Forty years ago this scene was a favorite of my father-in-law, and he related it to us approvingly multiple times over drinks. Even during the Reagan Administration the image of no place to hide from „the winds that would blow then“ seemed remote to me (I was still young). And today? Today the trees are dead, and dying.

Die Zeit:

Der russische Präsident Wladimir Putin hat von den Sicherheitskräften seines Landes mehr Einsatz in allen Bereichen gefordert. „Heute haben wir eine sich dynamisch ändernde Lage in der Welt, neue Risiken und Bedrohungen bringen erhöhte Anforderungen an das gesamte Sicherheitssystem Russlands“, sagte er in der Nacht zum Dienstag in einer Videoansprache. „Und das bedeutet, dass sie (die Sicherheits­organe) ihre Anstrengungen vor allem in den entscheidenden Richtungen verstärken müssen.“ Außerdem will Putin offenbar noch intensiver gegen in Russland tätige ausländische Organisationen vorgehen.

…

Bereits seit Jahren verbietet die Regierung in Moskau wiederholt ausländischen Nichtregierungs­organisationen, die sich kritisch mit dem Regime auseinander­setzen, die Arbeit. Dies erfolgt in der Regel unter dem Vorwand von Sicherheitsbedenken und Spionagevorwürfen.

Die Sicherheitskräfte sollen ferner einer Meldung der staatlichen russischen Nachrichtenagentur RIA zufolge die Kontrolle über die Orte sicherstellen, an denen Massenveranstaltungen abgehalten werden, sowie über die strategisch wichtige Infrastruktur.

Der »Massemensch« lebt unter dem Einfluss von Überzeugungen, die von der Masse geteilt werden, und jeder, der sich diesen Überzeugungen widersetzt, scheint der Feind zu sein. – »Sind es Menschen oder nicht? Was an ihnen ist menschlich? Einige werden auf der Straße abgeschlachtet, andere sitzen zu Hause und warten pflichtbewusst, bis sie an der Reihe sind. Und alle denken: Jeder, nur ich nicht. Die kalte Brutalität derer, die schlachten, und der kalte Gehorsam derer, die geschlachtet werden« sind die Waagschalen, die jede Dystopie in der Balance halten. Arkadi und Boris Strugatzki haben über uns heute geschrieben.

—Irina Rastorgueva, »Das Russland-simulakrum«, (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2022), 255.

In 2016, in the middle of the US presidential elections, WikiLeaks published around 20,000 internal emails of key staff of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), as well as of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. The publication occurred immediately before the Democratic Party convention in Philadelphia, at which Clinton was to be nominated the party’s presidential candidate. The published correspondence provided evidence of strong bias within the Committee against Clinton’s strongest competitor, Bernie Sanders. Apparently, Sanders’s nomination was to be prevented at all costs, including through deliberate defamation. As a consequence, the DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was forced to resign. The second leak occurred on 6 November, only two days before the presidential election, in which Clinton ended up winning the popular vote but losing the electoral college to the Republican candidate Donald Trump.

No other publication has cost Assange as much goodwill in the United States as the DNC Leaks. The American liberal establishment, including many political figures, business leaders, Hollywood stars and other celebrities, struggled to come to terms with this defeat. How could the venerable Democratic Party, with a candidate as prominent as Hillary Clinton, have lost to someone like Donald Trump, widely despised as crude and self-absorbed? The truth is, of course, that all of the compromising emails had been written by Clinton, her staff and supporters – not by Assange. The truth is that Clinton lost the election because of her own conduct and that of the Democratic Party, not that of Assange. The truth is that in any democratic election process, exposing the dirty secrets of political candidates is an indispensable function of journalists. The truth is that even political celebrities such as Hillary Clinton are not ‚entitled‘ to electoral victory but have to earn it themselves. And the hardest truth is that it was not WikiLeaks that gave Donald Trump the presidency, but the American people, in an American election, based on the American Constitution.

All of these truths rose to the surface of public consciousness, but were too painful to face and, therefore, were immediately suppressed back into the subconscious. As the German poet Christian Morgenstern famously said, ‚What cannot be, must not be!‘ A scapegoat was urgently needed, and so Assange was accused of having manipulated the 2016 elections, prevented Hillary Clinton from becoming president, and helped Donald Trump into office. But even a scapegoat could not divert public attention forever from the longstanding misconduct that was the most likely cause for the colossal loss of confidence suffered by both established parties with the American people. What was needed was an external enemy. Sure enough, the mainstream press soon started disseminating the US intelligence agencies‘ favourite narrative of ‚Russian hacking‘.

Within days the Democratic Party accused the Russian Federation of stealing the emails and joining forces with Trump, Assange and WikiLeaks to manipulate the election.

—Nils Melzer, The Trial of Julian Assange, (London: Verso, 2022), 194-95.

Es ist schon seltsam, sich Hamlet zum zehnten Mal anzusehen und immer noch auf ein Happy End zu hoffen. Aber alle hofften auf ein Wunder. Nach der Wahl kam es zu schleppenden und sinnlosen Protesten. Wäre es fair zugegangen, hätten die Kommunisten gewonnen, aber Hamlet endete wie üblich. Die Kommunisten riefen von der Tribüne: »Wir werden nicht vergessen! Wir werden nicht verzeihen!«, aber natürlich werden sie alles verzeihen und vergessen, auch wenn sie es nicht wirklich wollen.

—Irina Rastorgueva, »Das Russland-simulakrum«, (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2022), 226.

»Naht«, 2012	»Kadaver«, 2013

In terms of purpose, the public mistreatment of Assange is not about forcing a confession or otherwise coercing him to cooperate, but primarily serves to intimidate and deter other publishers, journalists, and whistleblowers who might be tempted to follow his example. In the absence of any evidence for a prosecutable crime, Assange’s persecution also aims to punish him arbitrarily – through intimidation, isolation, humiliation and endless proceedings – for having publicized the dirty secrets of the powerful.

—Nils Melzer, The Trial of Julian Assange, (London: Verso, 2022), 78.

The public at large happily swallows the official narrative, because acknowledging the reality of a broader systemic failure would be too threatening, too unsettling, too much work. It is this tendency towards lethargy, conformity, and self-deception which is responsible for the failure of what arguably is the most famous WikiLeaks slogan: ‚If wars can be started by lies, they can be ended by the truth.‘ Unfortunately, as a general rule, the problem is not that we do not know the truth, but that we do not want to know it.

—Nils Melzer, The Trial of Julian Assange, (London: Verso, 2022), 23-24.

I was glad to read Melzer on this. The WikiLeaks line is regularly displayed by people posting on social media. It seems to be a sort of a mantra, similar to Christians invoking biblical or papal quotations. The truth will out, period, full stop. The truth quite demonstrably does not out, however, and the incessant invocation of saints, religious or secular, just leaves me with the pretty justifiable impression the petitioner is living in a sort of psychosis. A tendency towards self-deception because acknowledging the reality of a broader systemic failure would be too threatening, too unsettling, too much work, indeed.

My most important message is that, ultimately, the trial of Assange is not really about Assange. It is about the integrity of our constitutional institutions and, thus, the essence of the „republic“ in the original sense of the word. At stake is nothing less than the future of democracy. I do not intend to leave to our children a world where governments can disregard the rule of law with impunity, and where telling the truth has become a crime.

—Nils Melzer, The Trial of Julian Assange, (London: Verso, 2022), 5.