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MASKING SAVES LIVES

Monday, March 25, 2024

Julian Assange and the Fight Against Imperialist War

 https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/03/25/ymiy-m25.html

EXCERPT:

As we wrote in a subsequent Perspective: “The forces arrayed against Assange by the UK and US states are powerful. But there is another, even more formidable force which has yet to have its say—the British, American and international working class.”

The task we face is this: we, and I include everyone here tonight, must devote our energies to convincing the working class of the burning relevance of the Assange case for its own interests, and of the need for them to take up the fight on his behalf.

This means cutting through the mountain of lies and slanders and breaking out of the narrow confines in which the official campaign for Assange’s freedom has been confined. It means going to the workers, to the younger generation of workers and students in particular, fighting to clarify the essential political issues raised and outlining a strategy on which to fight back.

The fact that the United States is pursuing Assange under the Espionage Act is historically revealing. As we wrote four years ago:

“The precedents for Assange’s trial under the Espionage Act are the mass roundups of socialists and anarchist groups carried out in the years after the law was first established in 1917. Fearful of the revolutionary movements swelling across the world, the US government outlawed political opposition to the First World War and agitation for workers’ strikes and protests.

“Assange’s case is preparation for a similar assault on the working class.”

That is now being played out. Sunak’s government is seeking to make standing up for the truth of what is happening in Gaza a crime to try and crush the growing anti-war movement. His extremism definition is part of a pattern of governments preparing for war not only with their opponents abroad, but with what they see as the main enemy—the working class at home. It joins laws attacking the right to strike, protest and blow the whistle on state crimes.

The ruling class are preparing for a clash they know is coming because their policies, above all their war policies, cannot be pursued except through a further assault on already gutted living standards and state provision. Assange’s case has been the canary in the coalmine for these preparations.

Opposing war and defending democratic rights are the vital questions confronting the international working class today and that struggle must have Assange’s freedom inscribed on its banner. It must learn from his case to prepare for the battles ahead.

In conclusion, I will be blunt: we have lost a lot of time. This really is the 11th hour for Julian Assange and for everything his case represents. We cannot start from a position of pessimism in our ability to build a mass movement. What I hope this speech has demonstrated is the potential for such a movement, and how it has been thwarted not primarily by the attacks of Assange’s enemies but by the rotten perspective of those who were supposed to defend him.

A break with that perspective will prepare the way for a broad campaign, embracing the most energetic and principled fighters in their workplaces, neighbourhoods, and universities.

In the last years the Socialist Equality Party has collaborated with workers including bus drivers, postal workers, teachers, and tea plantation workers, and with students, in the UK, Australia, the United States, Germany and Sri Lanka to form rank-and-file committees which have all passed resolutions in Assange’s defence. We have held rallies in all those countries.

To those here today we say: join us in this campaign and in the fight for socialism against dictatorship and war. And join the Socialist Equality Party.