How many airline meals can
you eat on a return trip from Istanbul, Turkey to Auckland, New Zealand? How
many hours can you sleep? How many times can you clamber over your co-passenger
in the aisle seat to visit the toilet or stretch your atrophying muscles? How
many movies can you watch? I lost count, but I can tell you that Singapore
Airlines are marginally better than their Malaysian neighbours in most
departments – especially their inflight entertainment package.
 |
| Interesting as cinema - but seemed to lose sight of the main point |
The films I watched, going
and coming over half the world’s circumference have all faded from memory –
except one, and I want to tell you about it.
‘The Fifth Estate’ is a
dramatization of three years in the life of maverick Australian computer genius
Julian Assange and his Internet whistle-blowing creation Wikileaks. The film, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch in the leading
role, was released in October 2013 with very little media attention. Had it not
been for Singapore Air’s inflight movie programme, and the ineffable boredom of
twenty-plus hours in a cattle-class cabin, I would have missed it for sure.
As cinema entertainment, the
film is less than riveting. Assange himself apparently refused to cooperate in
its making, calling it ‘a massive
propaganda attack.’ According to Forbes
magazine, ‘The Fifth Estate’ was the
biggest movie flop of 2013. In what some might consider a sad case of
insensitive and offensive political incorrectness, they entitled their list ’10 Box Office Turkeys of 2013.’
Well, that’s Forbes, whose owners apparently call
their magazine ‘The Capitalist Tool’, so
you probably wouldn’t expect them to be awfully sympathetic to Assange and his
revolutionary website. I don’t know what your criteria are when choosing a
movie for an evening at the cinema, but media hype and box-office takings have
never been high on my personal list. I haven’t seen, and have no intention of
seeing The Hunger Games 2, Iron Man 3,
Despicable Me 2, Fast and Furious 6, or any of the other Hollywood serial
blockbusters targeting the appetites of dysfunctional adolescent US males.
Who needs to see dystopian
post-apocalyptic future worlds on screen – when we’re surrounded by dystopia in
the here and now? On the other hand, if those gremlins in the White House and
the Pentagon are precipitating the world into apocalypse now, that’s something
I do want to know about – and I applaud the heroic efforts of non-conformists
like Assange, Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning in bringing Washington's dirty secrets
out into the open.
The biggest problem with the
film, in my opinion, is that it focuses too much on the character of Assange
himself. That’s to be expected, of course, in a Hollywood movie. In the end, as
with The Social Network, about Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg,
story-telling becomes the object of the exercise. You need character
development, human interest and some kind of moral or social message. If you
want to see a documentary about Wikileaks
and its impact on global politics, don’t expect to find it here.
Unfortunately, when
historical truths are glossed over, distorted or forgotten, cinematic fiction
often becomes the accepted version. News media seem to have pretty much lost
interest in Julian Assange. He has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in
London since June 2012, besieged by local constabulary tasked with apprehending
him so that he can be extradited to Sweden for questioning over allegations
that he raped or molested (you’d think it would be clear one way or the other)
two women aged 26 and 31.
Circumstances surrounding
events in Sweden in 2010 are murky to say the least. At first the case was
thrown out by the Chief Public Prosecutor but police apparently continued
investigations and it was reopened. MPs in Sweden
recently called on prosecutors to travel to London to conduct their questioning
– but they refused. Assange claims to have text messages from the two women
saying that Swedish police encouraged them to bring charges of rape. Whatever
the truth of the matter, Assange denies the accusations and believes there is a
plot to have him extradited from Sweden to the United States where far more
serious charges will be brought against him – with the threat of life
imprisonment or even execution.
It’s hard to know.
Undoubtedly Uncle Sam and his current administration were seriously embarrassed
by Wikileaks’ revelations about their
activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their spying on leaders of supposedly
allied countries. It would be perfectly understandable if they wanted to get
Assange and shut him up for good, one way or another. The matter is complicated
somewhat by his being an Australian citizen – though the government of that
democratic nation seems conspicuously unwilling to stick up for him.
One thing the film does
demonstrate very clearly is the way Assange’s enemies (and they must be many
and powerful) have managed to shift the debate from the actual revelations
about US skulduggery, to the character of the man himself. The concluding
scenes of The Fifth Estate suggest
that Assange is an egotist and showman, more interested in self-aggrandisement
than in truth and justice. Police action in Sweden and the UK has painted him
as a serial rapist trying to avoid the legal consequences of his depraved
behaviour. The United States Government portrays him as a virtual murderer with
the blood of patriotic US personnel on his hands.
News media, for the most
part, accepted the spin and disseminated it – before subsequently losing
interest. Public attention was diverted from serious questions such as whether
US military personnel should actually be in Iraq or Afghanistan; what is the
true nature of their activity in those countries; and whether anyone in the
world is safe from surveillance by the US government.
A similar pattern of
behaviour is evident in the treatment meted out to two of Wikileaks’ sources, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Elizabeth (aka
Bradley) Manning. Snowden has been in Russia since June 2013, having been
offered temporary sanctuary. This was necessitated by the US Government’s
revoking his passport and charging him with espionage and theft of government
documents. A recent article in the Washington
Post questions Snowden’s commitment to democracy and open government on
the grounds that he has taken sanctuary in a country accused of violating these
principles. The implication is that the guy would better demonstrate commitment
to truth and freedom by returning to the USA where he could be tried and put
away for the rest of his life, as seems to be the case with poor Chelsea
Elizabeth.
Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning
is the 26 year-old US private who turned over vast quantities of military
documents relating to the conduct of American military activities in Iraq and
Afghanistan. In July 2013 he/she was convicted of espionage and theft and
sentenced to thirty-five years in prison. The day after sentencing, Manning
made a public announcement that he now wished to be known as Chelsea and would
be undergoing hormone therapy to confirm what he/she considered his/her true
identity as a woman.
Well, it’s easy to see how
some might consider that Manning’s personal problems would account for erratic
behaviour and explain to some degree why he would do what he did with those
confidential military documents. It’s easy to understand how some, within the
news media and US society at large might want to focus on Manning’s sexual
identity and lose sight of the greater issue of what those documents actually
revealed.
The Wikileaks story, as it is currently unfolding, raises an
interesting question about individuals who achieve beyond the limits of normal
human expectations. The high achiever with feet of clay is axiomatic. Should
Bill Clinton be remembered for having presided over the longest period of
peacetime economic expansion in American history – or for having sex with that
woman? If the current Prince of Wales ever becomes King Charles III of Great
Britain, will we want to think of him as a committed champion of the
environment and other worthy causes, or as a guy who once compared himself to a
tampon in the service of his mistress? Shane Warne is arguably one of the
greatest bowlers in the history of the game of cricket – but one could easily
tell a different story by focusing on his foul mouth, marital infidelities, use
of banned substances and the taint of match-fixing.
It takes a certain kind of
character to blow the whistle on an employer. Most of us put up with the dirt
we see in our workplaces. We turn a blind eye, rationalise it away, or conspire
to become part of the problem in the interests of career advancement or mere
job security. It takes rare courage to speak out, to go to the media or some
other outside party and divulge corporate corruption and evil-doing. A healthy
society needs to act on information thus obtained to ensure that corporations
and governments are truly accountable for their actions. Unfortunately, all too
often, the whistle-blower is denigrated and punished, and the real criminals
escape to continue their wicked ways.
As an interesting comparison
with the foregoing, there’s another computer whizz-kid global citizen I’ve been
keeping an eye on over the last year or so – a certain German entrepreneur born
Kim Schmitz. Schmitz, like Bradley Manning, also changed his name, though not
his sexual identity. Now known as Kim Dotcom, he is resident in New Zealand,
having taken refuge there from the long arm of US law, which was pursuing him
to answer charges of copyright infringement related to his highly successful
file-sharing site, Megaupload.
Unlike Snowden and Assange,
whose search for sanctuary was denied by all of the so-called free nations of
the world, Dotcom was welcomed with open arms (albeit in conditions of some
secrecy) by the government of New Zealand, who granted him residency under the ‘investor plus category’[1] – reserved for immigrants
undertaking to invest $10 million in the country; this in spite of a history of
convictions in Germany for computer fraud, data espionage, insider trading and
embezzlement.
After being granted residency in New
Zealand, Dotcom was convicted in absentia by a Hong Court for similar
offences, but the New Zealand government declined to extradite him because it
did not consider the crimes sufficiently serious. Upsetting the United States
of America, however, is a different kettle of fish, and the slippery gentleman
was arrested at his Auckland mansion by NZ police in January 2012 in a high profile
operation involving, reportedly, 76 officers and two helicopters. According to Wikipedia, ‘assets worth $17 million were seized
including eighteen luxury cars, giant screen TVs and works of art. Dotcom's
bank accounts were frozen denying him access to US$175m (NZ$218m) in cash, the
contents of 64 bank accounts world-wide, including accounts in New Zealand,
Government bonds and money from numerous PayPal accounts.’
Since then, Dotcom has been released
from jail, a court decided that seizure of his funds and property had been
illegal, he is seeking compensation from the NZ Government, and has made claims
that the US Government prosecuted him in return for contributions to President
Obama from certain Hollywood studios. He has subsequently opened a new website
called ‘Mega’, released a music album
and two singles, and founded a political party. When I was in New Zealand in
January I saw several city buses sporting large portraits of Dotcom advertising
his album. Clearly the man has a gift for self-preservation and publicity.
So what makes him different from Julian
Assange? The obvious factor is money. Dotcom is a multi-millionaire whose
wealth has enabled him to buy refuge with a respected member of the
international community of nations, pay for the best legal representation and
command the assistance of municipal mayors, ministers of the Crown and even the
Prime Minister himself. Assange, on the other hand, made little or no money
from his Internet activities, lived out of a suitcase, was dependent on the
goodwill of friends and supporters, and, when the chips were down, became a hunted
man with the international community ganging up to hound him.
A less obvious difference between
Assange and Dotcom is the political leader under whose wing they are
sheltering. Dotcom seems to have bought the protection of a capitalist
government, of a prime minister who is the privileged friend of big business,
whose ethical standards are, apparently, up for negotiation. Assange, in
contrast, found that, when all had deserted him, he was offered protection by
the president of a country who has fought for its national interests, reduced
its high levels of poverty, indigence and unemployment, and been re-elected for
a third term in office with an increased majority. Rafael Correa of Ecuador may
not be the US’s favourite neighbour, but he is doing the world and the cause of
democracy a great service.
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