I was reminded of Julian Assange last night when another segment came on the nightly news detailing the progress of the extradition case currently being heard in the UK. Assange is still in prison and his future remains up in the air. I wonder how he is faring and I remember again the first time I saw Julian, in 2009, when I was at my computer and I saw a video of a young man enthusiastically making an announcement at a podium. Assange quickly became a global phenomenon and the waters soon became muddy.
I’ve long been a supporter of Julian though I don’t think he’s ever been a journalist. Because he was publishing documents it’s possible to confuse categories but his relationship with the media has always been contradictory and rebarbative. The number of journalists this publisher has pissed off is very long and I have no doubt he’ll continue to try to use the media for his own purposes as time passes.
‘Don’t extradite Assange’ read this sign (see above). ‘Don’t extradite our rights,’ it goes on, conflating the destiny of the sign’s subject and that of the person holding it. I can feel the anger and I share a part of it myself. I just don’t know what the US has against Assange, and hope that, at the very least, that part of justice that is the public airing of positions can be allowed, with the help of the appropriate authorities, to take effect.
The above photo shows the beginning of the forgetting. It was necessary for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to put up a shot showing a newspaper headline in order to orient viewers. Perhaps without such an establishing shot many would be puzzled over the identity of this person with the strange name.
Assange will continue to polarise and to unite. The following photo shows a few of the people who were outside on the street in London for the protest against the UK authorities. People are angry that Julian is still locked up and in a way they have a right to be angry. I sometimes feel puzzled by the state of affairs but I want to know more.
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