People who do good work can still be bastards

Here's what we know about Julian Assange: he founded WikiLeaks, he has been arrested and charged with sexual offenses, he denies the allegations, he has been denied bail, and his work has generated extensive controversy and animosity among politicians.

Here's what I know about rape allegations: the mass media is particularly shit at impartial journalism when it's about a rape allegation, and we, the general public are also particularly shit at being impartial.

I think what WikiLeaks does is important. I think transparency in governing is important. I think protections for whistleblowers are important.

I also think that nobody is all good or all bad, and that the fact that you do good and important work does not necessarily mean that you're not a bastard. Whether Julian Assange belongs in this category I do not know, and I do not care to speculate. I refer you to the above list of things I do know about him. I note the point here because it's something that people often overlook but I thin it may be part of what is motivating the popular support of Assange against the allegations. That is, I think many people assume that if someone is nice to fluffy kittens then they must automatically be A Good Person who can do no harm. Maybe Assange is the sweetest person you could ever hope to meet, and is particularly sweet to fluffy kittens. Maybe he's a total wanker. I don't know, and what's more, I don't particularly care. What I do know and care about is that supporting transparency and whistleblowing does not require me to excuse or ignore serious allegations.

But I'm saddened to see a number of liberal and even feminist friends talking and writing about Assange and the allegations as if the allegations are obviously trumped-up, or simply unimportant, or who write about supporting WikiLeaks more vociferously and frequently when the media is full of stories about these allegations than at any other times. The people who know what really happened are Assange and the two complainants. The rest of us? We have to stick with the lists at the start of this post.

If you really care about transparency, and you really think whistleblowing is important (and I assume that you do think these things if you support WikiLeaks), your concern should be for the truth. And as you know, if you have been following WikiLeaks, the truth isn't always convenient or simple. So if you're really committed to finding out the truth, your concern should be not to shut down allegations or dismiss them, but to insist on a fair trial.

--IP