03-03-2024: The life of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange currently hangs in the balance, as his legal team attempt their final appeal against his extradition from Belmarsh prison in the United Kingdom (UK), to the United States of America (US). The very basis of these “legal” proceedings are farcical. Assange, an Australian citizen, is imprisoned in the UK and is facing being “extradited” to the US, when he has never been a citizen of either nation. In fact, Assange has only visited the US once, for a duration of several days. In reality, neither the UK nor the US has any jurisdiction to bring Assange to “court”, least of all imprison him in a dungeon in Britain or America. The US government is attempting to charge Assange with espionage, with a potential sentence of 175 years. However, after more than ten years of confinement, and several years in some of the most extreme jail conditions – such as isolation for 23 hours a day – Assange’s state of health is perilous.
Abandonment
Assange has been abandoned by the Australian government, which had the power to at least demand his return to safety in Australia more than ten years ago. On the 14th of February this year, the Australian federal parliament finally passed a motion urging the UK and the US to allow Julian Assange passage to his home country. The motion passed with 86 votes to 42 and had the backing of Labor (ALP) and crossbench MPs (members of parliament), along with Liberal Party MP Bridget Archer, who had crossed the floor.[1] A handful of MPs had been speaking out for Julian Assange for years previously, such as Andrew Wilkie. ALP Prime Minister Anthony Albanese voted for the motion, but in reality the vote in parliament is far too little, far too late. Both Labor and Liberal governments since 2010 had years to actually bring about the release of Julian Assange, but their subservience to US imperialism squashed rationality. The vote was a token, a false cover for treacherous politicians to somehow save face and claim they tried to do something – when the reality is the opposite.
Even the liberal Guardian – which once lauded Wikileaks and Julian Assange, now admits that extradition to the US would amount to a death sentence.[2] It is the case that Assange was betrayed and framed by parts of the establishment media who originally supported him.[3] Julian Assange was even the readers choice for TIME Magazie’s Person of the Year in 2010. Western corporate media such as The Guardian and The New York Times even used material from Wikileaks for their own publishing. A few years later, these and other “liberal” mainstream media outlets turned on Julian Assange and led a campaign of slander in an attempt to discredit him. Even the officials of Julian Assange’s own Union, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) were silent for years, refusing to defend their own member. Assange has been a member of this Union since 2007, but it is only in very recent years that the MEAA have been able to bring themselves to demand the charges against him be dropped – via a press release.[4] Julian Assange is guilty of nothing, and the most basic of all democratic rights are being trashed with his detention, torture and likely murder. The right to free speech, the right to publish material, the right to blow the whistle – all of this and more is being trodden underfoot.
Liberalism now a force of reaction
In the 20th Century, the whole gamut of liberalism was, in broad terms, a partial ally of the working class in its battles against capitalist repression. Today, liberalism is a force of reaction which answers only to elite power, and willingly does the bidding of the declining and faltering states which comprise Western imperialism. Until 2010, Julian Assange and Wikileaks was universally held up by liberals as a heroic and breakthrough journalist, who helped expose the worst excesses of empire. He came to prominence by publishing material which exposed the crimes of the US military and its allies with the invasion and occupation of Iraq from 2003. At that time, the US was politically led by the Republican George W Bush administration – an opponent of the liberals. All that was fine, but when Assange then went on to expose the Democrats from 2009 onwards, liberals turned away from the uncomfortable truths that both wings of capitalism commit massive crimes against ordinary people. Wikileaks exposed Hilary Clinton for organising the regime change war on Libya, and Barack Obama for facilitating the horrific regime change war on Syria, and the then ongoing occupation of Afghanistan.
If the Union movement in Australia and the UK had seriously mobilised their members, with marches and confrontations of MPs and courts, it is unlikely Assange would today be in such serious danger. Given the lead, millions of workers would have willingly taken action to defend the most elementary parts of liberal democracy, despite their misgivings about its failings. Unfortunately, virtually all the Union bureaucracies today are tied to “their own” parliaments, politicians and militaries, and seek to consolidate their careers at the expense of basic principles, the well being of their own members and even the lives of those who courageously fight back. Following this trail of treachery is almost the entire “socialist” and “Marxist” so-called left, which dropped Assange as soon as he stood by his principles and set about exposing all those in power – whether or not they were Democrats or Republicans, or Labor or Liberal. Despite these fake revolutionaries accusing Assange of helping Russia, Wikileaks in fact published some material exposing wrongdoing there also. The conciliationist so-called left spurned Assange for a period of some eight years, only returning to make vague and half-hearted calls for his release when the injustice of his imprisonment became too obvious.
There is no doubt that Assange has displayed unparallelled bravery and heroism, and a commitment to principles that few of us could match. Fearless journalism is vital, but at the same time, the exposure of the crimes of the ruling class is not enough on its own. Many workers are aware and would not doubt that those who rule them commit unspeakable crimes upholding a corrupt and unjust system. Many of them are aware that capitalism is the culprit, and that something must be done about it before it comes for all of us. The key is to know how to use the march of history to the advantage of the toiling masses, to organise and help lead them, in order to overthrow the ancien regime and bring about a new order where the enormous wealth of society benefits those who produce it through their own labour. What workers need are internationally linked Marxist vanguard parties, which can not only expose unending war crimes, but put an end to imperialist wars by bringing workers to power. Nationalising the major means of production and organising planned economies will be the first steps towards a socialist order – where war crimes and much else will be consigned to a dark past. RELEASE JULIAN ASSANGE!
Workers League
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[1] www.sbs.com.au/news/article/federal-parliament-motion-backs-call-for-us-and-uk-governments-to-allow-assange-to-return-to-australia/bu0ci4ytb (28-02-2024)
[2] www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/24/julian-assange-court-hearing-extradition-death-sentence (28-02-2024)
[3] www.off-guardian.org/2024/02/23/wiki-gate-how-julian-assange-was-framed-by-his-supporters/ (28-02-2024)
[4] www.meaa.org/mediaroom/charges-against-assange-must-be-dropped/ (28-02-2024)
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