Has Performative Liberalism Grown Worse?

The Western world is supposed to stand for values like freedom, justice and human rights, a commitment to meet wrongdoing with consequence, guided by rules and obligations. How then, do we reconcile that with Western governments' and media's support of and complicity in the horrors in Gaza? How do we witness the bloodshed and destruction, and yet look away?

This conversation was recorded at the Canberra Writers Festival on 26 October 2025.

Speakers

Omar El Akkad Author, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, and novels The American War and What Strange Paradise

Peter Greste (host) Professor of journalism, Macquarie University, Author, The Correspondent