I
met Julian Assange personally, in London. The visit had a private
character with no particular agenda. We spend great part of a day in
talks. Shortly thereafter I published my impressions in Newsmill, Sweden.
Here I reproduce the Second Part of that analysis, referred to my
personal appraisal on some Julian Assange’s character features. My
assessment differs radically from Mr. O’Hagan’s.
II
Some myths in Sweden on Julian Assange
The
absolutely main question in this context is this “What Julian Assange
represents”. The answer of this query will be often the ideological
self-portrait of a given medial culture, of the powers behind, or of the
own article’s author.
In
Sweden, in most of the cases, instead of this vital discussion on the
impact of Julian Assange’s organization WikiLeaks, the readers have been
depleted with a negative myth building around his personality and
often-deceiving information on the “legal” case. Here follows a sample:
“Radical feminists” or feminist opportunists?
One of the main myths spread refer to Julian Assange as “enemy of feminism”. The statement cannot be more far from truth. His liberationist
platform clearly comprises the struggle for equal rights as identified
by the international feminist movement. Conspicuous feminists, such as
Naomi Wolf or in Sweden Helene Bergman have expressly given their
support to Julian Assange’s struggle for justice in the context of the
Swedish case against him. Recently, a letter
sent by distinguished intellectuals, professors and culture
personalities in Australia to the Foreign Minister, the Hon Kevin Rudd
MP, included notable feminists of that country.
In
strict ideological sense, left radical-feminists would find in true an
identification of their societal purposes for justice and equality for
all genders in the liberationist message of WikiLeaks as well as the actual
statements of Julian Assange. Radical-feminists should not permit their
spirit been kidnapped by right-wing opportunists, which in the base
defend a political system opposing equality of all kinds.
What
has happened in Sweden is that a limited number of self-proclaimed
“radical feminists”, for the most part right-wingers, have initiated or
participated in campaigns ad-hominem against the WikiLeaks
founder, for instance the “Prataomdet” campaign and a series of articles
in the mainstream media. And that in my opinion is NOT left radical
feminism; it is simply opportunism. In my article "So called Swedish 'radical feminists' declared Julian Assange a symbolic issue"
I show among other the public participation of lawyer and politician
Claes Borgström - the instigator of the prosecution in Sweden against
the WikiLeaks founder - in paying homage to the anti-Assange
"Prataomdet" campaign.
The myth on “Paranoia”
Another
myth is centred in supposedly negative features of the personality of
Julian Assange, as they have been invented by his detractors and
repeated in the tabloid press and even by the Swedish National
Television, as it was the case recently in the program Agenda
of 23 October 2011 which repeated without further qualification Assange
is “much paranoid in his behaviour” and authoritarian towards his
collaborators. [6]
Previously, a notable columnist of Aftonbladet, Johanne Hildebrant, had written on Assange, he is “a paranoid idiot who refuses to come to Sweden to stand trial”. [8]. Parallel, the tabloid Expressen described in detail Julian Assange supposedly “severe compulsive needs. . .” [9]. And the list is long. My research shown among other (See Newsmill article "Medierapporteringen om Assange är osaklig och likriktad")
that the articles with hostile content published in the study period by
the Swedish press exceeded significantly the articles with positive or
objective/neutral content. And that among the articles referring to his
personality features 72 per cent did so by using hostile, aggressive or
detrimental terms.
Needles
to say that no professionals have ever been quoted of having such
assessments, that, astonishingly, are freely reproduced in the Swedish
mainstream media.
When I submitted my Witness statement
to the London Courts, based in the above investigation, I had not met
Julian Assange personally. My first personal encounter with the
WikiLeaks founder occurred only recently, in London December 2011. The
meeting centered around a book project on contemporary political
philosophers, but it prolonged long in the day.
And
I can say that I would be happy to extent my witness statement in order
to strongly contradict the nonsense published about his allegedly
behaviour. For I guess - it is only my belief – that my opinion would
be the closest to what scientific-research psychiatry have been in some
position to assess. And my opinion is that Julian Assange, apart of
demonstrating being intellectually brilliant, is psychologically
speaking among the most normal among the normal political leaders or
cultural personalities, or journalists, I have ever met (and I have met
some deal of weird ones too). Besides, I was also in position of
witnessing for hours the gentle fashion in which Julian Assange
addressed his colleagues and staff, and also the reciprocally respect
and care.
And
regarding the “paranoia” issue, I say, that is definitely purely
smearing. An invented thing attributed to the personality of the
WikiLeaks founder by his political enemies, and repeated by people who
have never met him personally. It is just one among other lies they have
sold about WikiLeaks.
Further, I personally think that the so
much told (by the tabloid media) security arrangements around the
WikiLeaks leader is another exaggerated description. As and old
Resistant combatant I would say that it is unfortunately the opposite,
that their security arrangements seems rather precarious for a person
whose execution has been suggested by some prominent US politicians (and
that is not a myth). In fact, I personally could not see or
experience any difference in those regards between Assange’s
meeting-arrangements and those of any other cultural personality living
in the open. In other words, the notion of Assange as a “scare” or
"paranoid" personality seeing “enemies” all around is absolutely a
falsehood. I put entirely my Swedish academic-doctoral qualifications in
the field (Psychiatry, from the Karolinska Institutet) at the stake, as
base for my asseverations.
The myth of “fearing to stand interrogation”
In
conclusion, the smearing based on the “paranoia” issue fits too well
with the next myth, on Julian Assange’s “fear” of coming to Sweden “to
stand trial”. I have strong reasons to believe that this might have been
created as a deceiving “smoke curtain” with the purpose of play down
the real risk of an eventually extradition
from Sweden to the US. By repeating over again in the media the mantra
of his supposedly “exaggerated” and “unfounded” fear of merely being
interrogated by some prosecutor just “because” he would be “paranoid”,
the real peril of an extradition to US it makes sounding as unreal. In
fact it is very real: according to figures by the Swedish Ministry of
Justice, regarding the open extradition requests from the USA since
2000, Sweden has granted such extradition in the total of cases in which
the prisoner was in Swedish territory.
III
Epilogue. Pandora, the first ever known honey trap
When
the Olympus gods faced the fact that whistleblower Prometheus had
stolen the secret fire, Zeus ordered Hephaestus to create a woman
empowered with a box containing plagues, and that she should be sent to
Prometheus as punishment. She was given the name Pandora. She was
deliberately conceived as a resourceful nasty woman and with mission
that in the appropriate moment opening the famous Pandora box - which so
many plagues caused to the radical Prometheus. All this as told by
Hesiod in Theogony about ten centuries ago. Pandora’s programmed action against Prometheus was the first ever honey trap known to humankind.
After
I met Julian Assange in London, recently in December 2011, I twittered
that, meeting him personally reminded me vividly my encounter with
Commander Che Guevara in February 1964. This comparison was
instantaneously, and highly, shared by numerous re-tweets, which
indicates the widespread notion outside Sweden of the historical impact of the activities deployed by the organization founded by Assange.
For
it, I will finish with these remarks of Che Guevara, which I first
reproduced in my inaugural lecture “El Sepulcro de Don Quijote” [10]
when I became professor for the first time back in 1970. Guevara’s words
bear a remarkably reference to the role of the new Cyber technique used
by both WikiLeaks and the Cyber-connected democratic fighters all along
the world:
“Y
Ustedes, estudiantes del mundo, recuerden que detrás de cada técnica
hay una sociedad que la empuña, y que respecto a esa sociedad, o se está
con ella, o se está en contra de ella”
"...You, remember that behind every technique there is a society that hold it with their hands, and either you fight for that society, or you fight against it"
Notes and References
[1]
Christopher L. Blaskesley, The Practice of Extradition from Antiquity
to Modern France and the United States: A Brief History. Boston College
International and Comparative Law Review, Vol 4, Issue I, Article 3.
("Conclusions I" in page 56)
[2]
Analyses on media campaigns or psychological-war exercise are also
highly in the domain of social psychiatry, which was my original
research subject at the Karolinska Institute. Secondly, scientific
(empirical) epidemiology is also fundamental for the study of the distribution
of given myths in a population, such as attending to risk factors,
issues of vulnerability, culture and others. “Qualitative” studies - in
which media and so-called gender (pseudo radical feminist) research is
based - are not scientific and their conclusions not reliable. The
popularity of these bogus academic procedures in official Sweden is
grounded in yet another myth.
[3]
A Sanchez Vázquez. "Filosofía y Cirscunstancias". ANTROPHOS, México,
1997. Quoting early Marx's writings in context of Alienation Theory.
[5] M Ferrada de Noli,“"Debating Sweden’s surveillance legislation. FRA-lagen against civil liberties". Professors blogg, 22 September 2008
[6]
To give an illustration, the Swedish Pirate Party (PP), in spite of
being the first and at a time with a great influence in Europe, refused
to integrate the International PP organization based in that their
economic contribution to such organization, as stipulated it should be
“proportional” to the number of party-members, would have “impoverished”
the Swedish PP’s resources (explanation was given to me by the Swedish
PP office (kansliet) in January 2011. It was an answer to a
direct consultation on why the Swedish PP does not participate in the
international coordinated activities in solidarity with Assange and
WikiLeaks organized elsewhere in the world by the Pirate parties.
[7] Swedish National Television, Program "Agenda" 23 October 2011. The quote-exerpct in Swedish was “väldigt paranoid I sitt uppträdande”
[8] Johanne Hildebrant, “Assange has become one of those he wanted to fight against”. Aftonbladet, Stockholm, 13 February 2011
http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/kolumnister/johannehildebrandt/article8559184.ab
[9] “Mister Assange’s defense” Expressen, Culture. Stockholm, 13 February 2011
[10]
M Ferrada de Noli. "El sepulcro de Don Qujote. Clase Magistral".
Documentos Universitarios, Universidad de Chile - Arica, No 1, 1970
--
Published first in Newsmill, 26 December 2011
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