Olly Zanetti: Post-Wikileaks
While western governments preach democracy and human rights, their actions in response to Cablegate contradict them.
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As 2010 drew to a close, the world went Wikileaks crazy. Day after day, Cablegate offered us a view into the sometimes murky world of international diplomacy. We were still smarting from the horrifying images of warfare's errors we'd seen a few month earlier, which showed western journalists and civilians fired upon and killed by the crew of an American Apache helicopter. Wikileaks seemed to herald a new era in which governments would be forced to become accountable. It looked like information would change everything...
A few months down the line and the picture seems very different. Bradley Manning, the man suspected of providing video and documents to Wikileaks languishes, in disgraceful conditions in a Virginia jail. He has spent nearly eight months in solitary confinement and is only permitted one hour per day of exercise, spending the rest of the time held in his cell. He's allowed only very limited access to reading materials. He has recently been forced to relinquish all his clothes at night and to report nude to morning parade. Amnesty International is concerned about his treatment, and so is the United Nations. He hasn't yet faced trail. When he does, and if he's found guilty, he could face decades in jail or even the death penalty.
It seems clear that the treatment of Manning has two aims: to punish and humiliate him as an individual and to deter any future whistle-blowers too. Meanwhile, Wikileaks figurehead Julian Assange looks likely to be extradited to Sweden to face charges of sexual assault with the circumstances surrounding the charges looking increasingly fishy. From Sweden, his next stop will probably be the US.
In what must rank as one of the most extraordinary examples of doublespeak since George Orwell coined the term, the US will be hosting this year's World Press Freedom Day, with – and yes, the doublespeak continues – a specific focus on new media. This is taken directly from the US State Department's press centre:
“New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.”
If ever a government were looking to “censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information,” the behaviour of the American authorities could be taken as a text book example. So what's going on here? Why is there such an extraordinary gulf between the rhetoric and the reality?
The answer, as I see it, is one that not many will find too palatable. For all the talk of democratic rights and freedom of information, the past few years have seen governments in the West become increasingly repressive. Demonstrate on the streets, and you will likely meet with violence from the police. Engage in larger acts of resistance, like whistle-blowing, and the result is a proportionally larger state retaliation. Events like World Press Freedom Day seem to exist only to provide a veneer of respectability to increasingly corrupt governments.
Disgraceful as it is, the treatment of Bradley Manning shouldn't be thought of as an isolated incident. The hypocrisy is rife, and you don't need to look far to find it. Barack Obama came into power promising to close Guantanamo Bay but it never happened. David Cameron promised to undo the erosion of civil liberties that took place under New Labour but, bar a few token changes, that never happened either.
Questioning the status quo is becoming an increasingly dangerous business. And as it becomes more and more clear that the status quo serves only the interests of the few, there are some enormous questions we need to ask of ourselves, and our governments.
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Post-Wikileaks (text) by Olly Zanetti is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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