Julian Assange is celebrating his 50th birthday in prison - a testament to the paradox of Western democracy he has identified, in which lack of freedom creates a sense of freedom.


Ironically, retained journalist Julian Assange turns 50 just one day before US Independence Day, reminding us of the darker aspects of the "land of freedom" and most Western democracies.

Today, WikiLeaks co-founder Assange is celebrating his 50th birthday while in London's Belmarsh maximum security prison.

Meanwhile, Washington is seeking his extradition to the United States, where, if convicted, he faces up to 175 years in prison.

When Belarusian authorities forced a Ryanair plane from Athens to Vilnius to land in Minsk to detain opposition activist Roman Protasevich, the piracy was widely condemned.

However, it is worth remembering that the Western powers already did the same in 2013, when they forced the plane of the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, to land in Austria. This was done at the direction of Washington, which claimed that the US National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden was on board, who allegedly sought to get from Russia to Latin America. The already unsightly incident was aggravated by the fact that Snowden was not on this board.

Assange reluctantly became a symbol of this dark side of Western democracies, a symbol of our struggle against new digital forms of control and regulation of our life, which are more effective than the old "totalitarian" methods.

Many Western liberals point out that there are countries where the direct suppression of freedoms is carried out with much more brutality than in the UK and the United States.

So why is the Assange case so outraged?

There are indeed such countries, but the suppression there is open and obvious, and the suppression that is observed in the liberal West largely preserves the integrity of our sense of freedom.

Assange drew attention to this paradox, where lack of freedom is perceived as freedom.

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That is why it was decided to completely destroy his reputation, using the entire arsenal of dirty tricks: from attempts to portray him as an intolerable person to false accusations of allegedly committed sexual misconduct and fabrications that he "smeared feces" on the walls on the territory of the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Fearing to enter into a principled confrontation with Assange on the question "Do I have the right to disclose state secrets if they prove that the state has committed bloody crimes?", They sank to the level of lies and rumors about his personal life. The horror of this procedure is not only that it testifies to the degradation of political discussions, but also that Assange's personality itself becomes the target.

He is not just a symbol - he is a living person who has suffered a lot over the past ten years.

Usually, on the occasion of the Independence Day, the United States fireworks, parades and ceremonies are held, family members get together ... But one family definitely cannot get together - the Julian Assange family.

According to one of the legends (this is probably really nothing more than a legend), Neil Armstrong, having made the first step on the surface of the Moon on July 20, 1969 and saying the famous phrase "This is one small step for man, but a giant leap for all mankind," said these cryptic words: "Good luck, Mr. Gorski."

At NASA, many took these words simply as a remark to some Soviet cosmonaut-competitor.

Only on July 5, 1995, answering questions after his speech, Armstrong revealed this secret.

In 1938, when he was still a boy living in a town in the Midwestern United States, he played baseball in his backyard with a friend.

A friend hit the ball, it flew into the neighbors' yard and fell under their bedroom window.

His neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Gorski.

Leaning over the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky yell at Mr. Gorsky: “Sex!

Do you want sex?! .. You will have sex - when the neighbor's boy walks on the moon! "

After 31 years, that's exactly what happened.

Upon hearing this story, I imagined something similar about Julian Assange. So, let's imagine: his bride Stella Morris came to visit him in prison, between them the usual thick glass, Assange longs for intimacy with her, she replies dryly: “Sex! Do you want sex?! .. You will have sex when you begin to walk freely on the streets of New York, revered as a hero of our time! " This option looks no less utopian than the thoughts of a man walking on the moon seemed in 1938. That is why we must strive with all our might to implement it, hoping that even earlier than in 31 years, we will be able to say with all sincerity: "Good luck, Mr. Assange!"

As if shaking their heads to the song Time Is on My Side by The Rolling Stones, those in power believe that time is on their side, that if they continue to keep Assange in the status of a living dead, we will gradually forget about him.

It is our duty to prove to them otherwise.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.