Attempts to silence writers rarely erase them. More often, they expose insecurity, deepen division, and turn targets into symbols of resistance.

History is replete with examples that efforts to suppress writers, thinkers, and artists do not erase them, but instead propel their voices further into public view.

Far from erasing dissenting voices, such campaigns often amplify them, transforming relatively contained figures into global symbols of resistance. The recent smear campaign against the Australian writer and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah fits squarely within this long and ignoble tradition.

Whatever the intentions of those who sought to delegitimise her – through accusations, insinuations, and the now-familiar tactic of conflating criticism of Israeli state violence with antisemitism – the result has been counterproductive. Abdel-Fattah is today more widely read, discussed, and defended than before. Her work has reached audiences who may never previously have encountered it. Book sales rise, invitations multiply, and public scrutiny shifts from the accused to the accusers. This is not accidental. It is structural.

When authority acts without moral legitimacy, it exposes itself. Suppression becomes a confession of weakness. As Hannah Arendt observed, power relies on consent; coercion begins where legitimacy ends. Smear campaigns grounded not in evidence but in bigotry, fear, or political self-interest reveal precisely what they seek to hide: the absence of ethical authority.

Take Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Salman Rushdie, for example. Intended to punish and intimidate, the decree instead propelled The Satanic Verses into global prominence. Rushdie’s life was irreversibly damaged – this must never be minimised – but the fatwa failed in its core objective: it did not erase the book, silence the author, or restore religious authority. Instead, it exposed the fragility of absolutist power in a plural world.

The two cases are not morally or politically equivalent. Yet they share a revealing logic: attempts to destroy a voice often succeed only in magnifying it.

This pattern repeats itself relentlessly across history. Galileo Galilei, tried by the Inquisition for heresy, did not disappear into obscurity; instead, his trial became a lasting indictment of clerical dogmatism. Émile Zola’s “J’Accuse”, intended to be suppressed, went on to immortalise both its author and the injustice of the Dreyfus Affair. James Joyce’s Ulysses, banned for obscenity, emerged as a foundational work of modern literature. Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, imprisoned for writing in his native Gikuyu, became a global voice against cultural imperialism. Nelson Mandela, branded a terrorist and imprisoned for decades, was transformed into a universal symbol of dignity and moral clarity.

More recently, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange – whatever one’s judgement of their actions – were elevated to international prominence precisely because states overreached in their attempts to punish them.

In each case, the disproportion between alleged offence and punitive response revealed the real motive: the protection of power, not principle.

The reactionary responses to the horrific Bondi Junction terrorist attack illustrate how fear is routinely instrumentalised to curtail freedoms. Instead of sober reflection, segments of public discourse descended into moral panic. Certain actors sought to control language, silence debate, and impose political litmus tests – particularly around Palestine.

Criticism of Israeli state actions, including the ongoing devastation of Gaza, is increasingly framed not as political speech but as moral deviance. Antisemitism is cynically conflated with opposition to genocide, hollowing out the fight against real antisemitism while criminalising ethical dissent.

This dynamic bears disturbing resemblance to the very phenomenon it claims to oppose. When fear is weaponised to suppress speech, when entire communities are placed under suspicion, when dissent is framed as danger, the response itself acquires a terroristic character – not in method, but in intent: to intimidate, to coerce, to silence.

What is ultimately at stake in these episodes is not merely free speech as an abstract right, but human dignity. Smear campaigns dehumanise their targets. They reduce complex individuals to caricatures, deny them good faith, and strip them of moral agency.

They also corrode the public sphere. When accusation replaces argument, when outrage substitutes for evidence, society loses its capacity for ethical reasoning. The result is not safety or cohesion, but fragmentation and cynicism.

As Václav Havel warned, living within a lie requires constant repression. Truth, even when inconvenient, has a stubborn tendency to surface.

There is a final irony worth noting. These campaigns fail not only morally but strategically. They strengthen the very movements they seek to crush. They transform writers into symbols and books into testaments.

Randa Abdel-Fattah’s growing prominence is not an anomaly. It is the predictable outcome of power acting without conscience.

History’s verdict on such behaviour is unambiguous. The instigators are remembered, if at all, as footnotes of shame. The targets endure – not because they are flawless, but because repression exposes the truth they carry.

In the long arc of history, censorship is loud but short-lived. Human dignity, once defended, proves far more resilient.