This week marks the fourth year of the criminal imprisonment of Julian Assange, an Australian citizen kidnapped and convicted by the US for daring to disrupt the most powerful and bloodiest mafia group in history, known worldwide as “Western civilisation”. He is charged with 18 crimes, including espionage. A single word of solidarity and support for Assange, no matter how useless or naïve, can never be superfluous, never be reiterative or obvious.
Beyond the myth or symbol that the media have turned him into within the cyclical and fleeting nature of their fashions, the ethical duty of every journalist, communicator or social activist is the unconditional defence of a human being persecuted for revealing the state crimes committed by the superpowers that believe they rule our world.
I am sure that the courageous and timely revelations and denunciations of his WikiLeaks platform saved thousands of lives, including those of American citizens, and perhaps prevented more than one war. Perhaps it was more efficient than all the international organisations and non-violent movements put together. That is why his Nobel Peace Prize is prison. Assange’s conviction, more akin to a public execution, is a message of terror to all those who dare to challenge the US and its allies.
If our greatness is in the size of the enemies we choose, then Assange, whatever happens to him, will forever remain a giant.
A few weeks ago, the 3rd World Forum on Human Rights was held in Argentina, which culminated in a declaration of support and a request for freedom for Julian Assange. But a curious thing happened. Among the signatures of the people demanding his release, the most incredible names appear. For example, former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, former Colombian President Ernesto Samper and Argentinean President Alberto Fernández. If anyone still remembers, Zapatero was a pseudo-socialist who expanded the Spanish military presence in Afghanistan and then ordered Spanish forces to participate in the NATO invasion of Libya, Samper was another typical Colombian paramilitary narco-state boss, always at the orders of his northern masters, and Fernández, someone who beyond his very special views on Russian policy, has long simply not fulfilled the social promises sworn by him for the Argentine people, but now requests Joe Biden for the support of the U.S. in his negotiation with the IMF.
Several of Assange’s supporters, over the years of his political work, have not found a single word critical of the US government, have never spoken out about NATO’s role in the current Ukrainian tragedy, and it seems that “requesting freedom” for someone who is never really intended to be released is the most heroic act in his political career.
It gives the impression that the just cause of solidarity with Assange was turned by his enemies into a kind of showcase for “politically correct” rebellion. As there is no real movement of solidarity with him and no one can free him, these timid petitions from time to time put nothing at risk and are a perfect escape valve for a world where there are fewer and fewer rights and permissions left.
As if Julian Assange is already dead, his name, like that of heroes of the past, turned into bronze figures, is used for political ‘marketing’ by any opportunist or scoundrel. Now, just by disconnecting us from the internet, it is very easy to take away our right to reply. While he is slowly being killed in prison, others in liberty and quite compliant with the system that is murdering him are making a career out of his name.
The most terrible part of this story is the loneliness. The more international events and online meetings are held “for Assange’s freedom”, the more alone he is. In today’s world, very different from the times of the Vietnam war and even from a decade ago, when the US invaded Iraq, there is no longer an organised nonviolent movement, capable of gathering millions of people, cutting off roads and paralysing industries and ports. Many of the few who say they are nonviolent are hired by media and organisations financed by arms manufacturers. Electronic signatures on protest mails serve only to ease the consciousness of the signatories and fill the big data bases of corporations and intelligence services.
It is curious that one of the biggest and most serious accusations against Assange is that he has obtained and collected data from the internet, which is now the daily practice of thousands of private companies and governments that operate as if they were private companies.
With the destruction of Assange’s main work, the WikiLeaks portal, the system’s much-publicised freedom of social networks came to an end. There are opinions that it was the CIA itself that allowed the creation of WikiLeaks in order to leak its revelations and no end to get a blunt excuse to censor the networks.
From today’s experience, when we see how controlled and propagandistically managed the entire Western world’s mainstream press is, it is hard to imagine that the WikiLeaks leaks could have been published freely, without the prior consent of the media owners who belong to the giant consortiums related to the military industry and the state secret services. Was the world really so different before, or is it only now that we are beginning to understand it with a greater sense of reality?
Wasn’t Assange, with all his ability to hack and access all the secrets of the whole world, the most naïve of us, knowing first-hand all the monstrosity of the system and believing that he could fight it democratically and nonviolently, revealing the crimes of global power to the citizens of the planet?
Why, knowing how the circus of the “society of law” works, did he seek the Ecuadorian embassy in London as the safest place in the world? There will be many more questions in the wind, yet to be raised, but in today’s world, heavily formatted and censored by the owners of networks, media and platforms, it is already increasingly futile to look for the answers on screens. All the “now leaks” are a new ‘marketing’ strategy of the system to keep on selling us their ‘fake news’…
While we look for new ways to make journalism free from the orders of banks and corporations, we will not stop demanding freedom for our colleague and comrade Julian Assange.
