I have fought with and for Julian Assange for years. But when I heard that he was free again, my first thought was that he was returning to a world that looks - and is - much worse than the one he left behind. Pandemics, wars and large-scale ecological collapse force us to ask the big question: in what sense are we, breathing fresh air outside prisons, still free?
Even our fictions are getting worse. The new children's film "Inside Out 2" follows thirteen-year-old Riley, who is at the beginning of puberty. Her personified emotions - Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, Disgust - created a new section in her mind called "Feeling of Self". Then four new emotions arrive - Anxiety, Envy, Shame, Boredom and - conflict ensues. Joy thinks Riley should focus on having fun at camp, while Anxiety wants Riley to earn a spot on the team and make new friends. Eventually, the first and second generation emotions learn to work together to protect Riley's omnipresent Sense of Self, leaving viewers with a completely false representation of the human soul.
In the real world, these inner psychological tensions often escalate to the point of insanity. A much better film would have shown the emotions of a Palestinian boy in the ruins of Gaza, rather than a girl from an affluent suburb of Los Angeles. Instead of working together to form a stable self, his conflicting emotions would push him toward a mental breakdown and suicidal acts of violence. Let's remember GK Chesterton's wonderful description from "Orthodoxy":
"If a soldier surrounded by the enemy wants to break through, he must combine a strong desire to live with an unusual indifference to dying. He must not hold on to his life, because then he will be a coward and run away. He must not even wait for death, because then he will be a suicide and will not get away. He must live in a spirit of fierce indifference to life; he must crave life like water, and drink death like wine".
Oleh Sentsov's recent documentary "Realno" perfectly shows this combination of opposites. After spending several years as a political prisoner in Russia, Sentsov went to fight for the Ukrainian army. The film consists of 90 minutes of GoPro footage taken at moments when he didn't know his camera was on. It is shown unedited and depicts the strange mix of horror and boredom that defines life at the front.
We encounter such dualities throughout the film. The banal brutality of reality is punctuated by magical moments that could best be described as nonsensical meaning. Sentsov recalls the moment just before the start of filming: "There was a soldier with the code name Johnny, a veteran of the Afghanistan war. He went to evacuate the wounded but was hit... He managed to make one last radio call saying, 'Johnny's calling. I'm dead'”. It is a moment of authentic metaphysical absurdity.
Many commentators believe that "Real" shows the war as it really is. If that was Sentsov's intention, his film would be another pacifist ode to the pointless absurdity of war. But although Sentsov recognizes the brutal senselessness of the situation, he still believes that the fight for a just cause must continue. Stripping away all the romanticism of battlefield heroism, "Real" shows what real courage means: accepting the misery of military conflict and not camouflaging it with pathetic fantasies.
That's the message we need right now. In the case of Ukraine, pacifism was used as a pretext for Russian military aggression. The message of those opposed to Western support for Ukraine is: "You must not resist the occupier, because then you will become like him." In the Holy Land, the message is similar, but the mainstream media's coverage of the events is very different. There is a consistent effort to manipulate our perception of what is happening in order to limit the emotional impact. While the Israelis were killed in the "massacre", the Palestinians were "found dead". These are forms of "soft" censorship that pervade public discourse.
Did you know that a large group of Israeli Jewish intellectuals recently called on all EU members, the United Kingdom and other countries to recognize the state of Palestine? This brave act received hardly any attention in the Western media. Major events that might upset the sensibilities of the Western public are either not mentioned or reported with only a small note at the bottom of the page.
How many people noticed that on June 20, 2024, Israel carried out what amounted to annexation of the West Bank, with Israeli forces transferring powers to "settler-friendly civil servants"? The irony of this move will not be lost on the Palestinians. While the military occupation implies some distance from Israel, this new system means that they are integrated into the Israeli civil order - but one dominated by chauvinists that tends to exclude them.
These examples show why we need heroes like Assange. He did what needed to be done and paid a high price for it. The time has come for others to continue the work he started. By "work" I mean not only a job but also a calling: something you are called to do. Assange did not decide to start WikiLeaks and reveal state secrets to color his life. He did it because he could not do otherwise. For this reason, I suppose he is a happy man, despite all the suffering he has endured.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2024. (translation: NR)
Bonus video:
