ABOUT a week ago, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was expelled from the United Kingdom’s Ecuadorian embassy and straight into the arms of UK police authorities. According to news reports, Assange will soon be extradited to the United States, where he is expected to be prosecuted for espionage.
Wikileaks has released a lot of dirt on a lot of people all over the world, but their most famous exposes involved the deepest parts of American power. Not only did they reveal a lot of very important information about American activities in the Middle East, Wikileaks also released many of Clinton’s secret emails, which helped to propel current US President Donald Trump into power.
Wikileaks has cost Assange a lot. His work has turned him into a political refugee. In many ways, it has ruined his life, and has made him the enemy of very powerful people; many of whom probably want to see him dead.
However, Assange is more than just another politically-targeted journalist or whistleblower. He is also a pioneer. Wikileaks is a decentralized platform that exists outside the world of traditional mass media. It is also more resistant to entryism by powerful, vested interests, and it is less dependent on corporate control than most traditional news outlets.
Even if Assange is convicted; even if commits suicide by putting three bullets to the back of his head, WIkileaks will continue. The decentralized, anonymous journalism that Julian Assange pioneered will continue, and that’s a comforting thought, because both decentralization and anonymity make systems more difficult to subvert and corrupt.
Their message can still be repressed or obfuscated, but controlling or subverting an organization like Wikileaks has proven difficult thus far. The network of people behind Wikileaks have been accused of many things, but it’s very hard to plausibly call what they offer fake news. Despite the controversy of their work, Wikileaks simply reveals what is secret. They may have their own agendas, but such agendas take a backseat to what they reveal to the global public: secret documents, hidden emails and a whole lot of naughty things the masses are not meant to see.
Of course, only those who actually care about politics will ever bother to look at what Wikileaks publishes, but this doesn’t matter. Dissident and alternative news platforms will take what they want from Wikileaks and offer that information to their audience. So, in a sense, Wikileaks’ exposes will still find their way to the greater public. It’s just a question of getting them to care about what’s offered to them.
As for Assange, he will most likely be convicted in the US. I doubt that Trump will risk exposing himself to a political mess by pardoning the man. At best, the US President will probably wash his hands of the matter, leaving Assange to become a modern day political martyr. (jdr456@gmail.com/PN)
