‘I’m told you’re the one to watch,’ Julian Assange says when I introduce myself in the Green Room. ‘Likewise,’ I reply. We’re backstage at Kensington Town Hall on a sunny Saturday afternoon to debate the ethics of whistleblowing. The seats sold out in minutes and the audience, almost all young, female or both, are clearly here for him. One of my colleagues tries conversation. Government comes up. ‘Companies are the new government,’ Assange says. He expands on his theme. The room is becoming blurry. I’m zoning out. It’s not just the sixth-form politics but the sheer anti-charisma of the man. I start to worry about the debate. What will I do if he numbs my brain on stage? Assange’s conversation is aural Rohypnol.
Not exactly jet-lagged, I arrive jet-overdosed. Thursday and Friday I’m in Berlin at a conference with a real hero, the former Soviet dissident Nathan Sharansky. On the Sunday I have to go to the US, coming back via Holland. I have been upgraded for the first time in my life. To premium economy. In Berlin I snatch an hour to marvel at the area around the Huguenot church. Destroyed in the war, it was rebuilt in the 1970s. Is there a single major building in Britain that was rebuilt postwar instead of being devastatingly replaced? Is it too late to start now?
The pre-debate vote shows the audience are 99 per cent in favour of leaking. As we come on stage, fans’ cameras pop in the direction of their ghostly messiah. When Assange speaks it is to recite banalities and conspiracy theories. Another conspiracy theorist, the former low-level MI5 leaker Annie Machon, is among other whistleblowers to take to the stage. It is now five against three in the debate. The left always does this. When I take to the lectern I am polite. I suggest that the ‘new media’ and the ‘new politics’ sound much like the old ones. At best people pursue their interests. But as for mass-leaking — are the cyber-supremos sure they know what they’re doing? Is Assange certain he knows what the results are of releasing thousands of documents about delicate negotiations in the Middle East? And why only go for America and her allies? Do Russia and the FSB (which kills journalists) scare him? Why not go after the Chinese?
Eventually, I get to the reason I’m here. To ask Assange some of the questions he never gets asked. For a ‘transparency’ organisation, WikiLeaks is not transparent. Democratic governments have to answer questions. So should they. I ask Assange who he is funded by, who his colleagues are and where they are based. Also wider questions. Who is he, over democratic governments, to decide what people should know? What about his conspiracy-theorising, including his claims of Jewish conspiracies? What about his connections with a Holocaust denier? Who will guard this guardian? Or rather, who will guard the Guardian’s guardian?
Assange has unfolded himself from his seat and is jumping up and down. He threatens to sue me. He says he’s already suing the Guardian (he isn’t). For a man trying to rebrand himself as a free speech advocate he seems keen on libel law when it’s him using it. Maybe his groupie Jemima Khan taught him the ropes. Assange answers only one of my questions, which is that, yes, he does believe WikiLeaks is above governments. I am pleased he has confirmed this. The man is a totalitarian. It is not just that he doesn’t understand the way the world works: he thinks he should run it and shouldn’t have to answer questions along the way. He is angry, but before the victory can be pushed home he leaves. The chairman explains the situation: this is the first time any adversary of mine has departed the stage because he has to satisfy bail conditions for rape charges. Yet still the sad female acolytes linger. A new Stockholm syndrome?
I am now in Washington, near one of my favourite bookshops on Dupont Circle. From yet another conference I eye it lasciviously. I suffer from debilitating bibliomania. The book itself as well as the contents are important to me. Kindles strike me as blasphemy.
After working for 13 years I have finally got a mortgage on a tiny house miles from London. If the local council ever allows me to start work on repairing it I will move in. But the council is inept, its workings labyrinthine. I wonder whether WikiLeaks know anything about it. Perhaps I shouldn’t have burned my Wiki-bridges after all.
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