Assange, Manning and the brave people
Julian Assange is now a free man, although he has paid a heavy price for it. He has had to go through more than just this ordeal Twelve Year In which he has faced personal defamation, judicial harassment, political asylum, jail and brutal imprisonment which almost cost him his life. He also had to accept the charges of espionage, for which he was convicted 62 months in prisonWhich he has already done. That is why the world’s biggest power has given up its intention to extradite him to the United States of America (USA) for trial in its territory or perhaps something worse.
Succumbing to a negotiation set up as blackmail would not have been easy for someone who has proven that he will not let power bend him from his principles of protecting the truth.
It seems clear that the WikiLeaks founder has benefited from the US pre-election moment. The current president, Democrat Joe Biden, needed a coup in the face of a campaign that is expected to be tough. His aging image and his support for Israel’s massacre in Gaza may weigh heavily on him The youngest and most progressive votersif he remains a candidate until the end. Abandoning the persecution of Assange helps him reconnect with the line already traced by Barack Obama when he decided in 2017 to commute the sentence of the former US Army intelligence analyst. Chelsea Manningbefore leaving the presidency.
Precisely, Chelsea Manning was the person who, like Julian Assange, risked her integrity to leak most of the classified US documents made public by WikiLeaks in 2010. The hundreds of thousands of records provided by the analyst demonstrate US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the true economic and geopolitical interests of the US government in various parts of the world. In her book of memories README.txtManning explains how she managed to collect such a large amount of sensitive information and send it to WikiLeaks members. But, above all, her text allows us to understand the reasons that led her to break the confidentiality of her work, exposing herself to harsh exemplary punishment. sentenced to 35 years in prison. outrage at, but also sympathy for, the actions his country was taking abroad in its self-proclaimed “war on terror.” Anarchism And a political consciousness grown from his own displaced experience in Iraq was behind his decision.
Chelsea Manning didn’t have an easy life. A trans woman gradually finds her personal and political identity in a journey filled with painful experiences.. Daughter of the American working class, with great economic and emotional problems in her family, she went to look for a job in the technology sector using the knowledge she gained from her hobby of computing and hacking that would allow her to “become a rich person, have a certain security in life” throwing everything to the wind when she enjoyed a prestigious and well-paid position in the army. He was classified as an “illegal enemy combatant” and deprived of his rights..First in solitary confinement in a cage, then in a military prison, his imprisonment led him to attempt suicide on several occasions.
As Manning demonstrates in his book, “the leak became the starting point of an intense and wide-ranging debate about how the United States should participate in international conflicts and how much information the population should have access to about how the government functions.” “I changed the terms of the debate; I lifted the curtain.”Obviously, the military-industrial complex that guides US interests would not forgive him, nor Assange, nor the CIA analyst who leaked the documents, Edward Snowden – who is currently a refugee in Russia – for such a complaint.
In the documentary riskOf Laura PoitrasJulian Assange says a powerful phrase: “Most people who have very strong principles don’t survive long.” Fortunately, he won’t be able to write it in his epitaph because, ultimately, he won, but the history of humanity has left plenty of examples to confirm it. Taking on the established powers means risking your lifethe physical and mental integrity or freedom of many people whom we consider heroes today, although in their time, perhaps, they were branded as inappropriate, problematic or even criminal because of their revolutionary positions. Only when heroes and heroines move from being isolated cases such as martyrs or prophets in a political moment adverse to their ideas to involving a good number of people in their cause, can we talk about significant social and political changes. No power, no matter how great or seemingly invincible, can resist the organized courage of people who decide to fight injustice at a high personal cost.
We may think that there are very few heroes and heroines in our world today. However, it would be unfair to say something like that. The world is full of people who fight in very difficult conditions, risking their lives, their integrity or their better material well-being on a daily basis, To defend ideas that go against the very essence of capitalism. They may not appear in history books, but they are part of the history that is being made every day, and which forms a red thread of memory and sedimentation of conflicts large and small. These are people who do not remain indifferent to any injustice that passes before their eyes and raise their voices, who follow their moral principles and do what their conscience tells them to do, who do not put their own particular well-being first in such situations. It is about collective thinking. After all, it is Brave and determined people,
They are Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, but also Anti-fascist fighters in the neighborhoodunion members in the workplace or people who are not organized, refuse to embrace the values of competitiveness, exploitation and individualism that should govern human relations for this system. However, we still need more courageous people, visible and invisible. And this is necessary not only to confront economic powers or imperialist states but also to stop the serious problems they are creating. They have endangered human existence on the planet. We also need more courageous people so that decisions like Assange, Manning, Snowden or any of the other struggling activists are not isolated cases that turn those with the courage to step forward into martyrs.
If more people do not compromise in the face of injustice, the price to pay for it will certainly be lower for those who stand out because those who support this capitalist order and its abuses will have less capacity to do and undo what they want. The fight for truth, justice or collective liberation will become so hegemonic that it will be possible to abandon it because we will have created another type of social relationship in which no one will be indifferent to abuses against their person or to any abuse that happens to others in front of them. Therefore, we need brave people who build brave societies that dare to break together with the norms established by this system of power that maintains its ultimate dominance in war and exploitation. The dark reality in which we live, and the ineffable possibilities that can be seen on the horizon Decadent CapitalismThey shout at us. Fighting is the only way to survive,