To see another day

A bittersweet compromise

Julian Assange is free. Sort of. He moved into a larger prison cell called Australia with far too many bars to call it free. Did he win?

The first reaction to the news was jubilation, then cautious optimism. Then the concerns came out. He won his freedom at the cost of a compromise that gave the state a victory. Everybody was quick to point out that for Julian Assange, taking the plea-deal was the right thing to do. I completely agree. This whole post is an illustration of this agreement through a few personal stories.

In the end, the state won. They broke him, they made him say that he is guilty and that he feels sorry. He had to acknowledge that what he did was a crime. Forcing him to lie was the condition of his freedom. They made him dirty to look like them. They created a precedent.
They proved that they can do it and get away with it.

They proved that if any person of any nationality dares to say anything that can be construed as contrary to US interest, that person can be punished, he can be locked up for years without charges, subjected to torture and cruel punishment. It makes no difference for the Americans if they have no jurisdiction over the person or the place where the alleged offence took place; it makes no difference if their accusation is unconstitutional in the US or in the country where the alleged offence took place. The guilty plea made this all – in a way – legal or at least a powerful deterrent.

Do not misunderstand me: 12 years of suffering is unimaginable for most of us and this was the last chance for him to regain any degree of freedom. He did the right thing, but we should understand that this was not a victory. There is nothing to celebrate.

The only things that could make Julian Assange whole again are:

• An unconditional pardon

• A massive compensation for his suffering

• The investigation, indictment, trial and punishment for every single person responsible for causing his suffering.

Is there any chance of any of this happening? The first, maybe. The last, most definitely not.
As I already said it many times:

Nobody is ever punished for their crimes committed under the protective mantle of the state.

My experience is NOTHING compared to his, but it was enough to properly understand the dilemmas. Let me illustrate.

Stories #1 & 2

The tag-line of this Substack is ‘Politics is Personal’
The most painfully personal of my posts is this one:

The fifth moment

The two stories pertaining to this post are the first and the second moment in the post above. Go and read them before you continue.
The questions are about the nature of bravery, compromise, submission and cooperation. Not easy questions.

Story #3

I am not a practicing Christian, but I was baptized by the Hungarian Bishop Zoltán Káldy. I only know this because my mother kept telling me as I was growing up.

A few years ago, visiting Hungary, my cousin took me to see his old school buddy, who is an evangelist pastor, ministering five villages in a pretty part of the country. I mentioned to him my personal connection to Káldy.
He was a very controversial figure in the history of the church, he said.
He was an informant of the state and many people held that against him. But we are talking about the clergy in a communist state, I said, where that state had a veto power over who can be a priest or a pastor! He had two options: cooperating or going to jail. Yes, he said, but still…

Picture yourself in that situation! What would be more important to you: your faith or your pride? The need of your flock, or the vain clinging to your ‘integrity’? Understanding fully, that if YOU do not cooperate, somebody else will. There are no good options in a totalitarian state.

Story #4

When I got out of jail in 1973, I got really lucky. I started in a small job at the country’s best social research institute, where I quickly worked myself up to be a full-time project manager. (Long story)

The most ambitious project I managed (with another PM) was that of Elemér Hankiss.

Once, as we were chatting in a small group, we ended up on the subject of bravery. What does it mean and how can you know when someone has it. He said it is absolutely impossible to say. Take my father-in-law, Péter Erdős, he said.
He was the head of Hungaroton , the only Hungarian record label.

He is an all-around nice guy, said Hankiss, a soft, hedonist bon-vivant, but you have no idea how tough he can be. He survived Buchenwald, and was tortured near to death in the Stalinist jails without breaking. But you could never tell looking at him.

Well, I said, I admire that, but I am the kind of appeaser who prefers navigating my way out of tough spots.

After a few seconds of silence, he said: well, me too.
That was a bomb-shell. I couldn’t believe my ears, I definitely would not expect something like this from him. It was one thing for me, the little nobody to make such a self-deprecating admission, but him? Working on the most ambitious, even audacious research project ever conducted in a communist country? In my eyes, from him, that admission was an act of bravery, giving me a whole new perspective on the questions surrounding it. With his work, he was walking the fine line between pushing the boundaries and rebellion.

I am glad that Julian Assange is free.
I am sad and worried about the precedent his conviction created.
The state won. It turned a poorly defined, unconstitutional accusation into a crime.

Politics is Personal. In the end, we are all stuck with our own questions and own dilemmas.

How can we live in a world where things like this can happen?
Perpetrated by people who claim to do it in defense of democracy?
People are locked up in Canada, the US and Europe for far less than what got me in jail in the communist world. (You may get away with rape, but may get into jail for saying mean things about the rapists. Watch this to the end to see what I mean.)

We live in an upside down world where moral compass of societies is destroyed by the very state that is supposed to protect it.
The only way to fix this is by speaking up against the overreaches of power.
Are you brave enough to do it?
Will you stand up for what you believe in?
Will you stand up for free speech?
Will you be ready to lose some friends over your convictions?

Will you going to share this post with your friends to find out what they think?
Will you going to click on like?

These last two were trick questions. Of course you will 😊

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from here

The fifth moment

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