Naomi Klein, Tariq Ali and other high-profile speakers at Sydney’s coming Festival of Dangerous Ideas have condemned a co-curator of the festival for having an outspoken supporter of Australia’s asylum seeker policies on its board.
Klein, Ali, Johann Hari, Laurie Penny and Jon Ronson have written an open letter condemning Australia’s migration policies after last week’s aborted Australian Border Force operation and continuing reports of abuses in detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island.
“As we have learned more about the migration debate here in Australia, we were surprised to discover that the festival’s co-curator, the Ethics Centre, is no mere bystander,” the letter said.
Retired Australian army major general Jim Molan sits on the St James Ethics Centre board.
Molan is the former special envoy for operation sovereign borders and is a defender of Australia’s controversial policies of boat turnbacks, offshore processing and regional resettlement.
Earlier this year Molan said Europe’s refugee crisis had worsened because it refused “to learn from its own mistakes and from the efforts of others who have handled similar problems”.
“Destroying the criminal people smugglers was the centre of gravity of our border control policies, and judicious boat turnbacks was the key.”
But the five festival guests described Australia’s migration policies as a “draconian program relying on the remote island detention centres condemned as cruel and inhumane by multiple respected human rights organisations”.
“As festival speakers, we wish to separate ourselves – in the strongest possible terms – from Molan’s views and policies. Australia’s cruel practices towards migrants are wholly unacceptable, and they most certainly should not be exported to Europe, where they would make an already intolerable moral crisis far worse.”
Guardian Australia is co-presenting some masterclasses at the festival.
The executive director of the St James Ethics Centre, Simon Longstaff, told Guardian Australia he would have liked the speakers to have raised their concerns privately first, “because they would have found the ethics centre’s views accord with theirs”.
The ethics centre had consistently condemned Australia’s boat turnbacks policy and offshore processing regime, Longstaff said, citing the Kerferd Oration he delivered last month in Beechworth, Victoria.
“The ethics centre believes people fleeing persecution and oppression should be received in safety and dignity ... the conditions of indefinite detention imposed by Australia do not meet that,” he said.
But Longstaff said the ethics centre board, which performs a governance role, was deliberately drawn from a diverse cross-section of the community.
And, he said, robust debate was the fundamental premise of the festival at which the speakers are guests.
“It is a festival of dangerous ideas, and if we are the lightning rod to get people talking about these issues, then, as long as it’s respectful, then these are debates it is important to have.”
