Julian Assange is, finally, free (as much as one can be in a world dominated by capitalist logic). This is primarily the greatest news for Assange, his family, and friends. Many people around the world, interested in old-fashioned things such as freedom, democracy, and human rights, are cheering. It is, after all, a great victory against long-lasting persecution. And yet, it is bittersweet news.

Decades of heinous crimes, regime-overthrows, launching illegitimate and illegal wars, torture, etc., all under the pretext of being committed to “democracy” and “human rights,” have not been sufficient; the Empire has also had the urge to go after individuals. The Empire uses all the standard instruments that the “good old” totalitarian regimes used against dissidents: illegitimate arrests and detention, media character assassination, and torture. Physical elimination was, thankfully, avoided in the case of Assange, and it is reasonable to suppose that this was due to the constant pressure of many individuals and organizations fighting for Assange and his rights over many years.

Assange was exposed to what John Pilger calls “the Stalinist trial,” which would be unthinkable in any society with at least a basic level of understanding of democracy and human rights. “I have never known a smear campaign like it,” notes Pilger. We have witnessed to “the fabricated character assassination of a man who refused to join the club: who believed journalism was a service to the public, never to those above.” (https://asiapacificreport.nz/2020/09/08/john-pilger-the-stalinist-trial-of-julian-assange-whose-side-are-you-on/)

As Pilger points out, Assange “exposed the fraudulence of wars promoted by the media and the homicidal nature of America’s wars, the corruption of dictators, the evils of Guantanamo. He forced us in the West to look in the mirror. He exposed the official truth-tellers in the media as collaborators: those I would call Vichy journalists. None of these imposters believed Assange when he warned that his life was in danger: that the ‘sex scandal’ in Sweden was a set up and an American hellhole was the ultimate destination.” 

The case of Assange and Wikileaks has removed the last figleaf pretending to hide the oppressive character of the Empire and its readiness to employ even the most horrific brutalities when it deems them to be proper. In the name of freedom, democracy, and human rights, of course. Everyone who is not hopelessly indoctrinated (or paid to think only “the right way”) can clearly see that the Empire has no credibility, that it has actively been suppressing freedom, democracy, and human rights whenever and however it finds fit. To quote Pilger again, “The extradition hearing in London this week is the final act of an Anglo-American campaign to bury Julian Assange. It is not due process. It is due revenge. The American indictment is clearly rigged, a demonstrable sham. So far, the hearings have been reminiscent of their Stalinist equivalents during the Cold War.” A “democratic” country has allowed “a malign foreign power to manipulate justice” and has engaged in a “vicious psychological torture of Julian – a form of torture, as Nils Melzer, the UN expert has pointed out, that was refined by the Nazis because it was most effective in breaking its victims.” 

The face of a merciful angel turned out to be a mask hiding the demon behind it. 

But, hey, there’s Putin over there! And there’s China, as well, so… we should be given a carte blanche to do whatever we want, how we want. Because we are the “free world.” If you don’t buy that story, we may need to persecute you, campaign against you, and torture you until you realize that it is so. If you’re too stubborn, and the contemporary version of the Gulag does not really work on you, we may need to kill you as well. But only for the benefit of freedom, democracy, and human rights. And, after all, for your own benefit as well, since it is wise to realise there can be no world outside the imperial sway. At least no world in which it is worth living.

Why has the Empire employed such brutality, with such commitment, over many years, against one individual? To send a message. The message is “you don’t disobey the Godfather.” All those who take seriously the ideas of freedom of speech and thought, democracy, and human rights have thus been warned that they may be exposed to similar persecution if what they do stands in the way of imperial interests.

In this sense, the Empire has made its point. Yes, it finally allowed Assange to walk away, but only after it had inflicted enormous pain and suffering on Assange and his family, forcing him to spend some of his potentially most productive years fighting for survival and sanity. He was allowed to leave prison on the condition that he plead guilty. The imperial pax has thus been preserved and symbolically reaffirmed. Comrade Stalin would be proud. 

The bittersweet outcome of the Assange saga has allowed us to repeat some of the lessons from the long history of fighting against oppression and totalitarianism. Yes, all unaccountable power structures, including non-democratic governments, have a tendency to hide their secrets. As in the “good old” totalitarian systems, so in the contemporary liberal “democratic” ones: government business is not to be discussed, let alone handled by mere mortals. The mainstream media are there to sustain the official ideology and uphold the imperial pax, going after everyone who dares to challenge the official narrative. John Pilger makes valuable points in this regard as well:

“It is said that whatever happens to Julian Assange in the next three weeks will diminish if not destroy freedom of the press in the West. But which press? The Guardian? The BBC, The New York Times, the Jeff Bezos Washington Post? No, the journalists in these organisations can breathe freely. The Judases on The Guardian who flirted with Julian, exploited his landmark work, made their pile then betrayed him, have nothing to fear. They are safe because they are needed.”

Not only the media but intellectuals in the West expose the same mentality, characterized by moral corruption, cowardice, submissiveness and spinelessness, merged with greed and the quest for power (no matter how insignificant that power and influence may be). Western intellectuals who are eager to talk about the crimes of the Putin regime but who choose to remain silent about the crimes of Western governments (and the case of Assange is only one of them) expose themselves as hypocrites, worthy of disdain. Moreover, they are complicit in those crimes by siding with the propaganda industry, where silence can be as dangerous as an open participation in propaganda.

And yet, there is another important lesson to be repeated (or learned anew) from the Assange saga: there is always a chance for a positive change, for a victory, even a small one, when there is a sufficient number of committed people who are ready to work honestly and diligently, over many years, fighting the repression in the name of human freedom and dignity. What Pilger says about freedom of the press is valid for other domains as well – freedom of conscious, thought and speech, without which human dignity and a fullfiling human life are unthinkable: “Freedom of the press now rests with the honourable few: the exceptions, the dissidents on the internet who belong to no club, who are neither rich nor laden with Pulitzers, but produce fine, disobedient, moral journalism – those like Julian Assange.” 

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