27 June 2024

Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

 

 

 

FACTS ARE RELATIVE; TRUTH IS SOVEREIGN

 

 

Today’s mail included two on Julian Assange:

1.   Assange freed as part of plea deal

2.   Patrick Cockburn: Julian Assange was monstered for doing what every journalist should

I felt free to respond now. Until now, I chose not to publish, my feelings in this issue, as I felt for Julian’s family.  Today, I was free of anxiety, and I responded as follows to the first mail:

 

[As a fellow Australian, I felt for Julian for the excessive punishment he suffered. But Julian acted in breach of the ethics of journalism. I relate to it through fundamentals of negotiable instruments. In essence stolen property is not negotiable. Julian did not do the work to have knowledge out of the information he published/leaked.  Ethics of journalism include respect for the original makers/owners. That intelligence published by Julian was government’s property.

 

[The right to  publish work/intelligence is derived by Opposing as Equal. That confirms our discovery through an alternate pathway. In this instance, it was journalism. The path of  Democratic Journalism includes Adversarial journalism which position I take often take to criticise governments.  Towards this, I need to be independent of the government. Such independence is confirmed by an alternate/diverse pathway. This requires Separation of powers between  the two groups – as between the  Parliament that makes laws and the Judiciary that exercises authority of the law. In Julian’s shoes, I would have followed the independent pathway of Adversarial journalism . I would have declined ‘plea bargain’.  I was arrested and sent to prison on the allegations of trespass. I independently studied the law, and freed myself by representing myself in court.  I thus became the Equal other side to the University Administrators. My book ‘Naan Australian’ found its way to National Library of Australia, via Congress Library. That is the way of Truth.]

 

Time and place of publishing facts is important to harmony in our environments. If as Patrick Cockburn has suggested,   if every journalist published governments’ secrets, our intelligence would be lowered due to all and sundry using the information at data level.  Data becomes knowledge, when there is order in the way we receive data is reliable. Knowledge becomes intelligence, through ownership . Julian did not own the information gathered by the government.

 

Those who lack institutional authority and seek the de facto , pathway, need to be driven by truth. Truth is the most reliable power known to us. When we identify with our truth, we would identify with others’ truth and this leads to natural mergers. In true love, the order happens naturally. Overregulated relationships fail due to excessive power at the top. If this was/is the case with the US government, then disorderly publishing would further damage the American order. This could happen due to excessive regulation,  which leads to idle authority. Truth is the lasting solution .