stand for human dignity and rights is not safe in a world that wants conformity and submission.
Safe is laughable. Ask for safety for those who have been affected by the brutality of supremacy. Once they have the safety to live a dignified life, we can then consider safe conversations, but until then, we must enter the fray of the very unsafe.
Our work at Syntropic World grounds this type of activism in the tools and models we teach in the Dare to Care Workshop. https://syntropic.world/dare-to-care/
With these tools, we can step more bravely and more prepared into the maelstrom of really important conversations that are extremely unsafe.
As we must.
Bravo to all of those who withdrew. The power of the people is the greatest power we have.
Photo Taken August 15th 2025, Article published August 16th 2025
