Victims of violence carry the trauma of the violence they’ve endured, but also the trauma of living within a society that stays silent about the crimes perpetrated against them. Five years ago, I reported the teenage sexual abuse I experienced, and endured a brutal three-year judicial process. I have since released a memoir about this — telling my story felt important and urgent.

As much as “speaking out” has felt mostly empowering and healing, due to Australian defamation laws, there were things I was told I wasn’t allowed to say, for risk of being sued by my perpetrator. Being told what words I could and couldn’t use to describe my experience felt like further abuse. Victims of violence are routinely intimidated into silence with threat of defamation — it’s a part of the ongoing abuse and control perpetrators wield.

It’s known that the path to recovery for victims of violence involves the opportunity to tell their story. Trauma recovery recognises “telling one’s story” — being heard and acknowledged — as fundamental. Hence the “talking cure”, victim impact statements, yarning, the confessional, even meeting a mate at the pub. There is a reason people tell stories, are drawn to storytellers, and flock to writers’ festivals. Humans are storytellers: it is through story that we process our pasts, and better understand ourselves and others.

I was honoured to be invited to take part in this year’s Bendigo Writers Festival, in the La Trobe Presents stream of the festival program, curated by La Trobe’s Professor of Public Engagement, Clare Wright. I’ve run and programmed two regional Victorian writers’ festivals, so am aware of the enormity of the workload. Curating a festival is like curating a dinner party: you invite the most interesting, insightful, inspiring people to speak on the most relevant, urgent topics, and put them in combinations where the outcome will hopefully be greater than the sum of its parts: magic can happen. A good curator is an alchemist. I was to be on a panel with journalist Jess Hill, moderated by La Trobe criminologist, Dr Kirsty Duncanson, discussing stopping the violence against women and children. I was thrilled.

Last Wednesday (two days before festival opening), I received a code of conduct document from festival organisers, warning against “language or topics that might be considered inflammatory, divisive or disrespectful.” As a speaker in “La Trobe Presents”, I was also given a highly contested definition of antisemitism I must abide by, which stated that a criticism of Israel may be considered antisemitic. I was flummoxed, as one would be if sent this before arriving at a dinner party.

It’s since been revealed that this clumsy risk management on behalf of the university and festival organising committee was a panicked response to having received a three-page letter in July from an academic lobby group “5A” regarding the inclusion of Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah — Palestinian lawyer and award-winning author — in the festival. “Having a known racist person invited to the festival places the onus on La Trobe leadership and the Writers Festival organisers … to mitigate the risks involved in [the panel] .’

The day after the Code was sent out, Randa withdrew from taking part in the festival. She wrote to festival organisers: “The relentless toll of daily killings and the deliberate starvation of my kin, friends, and loved ones is beyond words. Yet I chose to remain, believing I had a duty to use whatever platform I was given to speak about my book—a work concerned with silenced and disciplined voices.” She explained that the code of conduct “directly infringes on my right to speak as a Palestinian, as well as my freedom of speech and academic freedom. I am already in a state of deep trauma and distress. This demand is more than I can stomach.”

Clare Wright withdrew in solidarity. Several First Nations authors and poets also departed. It’s important to recognise that these speakers had all been invited to the festival to speak about violence in the Middle East and the violence of colonialism — topics which were deeply personal and traumatic to them. The eleventh hour “watch your step” warning we’d all received was a style of intimidation I could relate to as a sexual abuse survivor, someone who’s been warned to choose my words carefully when talking about my perpetrator, lest he sue. My panel was to discuss violence against women and children: coercive control, silencing, grooming; the control of the powerful — inherent in colonialism and imperialism — managing the narrative and keeping victims silent. We unanimously decided we must withdraw.

All people — Palestinians, First Nations, Jews — deserve to live free from violence. And all victims of violence and their allies must be allowed to speak out about their experience. Truth-telling is not only a psychological need for an individual, it’s a cultural imperative. Truth-telling — about the Holocaust, Vietnam, the Stolen Generation, Gaza — is fundamental to a healthy democratic society.

Trauma is not exclusive to any one group of people. We all experience it, and if we are to have a shared ambition for healing and peace, we all must stand up against the silencing of marginalised or oppressed groups.

We have witnessed what happens when uncomfortable truths are censored — particularly when voiced by artists, intellectuals and academics — too many times historically.  We have seen where the attempt to silence dissent from dominant discourses leads us.  We must not make the same mistake.