The limits of WikiLeaks

In its love for gossip over substance, the media's narrative has been a mixture of the puerile and senile.

When Julian Assange, editor and public face of WikiLeaks, released classified documents relating to the Afghan war, he told Der Spiegel, “The archive will change public opinion and... the opinion of people in positions of political and diplomatic influence”. As it turned out, that was akin to telling someone that he is a ladies’ man because he purchases a prostitute’s services every night. The war in Afghanistan, hopeless as it may seem, continues to rage on and media coverage of Assange’s disclosures amounted to little more than a chronicle of gossipy infighting. News consumers, in Pakistan at least, were more interested in perennial blowhard Hamid Gul’s activities than mass slaughter in a neighbouring country.

Shadowy and pasty-faced, Assange, in his character and behavioural tics, is a stereotypical anti-hero. And his utopian plans for changing the world have been thwarted. WikiLeaks is facing two assaults — a direct and ham-handed one from the government and an invidious and brutally effective one by the media.

That the repressive Chinese and Saudi governments have blocked WikiLeaks is no surprise. The US war against Assange, though, is somewhat hypocritical given that it loves to tout itself as the Land of the First Amendment. Senator Joe Lieberman’s public call for internet-hosting sites and payment processors to divest themselves of any connection to WikiLeaks was as blatant an example of government bullying as you’re likely to get. Lieberman, even if he identifies as an independent, still caucuses with the Democrats. And if there’s one thing a red-blooded Republican can’t stand, it’s being out-hawked by a Democrat. Thus, Sarah Palin mused aloud about the possibility of assassinating Assange.

If Assange puts his self-described mission over life and limb, crude and clumsy censorship is hardly his greatest threat. That would come from the mainstream media which acts as the Lucy to Assange’s Charlie Brown, always pulling away the football just as it’s about to be kicked.

In its love for gossip over substance, the media narrative of the revelations in the cables has been a mixture of the puerile and senile. We have been force-fed the storyline that the Arab is clamouring for a US invasion of Iran. Certainly, the rulers of Saudi Arabia and UAE have been encouraging an attack but, as other conveniently ignored cables show, leaders in Syria, Qatar, Oman and even a Saudi foreign ministry official have urged caution and restraint. Then, the media, kvetching like grandfathers with nothing useful to occupy their time, have breathlessly reported on the sex lives of Gaddafi and Berlusconi and admired the manliness of Putin.

In Pakistan, too, the media has focused on gossip. The derogatory terms used by various world leaders to describe President Zardari are common knowledge but few have pointed out any substantive revelations. There is lots to ponder about the close relationship between Zardari and Karzai and what that means for ties between the countries. We also should know, but likely don’t because of the media, that at the highest level, the ISI wasn’t aware of the Mumbai attacks. Serious reporting on the WikiLeaks cables will also shed new information on our war against militants. But none of that compares to the satisfaction the media gets from breathlessly exclaiming that Zardari is “dirty but not dangerous”.

Julian Assange’s current location is unknown but his present posture is a given: he will be sitting with his head buried firmly in his hands.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2010.