Welcome to the 201st week of Julian Assange Sydney Town Hall gatherings.
We are being fed the narrative that if Julian Assange is extradited to the US, we can all say goodbye to a free press. The problem with this narrative is that it suggests we currently have a free press and that losing it is only a future possibility. This deception is an example of subtle narrative control. The arbitrary detention of Julian Assange plainly shows us we don’t have a free press. We cannot allow counter-productive narratives to pollute our thinking. We need to exercise control over the narrative. We need people to be aware that freeing Julian Assange involves the need for people to unite in the fight for a truly free press.
We gained clear evidence that our press was being suppressed back in 2010. Our lack of a free press is now evident because Julian Assange has not been free for 13 years. On the 28th of November 2010, Julian began publishing leaked United States embassy cables. These cables contained information that gave the people of the world a very clear picture of the US government’s foreign activities. Cablegate, as it was called, is thought to have motivated the popular uprisings of the Middle East that came to be known as the Arab Spring.
The establishment was losing control of the narrative and very quickly needed to do something to re-gain control. Just three days after the first of the diplomatic cables was published, the Swedish government conveniently authorised an unprecedented INTERPOL Red Notice for the arrest of Julian Assange. This was very useful for the purpose of narrative control. Julian Assange was suddenly in the news headlines for all the wrong reasons. Since then, we have all learned that the Red Notice was issued on the basis of allegations that had been fabricated, but back then most of us knew very few of the facts. Julian was compelled to present himself to UK authorities, who placed him in solitary confinement until he was granted bail, 10 days later. We now know that Julian should never have been arrested but the media were successful in smearing Julian and diverting the public’s attention away from his important journalism. Sweden was eventually forced to drop its case because it didn’t have reliable evidence to justify its allegations, but those allegations were used to strand Julian in the UK and to eventually place him in Belmarsh Prison. The political persecution of Julian was a classic example of how the work of truth tellers can be suppressed. The smearing of his character, the limiting of his freedom, and the distress it caused, would all have a detrimental effect on Julian’s ability to continue doing his work.
We must resist narratives that have been created for us. The narrative that we are in danger of losing a free press falsely suggests that we currently have a free press. If we believe this narrative, we might also believe that we are currently being informed truthfully by our governments and the mainstream media. We are NOT. If a journalist is not free because of what he published, we clearly don’t have a free press.
We need to establish the conditions that will allow a truly free press. We must resist the façade of governments and mainstream media, when they suggest we do have a free press. The more often we speak the truth in public, the greater the impact we have on the narrative. Our unity for a free press must feature in our narrative. Our unity for the freedom of Julian Assange is synonymous with the fight for a free press! All political issues are impacted by the lack of a free press. Everyone needs to help free Julian Assange.
Free, free Julian Assange!
Free, free Julian Assange!
Free, free Julian Assange!