Why Julian Assange should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Julian Assange is a brave man, not perhaps as brave as men like Bradley Manning, who at the risk of his own safety and being branded a traitor chose to expose the truth that he saw but a brave man nonetheless for sharing that information with the world, knowing full well that it could lead to his incarceration and possible execution at the hands of the American Government.
Julian Assange took this great and terrible risk not for profit, and not, as the American Govenment would have us believe for self-aggrandisement but so that the plain truth of events could be generally known by the people in whose names terrible crimes of war were being committed.
He is a man of great moral fibre who has the courage to risk his life in order that the truth be known. He has shown all of us that our soldiers are just as capable of terrible things as the soldiers of nations which we demonise and in doing so he has shown the hypocrisy inherent in the leaders of the Western World.
Powerful men in America now urgently try to extradite Julian Assange so that they can imprison him. They say that he has aided the enemies of America by making these truths generally known but the enemies of America already knew the truth. They were facing the truth in the form of Apache helecopters opening fire on civilians. The people who didn’t know the truth were us. The people of the West and I for one am horrified by what I have seen. My eyes have been opened thanks to Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.
How has Julian Assange furthered the call for peace? He has shown us that in our hunt to rid the world of monsters like Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden we have become monsters ourselves. This can be seen most clearly in the American reaction to the news of Bin Laden’s death which was not so much one of relief but unadulterated and unashamed joy and jubilation. A joy and jubilation which I believe to be very unseemly, even for the death of the worlds most wicked man.
Julian Assange holds up a mirror and shows us only the truth. Nobody will like what they see but it is up to us whether we try to change what is in that mirror or whether we silence him and any others who dare to show us for the monsters we have become.
Yours sincerely
John Holt
