Contemporary Antigone, in the twilight of civilization, Julian Assange - after 14 years during which he was first in the embassy of Ecuador, from which he would have been immediately arrested if he had left, then in the notorious Belmarsh prison - he was finally released, which is a sign that must be able to inspire hope, in these times that make us hopeless , due to the constant expansion of power through technology that serves the purposes of capital reproduction. His words at the moment when he was being taken out of the embassy (where he was first denied the Internet after writing the book "Google", then he was declared an ego-maniac who "constantly complains about being tapped"(!), and the story came and up to that, how his hygiene is very neglected, which was all a way to diminish in our eyes the dimension of the hero of an era that is teetering on the edge, in which everything from the crisis of ethics to the development of artificial intelligence is working on us - dehumanization), and now they ring out, as more than calls and warnings. - Wikileaks was and remains - a window into the dark world of politics!
Nothing else went in Assange's favor: imprisoned for 23 hours, flooded with news about the horrors in Gaza and Ukraine, about the awakening of nationalism in Europe, which means the disappearance of Europe as the "continent of knowledge" (in the skin) - was thrown to the dark margin, into oblivion, only a few other intellectuals, philosophers and political activists plus journalists used the opportunity to visit - the existence of the one "who was a spy in the public interest", someone who showed us all how the world the political establishment works behind the back, after which we were all again on a moral test: either, therefore, act on behalf of a community of differences by working relentlessly in the interest of truth, or we will become - paid analysts, those who operate at the level of neoliberal "whistleblowers" ?
With reason, Assange has been called a modern Prometheus, a digital Zapatista, a modern Antigone, a hacker who has a Kantian relationship to the truth, since he has acted uncompromisingly against the scourge of an order led by the open domination of power, a technoscience that is completely dehumanized, as well as politicians for whom war is the new normal. in the constant change of power architecture. We are currently in such a situation, so on the global stage we have the polarization of the world, Huntington's The "war of civilizations" is already well under way, this European football championship, which is held in Germany, shows that - the culture of identity par excellence is racist, pro-fascist, arrogant, conceited, Eurocentric, which is all, really, working against the spirit of Europe which it arises from Greek thought, debate, public words spoken in the square, which even today remains the model on which everything is based. It wouldn't just be one Michel Foucault (who headed the chair - history of thought) said that "Greece is enough for this civilization." Undoubtedly, Assange acted in the direction of liberation - the Timothy in us, since he showed us what fate the world is getting into, without a trace, because we are always "affected to the same extent" (Peter Sloterdijk), which means that globalization knows no boundaries when the work of the total event is applied.
Michael Hardt i Antonio Negri in the text "Take your destiny into your hands", already at the beginning they write the following: "Manifestos provide an insight into the world to come and call to life a subject, which, although it is now only a spirit, must materialize and become the initiator of changes." - Assange is the subject who started the revolution, his freedom now evokes the spirit of modernity for everyone, especially it is a strong incentive for students across America, who stand up against Netanyahu and Hamas, against the terrible fact that there are currently only 13 beds for over a million Palestinians in Rafah! Didn't Assange fight for such journalism, leading - a campaign for the truth, for the right to information, breaking the facades of the public, and showing us what happens behind the screen, how politics actually pulls the strings, and what is the purpose of all external, maximally offensive military interventions , who always already justify themselves by declaring themselves to be those whose goal is to overthrow autocrats who would eliminate democracy.
What else, among other things, did Assange call us to do, and what is equally important? Let us not hesitate to agree - to the public use of the mind, because it is an act in defense of the honor of the mind! In order to do this, it is of exceptional, crucial importance that, first of all, we really know what we are doing, Assange himself teaches us (in a Cartesian way), in the following sentence: "We must start from the truth. The truth is the only way we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making based on lies cannot lead to a good conclusion.” This is a fundamental, ethical, irrefutable approach to truth, beyond any mystagogy, prosaicism or metaphoricality (which are weapons we use in some other fields). So: Assange put the interest of truth before journalism, and thus, at the same time, freed journalism itself and further enabled us to recognize the right from fake journalism. With that move, Assange dealt the biggest blow to global power, a power document that absolutely compromises power itself.
In the book "Iraq, the Borrowed Teapot", Žižek in his manner he uses a favorite Freud's a joke, which, in fact, explains the inconsistent defense of Americans who tried to defend the intervention in Iraq, using the story of some famous weapon that did not exist, but "existed" as a story that legitimizes the attack. Generally, after a friend returns a teapot to another, a three-level defense will follow 1): "I never borrowed a teapot from you, 2): when I returned it to you, the teapot was undamaged, 3): the teapot was already damaged when I borrowed it from you." Now let's apply this inconsistent sequence to the next, completely insane and situation that really causes us to explode with rage. The Russians, therefore, as the official Kremlin says, started to - "denazify" Ukraine, how did the "decolonialization" of North Africa, where the French were expelled, come about, how would the Russians and rich Islamists use that territory? We have replaced one exploitative machine with another, all for the sake of the "decolonization" of North Africa, that is, the de-Nazification of Ukraine, and when we look at it this way, that is, follow the traces of capital, we come to the conclusion: not only are we not free, but we are not even able to we choose who we will be slaves to!
The release of Assange, preceded by his admission of guilt, should not discourage us in the least, because, let's put things this way right away (let's paraphrase the good Brecht): what, then, is Assange's "guilt" compared to the guilt of bloody (global) capitalism? In addition to this, Assange is the one who calls us, with his act which already remains a historical example of how much each individual can do (yes: let's not forget Snowden, who today felt that his fight, on the contrary, was not in vain, and that his flight to Russia was worthwhile), so let's never resort to the option of apoliticality, because that is an introduction to the breakdown of solidarity and the spread of indifference. (We have come to this, and yet it is an understatement to say the perverse defense of the left in front of the growing right in Europe, the Christian Democrats and ultra-conservatives, even in the Netherlands, which is a symbol of liberalism. The defense reads like this: the liberal democrats, who openly swindle with big capital, stole from us discourse! What is their theft of leftist discourse, compared to the left lamenting it?)
The aforementioned ``Hegelian'' is all the more right, hitting the center: "Assange should be mentioned whenever we are tempted to praise our Western democratic societies and their human rights and freedoms, Chinese or Russian oppression: his fate is a reminder that our freedom very limited.” Before we move on to the next thing, we should note that the authorities, if we analyze her speech a little better, inevitably says: you should be happy, in these circumstances our opponents would do much worse things for you. Since this is obviously promoted, it is not surprising that the government blames the opposition for all its failures, both in the Western Balkans and, as we see now, in Europe as well.
It is important that we finally understand the following, which is not a complex matter. Namely: the government that we elected (temporarily, of course), we must not allow it to destroy democracy in our name, mismanage the economy, set the free market as the master in the relationship according to which we all adjust our lives. If, therefore, we are a society of knowledge, do we know that we are instrumentalizing the same at universities, which are the right hand of the market? "By disintegrating, the university can do a lot more evil." (Baudrillard) To spread his incompetence, transfer knowledge in the service of capital creation, force those professions that always already have something to do with finance, stock market speculation, because, let's be careful, now IT experts are becoming "cryptographers", a team of about thirty years old destroys a system for more than forty billions of dollars, which is why a new war is started, which are all the connections that are crushing the whole world.
Back to Assange, who explained the essence and mission of WikiLeaks in an interview: "WikiLeaks has a four-year publishing history, which, given our resources, we can be immensely proud of. Our work has resulted in enormous positive change around the world, and - as far as we know, and as any government official has confirmed - has not directly resulted in harm to an individual, other than losing a job, or losing an election." This is at the same time the most dangerous and effective work/undermining of global capitalism (for four years continuously presenting information about how more than profitable businesses are run, how wars are started, what is behind this or that US intervention, how allies are eavesdropped, etc.), uncovering the networks of intercontinental corporations, removing a false image from a leader, as a result of which he loses elections, because nothing can be done against documented things and factual data, in addition, WikiLeaks exposed the mainstream media, which never does its job as it should and must . We cannot, therefore, with a despondent sigh, say that WikiLeaks did not do much, because after him no one has the moral right to be - naively ignorant, apolitical, or blindly on the side of Western-centric democracy, which is the ideology of the new world order that has no positive, but a dark character (after all, writing so many engaging books that direct us directly to the facts, including "Controlled Democracy", Chomsky was rightly called - WikiLeaks before WikiLeaks, or - the conscience of humanity).
Assange defamed? Assange the rapist? Assange megalomaniac and ego-maniac who used associates for world fame? Let's just look at who was on Assange's side and who was against, and that will show us enough who fought for, and who, on the other hand, against us, i.e. of the world.
Bonus video: