(not that of the people of England)
The tricky thing here is that the discrepancy between the “idea” and the practical interpassivity* doesn’t originate from some illiteracy or lack of acknowledgment. As the common belief that Assange must be freed is right and just, the common uncertainty that this belief (that he must be freed) is common is also right and sound — the former is undisputably right as a matter of historical and universal justice (an ethical necessity) and the latter is also sound because it’s pretty likely that in a society there are often some (as Priti Patel and/or as the Betty-the-Queen) who may not believe so or who have normalized not acting in line with their own beliefs.
Disclaimer
Our judgements and accusations related to our recent operation (from the 1st of July till the 5th of July, 2022 into the British land to emancipate Julian Assange from his captivity at Belmarsh Jail) targets by no means the sweet British people (the port policemen, the port policewomen, the port policelgbtq+ and other various officers, employees of the company ‘Care and Custody LTD’, and so on) we acquainted during the operation. They are all cool and decent people who have shown great sympathy to our mission to liberate the political prisoner, a historic, heroic personality, Comrade Julian Assange, from the Belmarsh jail.
Especially the short haired LGBTQ+ policewoman with the rainbow collar band was super cool and charismatic.
And it’s none of their fault being born in Britain, in that country being ruled under that ‘democracy’ mascarade. Thus we hope and expect with full heart and soul that the next Special Military Operation will target liberating the British land from it’s centuries-long fascistic governance.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
All these employees and officers, yes, they all showed great sympathy to my mission to break the Belmarsh Jail for freeing Assange. So why didn’t they let me get in the UK? Why didn’t they join me for starting a mass march (and definitely not a parade, because, a “march” is different than a “parade”) to Belmarsh? Such a march could perhaps grow like an avalanche and with the participation of the guardians opening the doors of the Belmarsh Jail, even letting us to take Assange out of there peacefully, without even having needed to use a ladder for jumping over the walls!
During the interrogation at the airport I reminded the LGBTQ+ policewoman the previous case with Bastille, in Paris in 1789. I had to spell and check the B>A>S>T>I>2xL>E and the 1>7>8>9 making sure that she noted them down correctly. These things are however parts of universal human knowledge that she should have known by heart… so it seemed the History education in England is pretty poor, which is the real problem. When you’re poor in philosophy and history, your state becomes inevitably a “rogue State”.
And the purpose of this reconnaissance operation was in fact not to make a legal entry to the UK territory but to exhibit the “rogue state” reflexes of the UK. Therefore I didn’t even need to show the British Port Police the TRAVEL ORDER — the free-circulation authorisation accross the national borders issued by our Supra-National Institute — which is a much more powerful deed than any passport I own:
Although haven’t shown it to them by myself, they asked if I do have a document of special importance in my bag. I replied “yes, the Travel Order” .. and they found the document in my bag. They carefully perused it, they xeroxed it and they put the original one back inside my bag.
Now let’s reflect on this”sympathy” thing and the critical threshold between the personal sympathizing and taking a collective action in line with that sympathy. It is possible to imagine that all state officers, politicians and the ruling elite (let’s imagine an hypothetical situation where even Priti Patel and Betty-the-Queen) they all personally believe that it’s a disgrace enjailing Julian Assange. They may still all shun taking any action in line with their own belief. What it is this threshold isolating the belief (idea) from the action then? Referring to two millenia-old riddle of political philosophy, we can reformulate this question as the following: What it is this thing who watches the “guardians”? How this threshold functions as a wedge to collective action in everyday life, while it turns out to be a doormat at a situation of mass riot?
The answer is ‘ideology‘.
We can imagine an hypothetical situation where everyone in Britain personally believes that Julian Assange must be freed but still no one takes action to do so, just because not everyone is sure that everyone believes so.
The tricky thing here is that the discrepancy between the “idea” and the practical interpassivity* doesn’t originate from some illiteracy or lack of acknowledgment. As the common belief that Assange must be freed is right and just, the common uncertainty that this belief (that he must be freed) is common is also right and sound — the former is undisputably right as a matter of historical and universal justice (an ethical necessity) and the latter is also sound because it’s pretty likely that in a society there are often some (as Priti Patel and/or as the Betty-the-Queen) who may not believe so or who have normalized not acting in line with their own beliefs.
Therefore, while an ideological interpassivity* is fully based on righteous beliefs and sound uncertainties, it’s output can still be unrighteous.
The in-built insecurity in the security
The ideological subject is however squeezed between two kinds of uncertainties, the ‘offender’ and the ‘defender’ positional uncertainties… In addition to the ‘offender’ position we defined above (the common uncertainty that everyone believes so), concerning the defense of the public order, the ‘defender’ position is never certain about the efficacy of the ideological apparatus as well.
This constant insecurity leads it to building up physical security. That is why Julian Assange is put into the high-security jail, the Belmarsh Jail, as if he was Hannibal Lecter — although he is actually a journalist, he is not a cannibal serial killer as Hannibal Lecter.
And the purpose of this reconnaissance operation of mine was not necessarily to make an official entry to the country, but to divulge this insecurity of the British state apparatus. We use here the military term ‘reconnaissance operation’ to describe our mission, because a strong philosophy is more dangerous than a military operation. Once the cause is True and Just, the victory in the field by a military operation is a done deal — and this Truth and Justice can only be confirmed by philosophers.
Or let’s put this point more precisely: the Truth can also be confirmed by scientists, but only philosophers are eligible to justify the Justice. Philosophy is metapolitics, that is, to talk on what it is just and what it is unjust (the principles of ethics) and what has to be done to restore the justice (the guidelines for politics). And this is to what exactly our Institute (IIRSS) has self-commissioned.
On Saturday morning two officers came to bring me to the Immigration Removal Center. The transfer by the custody car took an hour. Then again search, detention of belongings, registry and they made me to visit a nurse taking health records. The nurse asked me why am I taken there. I explained again with extra patience the reason of my visit as to storm Belmarsh and free Assange. The lady-the-nurse was certain of my physiological health but upon this explanation of mine, she doubted of my mental health. She tried to assure me saying that “if he is not guilty, one day he will be released, don’t worry“… but to whom or to what does she trust for it? Justice is not some universally present sublime condition but it is a specific situation to be built and constantly restored and re-restored by human agency.
Thus, there should be a third mode of ‘insecurity’ which is a very legitimate one contradicting to the lady-the-nurse’s one: justice is not a matter of absolution (or sentencing) but it’s an asymptote aimed by the political action of the subject: who guarantees the justice on behalf of us while we are all busy into the normal course of life? The answer is ‘State. And the UK is ruled by just a government. The ‘State’ doesn’t exist there.
* As Lev Gumilyov developed and problematized the concept ‘passionarity’, Prof Zizek did a similar thing for its opposite vector ‘interpassivity’. Interpassivity can be defined as the opposite public attitude to Gumilyov’s ‘passionarity’. In this article we try to contribute to the theoretization of this phenomenon.