« ALL ASSANGE »?

Those who boast about their freedom of expression, who chant with one voice that « they are all Charlie », claiming a relative fearlessness when the new Charlie’s are as much about the political, economic, financial or celebrity world, are wonderfully silent when it comes to denouncing the detention of Julian Assange, in conditions that seem to be inspired by those dictatorships that these same journalists like to point their fingers at, especially those to whom the West does not sell arms.

In a vibrant editorial, the overbearing Beatrice Delvaux promised us in 2015 to « continue to open it up ». At the time, we said that  » she had always kept her mouth shut, except when it came to defending bosses and captains of industry « ⁽¹⁾. Like their friends in the other media of the flat country, of the hexagon or elsewhere, before and after 2015, they continue to sell their show of a democratic, open society, where the plurality of positions could be heard … in order to maintain this illusion, they must therefore obscure, smooth, feign dialogue, demonize, « soap opera » the information (see the formation of the federal government).

WHEN THE MEDIA OF THE POWER CLOSES THEIR MOUTHS

From this dramatic systemic misinformation, however, we can draw a lesson that is not negligible and offers itself as an unstoppable argument to the nagging « freedom of the press ». For where are you, brave journalists, courageous editorialists, when the one who revealed to the world the criminal practices and shameless lies of our governments has been languishing for 5 months in a London prison, after having spent some 2,555 days locked up in a room at the Ecuadorian embassy? What are you waiting for to « open it »?

You cannot, as you could not, relay the incredible censorship of the magazine Financité by the newspaper La Libre, to which we devoted a consequent investigation⁽²⁾ ; while all the editorial offices, according to our sources, widely opened the press release sent at the time by the editorial office of Financité, only one media relayed the information in a brief (the RTBF), surprisingly, this one being used to canine obedience like its colleagues. Freedom of the press is a spectacle, not a truth: in order for it to continue to be played out, it is necessary to feed the former and not to seek the latter.

So, here is one of the reasons why things are not going well: whether you call yourself left, right, pro-this, anti-that, pro-this, anti-this, the formation of our ideas cannot take place when we do not have at our disposal the elements to build them properly.

Alexandre Penasse