Jarvis Cocker has revealed that Pulp planned to pull out of this year’s Adelaide Festival, which they are due to play in February, following a recent controversy over the literary strand of the event.
That controversy was prompted by the controversial decision to cancel an appearance by Palestinian Australian academic Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah. The Adelaide Festival’s board initially said it would be “culturally insensitive” for Abdel-Fattah, a strong critic of Israel, to speak as part of the event’s Writer’s Week programme following last month’s terrorist attack against a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach.
However, following a significant backlash, and a massive boycott of the literary strand - which was set to extend to the wider festival - that decision has been revoked and a new board appointed.
In a post on social media, Cocker has told fans that “we told the festival organisers that we wouldn’t be able to play due to the dreadful situation with Dr Randa”, but that event organisers initially asked the band to delay making any public statement on the matter, given a change in leadership was underway.
Noting that change in leadership has now occurred and that the new board has issued an apology to Abdel-Fattah, Cocker adds, “We are happy that the situation has been dealt with and are now prepared to perform at the music festival once more”.
It was announced on 8 Jan that the Adelaide Festival had rescinded Abdel-Fattah’s invitation to speak as part of its Writer’s Week programme over her commentary on Israel and Zionism, and because of “cultural insensitivity concerns” in the wake of the Bondi beach attack.
That decision caused outrage among the writer community, with around 180 authors pulling out of the festival. The director of Writer’s Week, Louise Adler, also resigned in protest, calling the board’s decision to cancel Abdel-Fattah “an act of cultural vandalism”.
As the boycott gained momentum, organisers announced that this year’s Writer’s Week was being cancelled entirely, while most of the board at the wider Adelaide Festival resigned.
The new board then issued a statement retracting the previous board’s claims that Abdel-Fattah’s participation in the festival would be “culturally insensitive”, and confirming that they had formally apologised to Abdel-Fattah and invited her to speak at Writer’s Week 2027.
In her own statement, Abdel-Fattah said, “I accept this apology as acknowledgement of our right to speak publicly and truthfully about the atrocities that have been committed against the Palestinian people”.
While this year’s Writer’s Week will not go ahead, organisers hope that - with the new board in place and their apology to Abdel-Fattah accepted - the rest of the Adelaide Festival can proceed as planned. Including the Pulp show, which is a free concert.
Pulp also issued their own statement on the situation as a band, writing, “It is our understanding that the festival programmers are now acting in good faith. The festival board that made this dreadful decision have been replaced and a full apology has been accepted by Randa Abdel-Fattah, who has been invited to appear next year”.
They add, “we want to make it absolutely clear that Pulp refuse to condone the silencing of voices - we celebrate difference, and oppose censorship, violence and oppression in all its forms”.
However, “given the latest developments at the Adelaide Festival, we feel able, in good conscience, to honour our invitation to perform in Adelaide in February. We hope that our free concert will be an opportunity for different communities to come together in peace and harmony”.
