Off to Sweden? Assange and his Anti-Politics

June 2, 2012 by Binoy Kampmark

Julian Assange at Ecuador’s Embassy in London. Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

Confused, perhaps a tad neurotic, unhinged and overall an unstable mix, Julian Assange now faces a ratcheted assault on his badge as ‘freedom fighter’. His loss in the British Supreme Court has imperiled him, though he does, unusually, have a fortnight to appeal that decision to extradite him to Sweden.  In a sense, the last individuals to make much sense about Assange and WikiLeaks as an outfit have been journalists. Leave journalism to a journalist at your own peril.

No, laughs off Claire Harvey of the Sunday Telegraph, the man is far from a scribbler, being a mere ‘privileged and spoilt polemicist’. He believes in a lightened load of suffering, martyrdom lite. And the Australian government, Harvey mocks, has been deemed inadequate in the face of defending him against the efforts of ‘the Great Satan America.’

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