Big Ideas Randa Abdel-Fattah and Louise Adler on the cost of speaking out in a time of division
Mar 17, 2026
Louise Adler, former Adelaide Writers' Week director and long‑time publisher, and Randa Abdel‑Fattah, Palestinian Australian novelist, academic and lawyer, discuss Discipline. They explore why the novel is titled that way and links between law, self‑censorship and academic disciplines. Conversation covers research origins, media and university responses since October 2023, social media mischaracterisation, and pressures on racialised professionals.
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How State Power Becomes Self Policing
- Young Muslim students internalise state power and self-censor their politics to avoid mischaracterisation.
- Randa's research with Sydney schools found students mute political language and police themselves, echoing Foucault's governmentality.
How Real Events Reshaped The Novel
- The book shifted after October 23 as Randa couldn't write amid live-streamed genocide and restructured it to demand accountability from media and institutions.
- She reframed the novel to ask if earlier truthful speech by journalists could have changed events since 2021.
Why Neutrality Is A Political Choice
- Randa rejects the separation of Palestinian art from politics, arguing all art is political and neutrality during genocide is itself a position.
- She cites Santiago Castro Gomez to show 'point zero' objectivity is a Western myth.
