29 January 2010
FRANK
MOORHOUSE TO BOYCOTT CHINA WRITERS¡¯ TOUR
Acclaimed Australian novelist, short story
writer and screenwriter, Frank Moorhouse is
boycotting a major writers¡¯ tour of China in
protest against the recent gaoling of the
Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo.
The internationally renowned Chinese writer
was gaoled for 11 years on Christmas Day
2009 for ¡°subverting State power.¡±
Moorhouse, a winner of the Social Equity
Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism,
has written an open letter to the Australian
Ambassador to China, Dr Geoff Raby,
expressing his reasons for withdrawing from
the March tour. (Full statement attached).
¡°Because I have been vocal about freedom of
expression in my own country and have been
recognised for it, it would be unseemly of
me to go to China and to remain silent,¡± he
said in the letter.
¡°I feel that I have an unusual demand on my
conscience, and have special reasons to
act.¡±
Moorhouse, the winner of the Miles Franklin
Award (Dark Palace, 2000), The Age Book of
the Year Award and the Australian Literature
Society's Gold Medal (Forty-Seventeen,
1988), said the trip would have been an
important one for Australian writers.
¡°It would have given us an opportunity to
read our work, speak, and visit universities
during ¡®Australian Writers¡¯ Weeks¡¯ in the
cities of Beijing and Chengdu. It also
included participation in the international
writers¡¯ festivals in Hong Kong and
Shanghai,¡± he said.
Moorhouse said he made his act of withdrawal
as an individual writer, as a member of
Sydney PEN¡¯s distinguished Writers Panel and
as a recipient in 2008 of the PEN Keneally
Award for his defence of freedom of
expression in the essay ¡°A Writer in a Time
of Terror¡±.
¡°In the essay, and elsewhere, I argued wide
freedom of expression is increasingly
accepted as both possible within the safe
order of a society and basic to the
intellectual and aesthetic development of
the individual and of the society and to
punish people for their opinions is unjust,¡±
he said in his letter to Dr Raby.
¡°I discussed the possibility of going ahead
with the visit and while in China using the
PEN tactic of the ¡®empty chair¡¯ on stage at
the events I would¡¯ve participated in. The
empty chair symbolises a writer in gaol and
the organisers of the session at a festival
explains the purpose of the chair and
sometimes names a writer who it signifies.
¡° My advice from International PEN's Asian
specialists and from DFAT was this tactic
could breach Chinese law and, because of the
unpredictability of the Chinese legal
system, the outcome for me, for my fellow
writers, and for the organisers of the event
could be serious and endanger further visits
to China by those involved.¡±
Sydney PEN and International PEN have joined
the Australian Government, the European
Union, the American Government, the United
Nations and hundreds of international
writers protesting Liu's Xiaobo¡¯s
persecution.
PEN has installed an empty chair in the
University of Technology, Sydney, to raise
awareness of the harsh treatment of the
Chinese writer after his imprisonment.
The Australian Embassy has frequently raised
Liu's case and one of its first secretaries,
together with a small number of other
foreign embassy officials, attempted to
observe his trial, but was refused access to
the court.
Moorhouse said his withdrawal from the tour
would be communicated on the Chinese civil
rights grapevine to those writers in prison.
PEN supports Moorhouse's decision. It has
also stated its support for those Australian
writers who have decided to engage with
China by deciding to undertake the tour.
¡°Individual writers must consider what is
the best course of action for them, and that
engagement can be a fruitful approach for
writers visiting countries such as China
that have troubled histories of free
expression,¡± said the President of Sydney
PEN, Dr Bonny Cassidy.
For further information:
Dr Bonny Cassidy
0417 252 004
bonny.cassidy@gmail.com
Or Judy Goldman, Mediaways, 0402 277226
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www.pen.org.au
Frank Moorhouse is a novelist, short story
writer [insert and] screenwriter. He has won
the Miles Franklin Award (Dark Palace,
2000), The Age Book of the Year Award and
the Australian Literature Society's Gold
Medal (Forty-Seventeen, 1988). Moorhouse is
a member of the Sydney PEN Centre's Writers
Panel. His essay, "The writer in a time of
terror", published in Griffith Review 14
(2007), won the Alfred Deakin Prize for an
Essay Advancing Public Debate in the
Victorian Premier's Literary Awards as well
as the award for Social Equity Journalism in
The Walkley Awards for Excellence in
Journalism.
FRANK MOORHOUSE LETTER OF WITHDRAWAL FROM
CHINA WRITERS¡¯ TOUR 2010
I was invited by the Australian Ambassador
to China Dr Geoff Raby to join a group of
writers to participate in a writers¡¯ tour of
China this March.
The trip would give us opportunities to read
our work, speak, and visit universities
during ¡®Australian Writers¡¯ Weeks¡¯ in the
cities of Beijing and Chengdu and would also
include participation in the international
writers¡¯ festivals in Hong Kong and
Shanghai. The tour has been funded by DFAT
and by private sponsors.
Having at first accepted I have now chosen
to withdraw following the gaoling on
Christmas Day 2009 of the Chinese writer Liu
Xiaobo for eleven years and the
disappearance around this time of Liu Di a
supporter of Liu Xiaobo which confirms that
the Chinese government, against
international expectations, is not moving in
the direction of freedom of expression as
expressed in the UN Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
This seems also to be confirmed by the
extension of political censorship of
internet search engines and political
interference with email in China.
Sydney PEN and International PEN have joined
the Australian government, the European
Union, the American government, the UN and
hundreds of international writer protesting
Liu's Xiaobo¡¯s persecution. The Australian
Embassy has frequently raised Liu's case and
one of its first secretaries, together with
a small number of other foreign embassy
officials, attempted to observe his trial
but were refused access to the court.
I make this act of withdrawal as an
individual writer, but also as a member of
PEN¡¯s distinguished Writers Panel and as a
recipient in 2008 of the PEN Keneally Award
for my defence of freedom of expression in
my essay A Writer in a Time of Terror in the
Griffith Review, which also received the
Alfred Deakin Award for best essay
contributing to public debate and for which
I was presented with a Walkley Award. In the
essay, and elsewhere, I argued that wide
freedom of expression is increasingly
accepted as both possible within the safe
order of a society and basic to the
intellectual and aesthetic development of
the individual and of the society and to
punish people for their opinions is unjust.
I discussed the possibility of my going
ahead with the visit and while in China
using the PEN tactic of the ¡®empty chair¡¯ on
stage at the events in which I would¡¯ve
participated in China. The empty chair
symbolises a writer in gaol and the
organisers of the session at a festival
explains the purpose of the chair and
sometimes names a writer who it signifies.
My advice from International PEN's Asia
specialists and from DFAT was that this
tactic could breach Chinese law and, because
of the unpredictability of the Chinese legal
system, the outcome for me, for my fellow
writers, and for the organisers of the event
could be serious and endanger further visits
to China by those involved.
I have not argued for a boycott of the tour
by my fellow writers. Writers sometimes
accept invitations to go into places where
governments infringe basic freedoms. They do
so for diverse motives: to investigate or to
passively observe so as to incorporate their
experiences into their future writing;
sometimes they remain neutral or silent so
as to further their understanding of these
societies; and sometimes these visits can be
justified as soft diplomacy ¨C as a way of
representing liberal values in illiberal
countries through informal conversations and
by the work they choose to read publicly
while in that country. Sometimes, just being
a writer is sufficient justification.
Because I have been vocal about freedom of
expression in my own country and have been
recognised for it, it would be unseemly of
me to go to China and to remain silent. I
feel that I have an unusual demand on my
conscience, and have special reasons to act.
It was confirmed to me by International PEN
that my endorsing of PEN¡¯s protest by
withdrawing from the tour would be
communicated on the Chinese civil rights
grapevine to those writers in prison.
To this end, I have asked PEN here in
Australia and International PEN to make my
position known.
Frank Moorhouse
GPO BOX 4430
Sydney 2001
Australia
0415 937 616
¡¡
