Julian Assange
618 weeks of deprivation of liberty for telling the truth
618 weeks of deprivation of liberty for telling the truth
While I was invited to debate for an evening inaugurating the launch of an internet channel, the One TV the conditions of the evening did not allow(1) to express at length a constructed thought. This explains why we are writing the following, an essential reminder to those who would see in the « Covid » the opportunity to do it again as before.
If we can rejoice at the collective awakening to the need to fight against covidian techno-totalitarianism, many questions remain.
People are always talking about the freedom that covidism has taken away from them, and the need to regain it. But what does this freedom mean? If some had understood that the refrain « my freedom stops where the freedom of others begins », was only a subterfuge aiming, in our profoundly iniquitous capitalist systems, at making the subject accept his condition and the « superior » one that the other imposed on him, it remained today that this word « freedom » was completely vague, well before the covidian totalitarianism.
For what is freedom :
- when, apart from the West, our lifestyles are based on the plundering of Africa’s raw materials and Asia’s labor (and vice versa, in addition to the other exploited)? We did not have to wait for Covid for a child to die of hunger — not to mention exploitation, rape, torture and assassinations — every five seconds, as a direct consequence of our Western lifestyles (this was when Jean Ziegler was the special rapporteur for the Right to Food at the United Nations. Now it is probably worse, since everything is « progressing »…);
- when, in the West: we know that inequalities are increasing and that, more than ever, middle-class housekeepers are never the daughters of lawyers or doctors(2), while one household in five lives below the poverty line. The poor don’t make the rich — social mobility advocates are finding it increasingly difficult to justify themselves at a time when the American « who wants to can » no longer finds any basis in reality.
Freedom should therefore be redefined, especially by those who cannot participate in its definition. I doubt that the forgotten people of the barrios and other « underprivileged » neighborhoods have the same definition of freedom as those from the bourgeois and posh neighborhoods. For the latter, the vision of the world, therefore of equality, fraternity and freedom, will often be totally different from that of the world « from above ». Where the former can consider themselves as victims of an unjust world — without, however, aspiring to become like those who currently dominate them(3) ‑The others will seek to legitimize their position, generating all the symbolic means to keep it (the charitable societies, which are in fact only palliative, offering the best example). Covid has deprived the latter of many « freedoms » that the former had never had, or had not enjoyed for a long time (one only has to walk in the poor districts of the big cities).
We also know, and probably all classes together, at varying levels of course(4), that individuals have traded their freedom for comfort and illusory security.
These questions inevitably lead to another one, in this covidian period, unprecedented but predictable for some:
- where were the new protesters before the Covidian era, when everything was already going wrong and freedom was only a luxury for a privileged western fringe?
From this question, two others follow:
- some people opportunely take advantage of Covid to defend causes less noble than those of Freedom, of the common good (hence these multiple controlled opposition offices not always easily identifiable), hoping to find the « horror-beauty of the world before » from which they drew a libertarian benefit;
- Others are growing politically thanks to the Covid era — it is still necessary to distinguish them from the former, which is not always easy.
It is necessary to remember that we were already, for decades, in a deeply indecent society, where almost all the objects of our daily use were the fruit of an exploitation of the nature and the human. If you were not aware of it because of lack of information and/or denial, we understand the difficulty of the current period of awareness; if you refused to be aware of it because of pure interest, we understand that Covid is only a jumping off point for a return to the past, afraid as you are of losing your privileges.
We will only support those who see this as an altruistic opportunity. The others are the ones who will make the « Covid world », whether they like it or not.
The world before will not return. We have two choices.
