Some serious questions raised by the Wikileaks saga

A first look at Julian Assange does not reveal much about the man. Indeed he looks like any other blonde westerner in his late-30s. But thanks to his website wiki leak’s revelations about American diplomatic activities, this man has certainly become the no.1 Target in the eyes of World’s most powerful nation. Influential commentators like Jonah Goldberg in the USA have already started calling for Assange’s head.
After going through all these events, I have some questions to ask to my readers.

The first question is regarding the claim of the Western world to call itself “an open-minded, progressive society “. We have seen the Western pundits over the years calling the Chinese, the Russians or some of the Muslim-majority countries (all those countries who oppose American policies in their regions) as “close-minded, backward societies” since according to these Western pundits , these countries do not tolerate descent or difference of opinion. People like Liu Xiaobo, Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen or Alexander Solzhenitsyn; are termed as “pioneers”,” freedom-fighters “or “liberals” and prizes like the “noble peace prize” or “knighthood” are bestowed upon these individuals since according to the Western scholars these people “showed their guts in fighting against oppression and tyranny”. Now if we take a very close look at the kinds of statements some of those Western commentators and government spokespeople have been making about Assange since the beginning of this Wiki leaks episode , one wonders whether the claim of the those very same Western pundits to call themselves “open-minded , enlightened” is justified or not. After all “enlightened and open-minded people” should have broad-mind to accept something even if they did not like it. The behavior of these Western critics of Assange just does not fit into that “open-minded, liberal” category. Death threats have been made against Assange, Interpol has raised a worldwide arrest warrant against this man and attempts have been made to take down the Wiki leaks website itself. So the question is if the “liberal, enlightened” Western World cannot tolerate Julian Assange then whether it is justified in calling itself “liberal, enlightened or open-minded or not”. Now will Assange get a noble prize for 2011? I doubt it.

The second is regarding the justification of the actions perpetrated by the Western world when it came to Julian Assange.The information that Wikileaks has provided is not “world-changing” i.e. the information is basically low-level American diplomats sending some information back home. These documents do contain whatever these diplomats as well as some foreign leaders think about some issues but they do not contain any special information like a specific political or military plan or strategy which if leaked can significantly impact events in a global way. So the question which should be asked is whether the Western particularly the American government is justified in hounding Julian Assange the way they have done.

I leave it to my readers to answer these two questions.