Julian Assange Forces Us to Ask Uncomfortable Questions — What is Good? What is Right? What is Just?
Last Thursday, millions of people around the world watched as the controversial head of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, was dragged kicking and screaming from the safe haven of the Ecuadorian embassy where he had been holed up since 2012.
The footage of a dishevelled, defiant, and perhaps delirious Assange shocked both his most ardent supporters and his most ferocious critics. It also immediately caused a fierce debate on the legality and morality of revoking asylum, arresting publishers, and extraditing to countries where the accused is not a citizen.
A cursory glance at any newspaper comments section or social media thread on the recent arrest will show vehement passion on both sides — to some Assange is a hero, a warrior, a whistleblower, and a sacrificial lamb in the face of an inherently unjust system. To others, he is a criminal, a narcissist, an intelligence asset, or a rabble-rouser who deserves whatever punishment he receives.
What could cause such furious attacks and defences of a man by people living in the same society? I believe the reason Assange stirs up such passionate emotions on both sides of the debate is that his actions cause us to have to think about something fundamental to our very existence as human beings — the nature of morality itself.
Whether or not Assange broke the law is to be determined — few would doubt that he at the very least straddled the legal line. However, whether or not what he did was right is another matter altogether.
Generally speaking, there are two main views on what makes an action right or wrong — an examination of its consequences, and introspection on the intentions of the person who took the action.
What were Julian Assange’s intentions in publishing classified information? Was it to reveal the truth? Was it for fame and glory? Was it because of some deep-seated hatred for authority? Perhaps it was a mixture of these things.
What were the consequences of his publishing these materials? Many have claimed that some were killed as a result of his failure to redact the names of key personnel involved in clandestine operations (Assange and Wikileaks refute this), but at the same time he doubtless gave many trigger-happy soldiers and commanders thought for pause, potentially saving countless lives in the process.
Assange is such a divisive figure precisely because his very existence is a moral dilemma — do a person’s intentions matter, or are we to judge them on a utilitarian calculation of the consequences of their actions?
I, unfortunately, do not have the answers to those questions. Debates about what is morally right have failed to be settled by greater people than I.
However, as a writer, a believer in transparency and Democracy, and as a human being, I believe that neither the intentions of those who wish to silence Assange and others like him nor the consequences of doing so would be good.
There are those who would say that Assange broke the law, and questions of right or wrong do not come into it. Yet, isn’t the entirety of the law founded in a sense of morality? What good is a law if it has no moral foundation? Isn’t it sometimes just to break the law in pursuit of the greater good?
These are questions we will have to grapple with as Assange’s case unfolds and the tug of war to decide his fate unfolds. Whatever you think about Julian Assange, his ultimate fate will speak volumes about us as a society and whether what we claim to hold dear and believe to be right actually determine our actions.
