 High-tech terrorists, cyber-terrorists, information terrorism, shut it down, we're going to hang you, use a drone or something, pull it in the brain, illegally shoot the son of a b***h. Information warfare is warfare, and Julian Assange is engaged in warfare. Information terrorism, which leads to people getting killed, is terrorism, and Julian Assange is engaged in terrorism. He should be treated as an enemy combatant, WikiLeaks should be closed down permanently and decisively. Should the United States do something to stop Mr. Assange? We're looking at that right now, the Justice Department is taking a look at that. I would argue that it's closer to being a high-tech terrorist than the Pentagon Papers. This disclosure is not just an attack on America's foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community. The head of WikiLeaks is not a particularly credible source in my mind. He's a criminal and he ought to be hunted down and grabbed and put on trial for what he has done here. I think the man is a high-tech terrorist. He's done in the North. Assange. Yes, he needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and if that becomes a problem, he needs to change the law. Well, I think Assange should be assassinated actually. I think Obama should put out a contract and maybe use a drone or something. You don't want to act panicked and have the president in it. Well, you don't have to act panicked. You can act tough and say, if we catch you, we're going to hang you, or whatever. We heard some of that from Holder. Julian Assange is a cyber terrorist in wartime. He's guilty of sabotage, espionage, crimes against humanity. He should be killed. How is it that the WikiLeaks guy remains free? Back in the old days, when men were men in countries where countries, this guy would die of lead poisoning from a bullet in the brain, and nobody would know who put it there. The way to deal with this is pretty simple. We've got special ops forces. I mean, a dead man can't leak stuff. This guy's a traitor, a treasonous, and he has broken every law in the United States. The guy ought to be, and I'm not for the death penalty, so if I'm not for the death penalty, I don't want to do it. Illegally shoot the son of a f***. It's time that the Obama administration treats WikiLeaks for what it is, a terrorist organization whose continued operation threatens our security. Shut it down. Shut it down. It is time to shut down this terrorist organization, this terrorist website WikiLeaks. Shut it down, Attorney General Holder. From Bazaar Agora, we welcome here today the people from the Julian Assange defense fund talking about the fourth anniversary of Julian Assange's asylum in the embassy of Ecuador in London. It's not so special for a center for fine arts to organize events like this. We're building a nice tradition to discuss topics of interest on politics, economics, science, and education. And we also think that in times of crisis the arts world cannot turn its back on the world. Today we put up a lighthouse for Lampedusa on the roof of Bazaar. It's a very strong statement. It is tomorrow World Refugee Day. We will have a concert in the Abbey in here a bit further in Brussels where Syrian refugees who are asylum seekers here on the run for the war in Syria will play. It's just to illustrate that we cannot stay silent in the time when everything is moving. This means that this stage is open for debate and that the man who is going to lead the debate tonight is Laurent the Sutter professor of the Vria Universitat in Brussels. He will present his guests to you but I think you already know who will be on stage and I wish you a very good and interesting evening. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Bazaar for this very special event. Obviously you're very numerous so thank you very much for being here tonight. As you've heard this event takes place as some kind of a twisted celebration for Julien Assange's fourth year as secluded person in the Embassy of Ecuador in London. This event although is not simply limited to Brussels actually at the moment that I'm talking to you similar events are taking place in seven different cities in Europe, Berlin. Of course Brussels, Belgrade, Naples, Madrid, Sarajevo and Paris and actually these events also will start Assange week that will kick off in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and New York City. So this is very big and the reason why it is so big it is because actually this event is some kind of a fundraiser. And by being here tonight by buying your tickets you've actually contributed to Julien Assange's defence fund because that's where the profits from this evening are going to. So thank you very much for that from the onset and I think you can congratulate you on this and applause yourself for that. So as you know we are going to listen and to have a conversation with some surprises. You will see a conversation here on stage with two major intellectual European figures. Srejko Horvath, Croatian philosopher and actually the organiser of this world event. Former conceiver, former founder of the Subversive Festival in Zagreb and also one of the co-founders so to speak of the democracy in Europe movement created by our second guest. Greek former minister of finance Yanis Varoufakis. So please welcome them both on stage, Srejko Horvath and Yanis Varoufakis. So maybe how to start better than by asking directly to you, Srejko, maybe the reason why you decided to organise this event and to put yourself in actually so much of a trouble because it's something quite huge to coordinate seven cities at the same time and so on and so forth. So can you explain a little bit about why you decided to launch this event and also of course why is the reason behind this quite enigmatic title first they came for Assange. First of all good evening to everyone. Although there was a terrorist alarm we gathered in such a big group today and I think it already shows that we are here to speak out also against terrorism. The title came as you probably will know and the audience will know from a famous poem from the 40s when the Nazis came to power by a German pastor called Martin Niemeler who wrote a poem called First They Came For and it goes like this. First they came for the socialist and they didn't speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists and they didn't speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and they didn't speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me. Not many people know that this poem was written by Martin Niemeler when he ended up in Dahau concentration camp but what is even more interesting is that before he has written this poem he was an anti-communist and he supported Hitler. So it makes it even more interesting that this person who didn't speak out for the communist, who didn't speak out for the Jews, who didn't speak out for the trade unionists ended up in Dahau. And why did we choose this as an inspiration for this event to mark the fourth unfortunate anniversary of Julian Assange being at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London? Because I think this poem should be a historical lesson and we could paraphrase it today. First they came for Julian Assange and they didn't speak out. Then they came for Chelsea Mening and they didn't speak out. Then they came for Edward Snowden and they didn't speak out. And then they came for us and there was no one left to speak out for us. However precisely this event which is today happening in Brussels, Belgrade, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Naples and which will take place during the next days in New York, in Quito, in Montevideo, in Buenos Aires shows I hope so that we all gathered here to speak out, not only for Julian Assange, not only for Edward Snowden, for everyone who speaks out in our name today. And in a way although it's an unfortunate anniversary I think there is a lot of reasons to celebrate this anniversary. Although there is the biggest prosecution of an independent publisher today in the US with a grain jury, with a blockade by PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, American Express and Diners WikiLeaks keeps publishing and Julian Assange is more alive and kicking than ever. Only this year WikiLeaks published very important leaks on the TTIP which is something me and Yanis are particularly interested in with our movement Democracy in Europe movement. Only this year WikiLeaks published leaks on the war in Syria, emails by Hillary Clinton and I must warn you follow the WikiLeaks Twitter and you will see very interesting new leaks of the Hillary Clinton emails coming up very soon. They mentioned, it's quite important because Hillary Clinton might be the new president of the US. Hopefully not, but hopefully Donald Trump will also not be the president. Because imagine the following situation, if Donald Trump becomes the president of the US he will have in his hands the most sophisticated surveillance system in the world. But if Hillary Clinton comes to power, Julian Assange will stay at the Ecuadorian embassy we will have new wars in Libya, new wars in Syria and so on. So we don't really have a good choice. But to continue what I wanted to say, there is also another leak. The refugee day was mentioned, which is tomorrow. WikiLeaks published several months ago something about so-called Operation Sofia which is a secret operation led by the European institutions and European military in the Mediterranean. They say it's about the refugees but what they are doing actually is preparing a new intervention in Libya. So I think to end, because we don't have much time and we have many surprises tonight, this event was organized and I think this is why today all of you here, all of us here are part of a historical event. It's a collective event. At this moment Petty Smith, Bernard Stiegler and others are in Paris. PG Harvey, Sarah Harrison, Angela Richter are in Berlin. Many other people like Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Vivian Westwood today had a fashion show in Milano. And I think all of these people gathered to show support not only for Julian Assange but to the cause of justice and truth. So thanks a lot for being here tonight. Well Yanis Varoufakis' stretch for all that just mentioned the cause of justice. You have been the supporter of Julian Assange from let's say the very beginning. Why is it so important for you, especially given the fact that on the first site, he doesn't work in fields where you are apparently more concerned with such as economy and so on and so forth. Well good evening everyone from me. Julian Assange is also a great supporter of me, of you, of Srećko, of everyone. Because Julian, from a young age, when he was a hacker and an intellectual quasi-anarchist in Queensland, Australia, he had the same kind of worry that a lot of us grew up with. And it's a worry that results from a question. All these technological brilliant innovations which nevertheless make it possible for George Orwell's 1984 to become reality. How can we stop them from creating a surveillance capitalism, a surveillance economy, both at the level of corporations and at the level of super states, that render us utterly transparent while maintaining the opacity of those who are deciding on our behalf in secrecy, in circumstances of complete opacity. And we all had that question I think, at least those of us who were a big brother. Julian went beyond the concern and the worry. He was convinced that the very same technologies that give rise to big brother can turn against big brother, like the mirror that you turn towards Medusa. And she sees herself in the mirror and suddenly perishes. The whole idea behind WikiLeaks is to take the same technologies that allow the NSA, Google and so on, to turn you into a source of data, to turn you into a data miner for them, to turn it against those powers that be and to render them transparent while giving you some protection from them to make you more opaque and the sources of power more transparent. And this is why he's paying the price. Since you asked me about my own involvement in this very city, I experienced the deep contempt for democracy which is pervading the institutions of the European Union. We in Europe like to think in terms of the democratic deficit of the European Union and to lament it and to argue that we need to have more democracy in the European Union. Well, ladies and gentlemen, there is no democratic deficit in the European Union. If you were on the moon and you tried to remove your helmet from your space suit and suddenly you were crying, oh my God, there is an oxygen deficit. You would have been an idiot. There is no oxygen deficit on the moon. There is no oxygen. And you'll see how this connects with Julian. It connects perfectly. It just clicks. When, for instance, about a year ago, we announced in the Eurogroup that we were going to hold a referendum in Greece. The Troika presented to me on the 25th of June with a particular deal. It was a take it or leave it, leave it, deal. It was an ultimatum. Now, it made no sense. It wasn't worth the paper it was written on because, mathematically, it was just an awful document. It's not a question of whether you agreed with it politically or not. It just didn't make sense. And what we said, what I said on behalf of the Greek government to my colleagues in the Eurogroup was that, look, we were not elected. We don't have a mandate to clash with the European Union. But at the same time, we don't have a mandate to take another set of billions from European taxpayers on the basis of a deal that makes no sense and which guarantees that we won't be able to repaid. So what we're going to do since you are telling me that this is take it or leave it, we're going to put it to the Greek people. We're going to make our recommendation to them. You can make your recommendation to them and let them decide. And at that point, a number of ministers, some very decent people at an individual level, said to me, Janes, are you serious? Are you going to ask the common average citizens of Greece to make such an important decision? I said, yes, it's called democracy. This is what we do in democracy, you know. It's a silly system, but a few weeks later or days later, I had resigned because our democracy was crushed because the Wolfgang Scheuble line, which is very simple and I'll explain what it is, was seen through. It was completely, utterly adopted. The line verbatim.Wolfgang Scheuble gave me in the first Eurogroup meeting I went was, elections cannot be allowed to change economic policy, which was a great gift to the Chinese Communist Party, to Lee Kuan Yew, to those who do not believe in democracy. So that's why I'm talking about the deep contempt for democracy. Now, after I came out, I was a kind of whistleblower because I explained to European people a number of things that they were not aware of. Firstly, that there are no minutes being kept of these meetings. That you will never be able to find out what you represented and said on your behalf. Not today, not tomorrow, not in 10 years, ever. You know, in the United States after 10 years, 20 years, everything is revealed. In Europe, it is impossible to reveal it because there is no record of all the decisions that determine your life and which contribute to the crisis that your children are going to suffer from. So, interestingly, when I brought all this out, do you know what I was accused of? And this is the clicking moment with Julian's case. That I was feeding ultra-nationalist right-wing populism by spilling the beans and telling the truth about the awfulness of the decision-making process in Europe. Now, think about it. Journalists, today, the journalists ask me this. Didn't you contribute to the rise of the right by telling Europeans what's happening in the Eurogroup? I was asked today. This is what is constantly being asked. So, the accusation is that if you tell the truth about the way in which the demos has been taken out of European democracy, the way that democracy has been treated with contempt and remains only as an empty shell, that you are the one who is responsible for the rise and reinforcement of the enemies of democracy. So, the murderer of democracy is accusing the victim of the actual crime because of the transparency, the light that is shown onto their crime. This is what Julian Assange has been accused of. He's been accused of the rise of ISIS, of the rise of terrorism. Why? Because he's revealed the crimes that were perpetrated on behalf of European democracies, on behalf of the United States, on behalf of we the people. So, the moment you have the powers that be supposedly representing the great democracies of the world, blaming the whistleblowers for actually revealing the truth in the context of a narrative that the common folks not only should not be making decisions, but they should not even have the right to know of the decision-making process that gave rise to this decision. What you have is the worst combination of supposedly market society with a Soviet-like regime. Julian has to be freed for a variety of reasons, but the most important one for you and for your children is because the persecution of Julian Assange is the kind of shooting the messenger policy, the purpose of which is to kill off not democracy, we don't have democracy, the chance of democracy. Thank you, Yanis Varoufakis. As Srejko Hovaj has mentioned earlier, there is going to be a series of surprises during this evening, and I propose to watch a first surprise featuring none other than Bran Eno. I'm on a plane. Sorry about this, but it's the first time I've had a couple of minutes free to do something. Srejko sends me an email about 15 times a day saying, where's your Julian video? Okay, Srejko, here it is. I hope the background noise isn't too loud. I hope the sound of that mulling and puking maybe over the other side of the plane doesn't disturb you too much. Back there is Denmark, I think, and on the plane here I am saying, Hello Julian, how are you doing? I know you've been there four years now. It's a long, long time. If I think what I've been doing for four years, well, quite a lot compared to sitting in an apartment, one apartment in the centre of London. But what is amazing is how much you've done in that time, how busy you've been. So if they thought imprisoning you like that, informal imprisonment was going to stop you. That didn't work at all. In fact, you've gathered around your group of people who I suppose inspired by your example and your thoughts have started to take your project forward. And it is a project that needs to be taken forward. Our leaders talk a lot about openness and transparency and democracy and so on. But as soon as they see any sign of them, this is what happens. It doesn't last for long. I hope that all of us can realise that there's something fundamentally wrong with a system that is this vulnerable and this sensitive to being exposed. What is it trying to hide? Well, quite a lot, as it turns out. It's time we start to look at it. Okay, Sreco, hope you're happy now. And Julian, I look forward to coming and seeing you again. Hey, Julian. It's Brian. I'm sorry that I'm in not the most ideal recording circumstances. I'm travelling across Denmark in a car on my way to a castle. And of course, this makes me even more aware of the fact that you are sitting in the embassy where you've been for the last four years. And I can only say I admire your fortitude and the fact that your spirit is completely undimmed. And in fact that quite the opposite, you seem to be going from strength to strength. So the incarceration hasn't worked if it was intended to break your spirit. It's interesting to me that governments talk a lot about democracy and transparency and openness, but as soon as they get any of it, they're a little bit frightened. Frightened enough to shut someone away, actually. I've just realised this must look very weird because we're going through trees and the sun is kind of strobing on my face. So if any of you are epileptic, you might want to look away. Good luck, Julian. I hope your project carries on undimmed. And I'm sure your supporters, of whom I count myself one, wish you the very best of luck. Julian, I don't want to tell tales, but that bastard, Sreko Horvath, has been hounding me relentlessly, trying to squeeze a video out of me. I said, look, man, I'm busy. Right, even now I'm doing this in a fucking car, travelling across Denmark. I don't know where the hell I am. It's sunset. It's Denmark. It must be Thursday. But anyway, I thought just so that I can stop receiving emails from Sreko Horvath. I'd better say something. Congratulations. Congratulations for holding out this long and for not losing your sense of humour or your sense of purpose. It's fascinating to me that you've been four years in one little apartment in central London, in prison really, except that in some ways there's a bit worse than a prison because you can't go outside. Mind you, on the other hand, you do have very nice warders in the form of the members of the Ecuadorian Embassy who seem to be very nice people. However, it's a long time, four years here, a long time. People are behind you. It's funny. People actually stop me in the street sometimes and say, how's he doing? They don't even say your name. They just say, how's he doing? Because they assume that I know who they're talking about. I think you're doing pretty well. In fact, I have to say I think you're doing extremely well. And I really congratulate you. Let's hope it's over soon, though. You need a break and a good long walk. That was Brian Ina from the plane, from the car. Thank you, Sergeko. Yanis Varoufakis would like just to jump back to what you said before this video, especially taking into account the fact that in your, let's say, manifesto for democracy in Europe movement you especially focus, there's a point in your manifesto about the question of transparency at the level of Europe. Can you maybe explain a little bit more about maybe the link that there must be between what Assange has been doing and precisely this specific point of the manifesto? When I was in those never-ending meetings here in Brussels, there were moments when I would listen to what was going on around me, to what was being said and I was longing for someone to press one button. Just one button. Meeting rooms, you know, especially when I was feeling apoplectic, I would be looking at the ceiling and you know what I would see? Many cameras, cameras everywhere, and microphones. And I was longing for somebody in the technicians room to press a button and connect them to the internet so that you folks could hear and watch what was being said. And I was thinking to myself, if the people of Europe were listening and watching, the conversation would have been infinitely more civilized, infinitely more productive, and even if it wasn't, at least you would know what was being said on your behalf. When I suggested that, I was immediately lambasted as being irresponsible because the idea there is that shining a light and connecting a microphone to connect your ears with what is happening on your behalf is dangerous because the mask can all be trusted with this information. I have a question for you. It's a rhetorical question, I'll answer it too. Why is Europe? Every time we have a crisis or what actually now with this big one, instead of getting closer together, consolidating, why are we succumbing to the centrifugal forces that are pulling us apart with nationalist governments coming up, with socialist governments, think of France, introducing the agenda of Le Pen through parliament, with the British wanting to leave, the Italians, if you look at the Euro barometer, if you look at the opinion polls, they're all turning against Europe. In the United States, they had a very massive crisis which was effectively created within the United States before it was transported here. The Americas are not being pulled apart by it. They may have voice-produced conflicts amongst themselves. You have Bernie Sanders on the one hand, you have Donald Trump on the other, but nobody's talking about destroying the Union or California sailing into the sunset away from the Union or the dollar zone. In Europe, we have these centrifugal forces. Why? Because we have this culture of complete opacity, this mistrust of people. In the United States, if you go to any presidential library, to the LBJ, presidential library to the JFK, presidential library, even to the Nixon presidential library, you'll be able to listen to all the conversations that took place in the White House today. You listen to all of them, everything. It takes 10 years before they are released, but you will hear it. Every time there is a Senate committee, you will hear exactly what's being said. Every time there is a... The Federal Reserve, the Central Bank, is publishing minutes of the discussions, 6 months and then 12 months and then 3 years later in full. You know exactly who said what on behalf of whom. Do you think you will ever find out what is being said on your behalf at the European Central Bank or the European Union? Never. Never. As I said before. So this is why... This is why... It's a very simple answer to my rhetorical question. This is why we're disintegrating. This complete opposition to the notion that the people should know what their leaders are doing on their behalf. That's the connection. The first thing we did as a team was to start the transparency campaign. And it is astonishing that we have such resistance from an establishment which... I mean, they have absolutely no scruples. They openly say that you knowing is a threat to Europe. Well, if it is a threat to that Europe, that Europe is not worth having. And you and I should join Julian and shine and light on the deepest nooks and crannies of decision-making everywhere. Thank you, Sresko Horvitz. Earlier on, Yanis Varoufakis mentioned this kind of bizarre or ambiguous relationship we have with surveillance technology on the one side taken seduced by the hypothesis of the big brother watching us and Assange himself having very strong statements about how powerful surveillance technologies are. And at the same time, there's this ambiguity towards it or about it because of the fact that there's some kind of possible use despite of this power. What's your position about this technological dimension of Assange's action? Basically, here I think we should go back to ancient philosophy, to Plato, who introduces a very interesting concept which is called the pharmacon. The pharmacon in ancient Greek philosophy means at the same time poison and medicine. And I think technology is the same. In modern Greece too. Excuse me? In modern Greece too. Yeah, although you mainly have poison from the European institutions and medicine from yourself, but I will not give you compliments tonight. I do it privately. So technology is the same. It can be medicine and poison and what WikiLeaks is doing is showing precisely this. Julian Assange could be a CEO in Silicon Valley earning several thousands or several millions of dollars per year having a company such as Google or Facebook or Microsoft, but he decided to take a different path. And this path was best illustrated in a recent movie, movie series, which is called The Man in High Castle. I don't know how many of you watched it. I am trying to convince Yanis to watch it very soon. I hope he will. It's a novel. The series is based on a novel by Philip K. Dick, one of the best science fiction writers. And it imagines a science fiction scenario. You know these scenarios. What would happen if this happened? So he imagined a scenario where the Japanese and the Germans, the Nazis, won the Second World War. So one part of U.S. is owned, governed by the Japanese. One part of the U.S. is governed by the Nazis. And then you have a group, a resistance group, who is actually, what are they doing? They're distributing books which show the real history of the Second World War because the Nazis and the Japanese, as we know today, were defeated. In the series, they are distributing movies. And the point of Philip K. Dick's novel and the point of this series is the following one. If we are able to show the truth, something what Michel Foucault called paresia, which means to speak about everything with the courage and responsibility, we are able to defeat these powers. And although the U.K. government invested 16, listen to this figure, 16 million euros in order to surveil the Ecuadorian embassy, and as Yanis and me and Brian Eno and the people who visited Julian Assange often know, they're all being surveilled, but we don't give a damn. And they were investing 16 million euros and they said now the policemen are not in front of the embassy anymore. It's a covert operation, but they still surveil and film everything. And although they do it, we are going there and we are here today in Berlin, in Paris, in Madrid, in Naples, and so on, and we are speaking out. That's a big thing. But let us not forget for what Julian Assange is accused. He is accused of espionage. He is accused of theft of government property. He is accused of computer fraud. And he is accused of conspiracy. And as you may know, in the meantime Julian Assange and WikiLeaks coordinated the big escape of Edward Snowden from Hong Kong to Moscow. That's the conspiracy espionage part. So if he leaves the Ecuadorian embassy, they are legitimate fears that he would be extradicted to the U.S. He doesn't have anything to do with the Swedish case. He is detained for six years without charges. And I think we should remember it and we should do the same as the men in high castles and show the truth. I would like now to invite somebody else on stage, namely Christophe Marchand, who is a lawyer, actually a member of Assange Defence Team, and he's going to tell us a little story. Come here to the light. Yes, transparency. I'm not going to tell a story. I'm just going to explain a bit what the legal situation is. Lawyers are not telling stories. They are just working, not lying. So the first thing I wanted to say is I'm easier if I speak standing, a bit pleading. So the first thing is that when we began to work in this case, it's a very complex case. I think it's the most complex case that I haven't seen and imagined. And that was the words of Michael Ratner, who's the former president of the constitutional... What is it again? CCR? Center for constitutional rights in New York, and he just died a few weeks ago. It's very complex because it's involving so many states. You have Sweden, then you have the UK, then you have the US, then you have Ecuador, who's the only state who's a bit courageous and came through and protected the General Assange. So now, when you see such a complexity, then we have, of course, as lawyers, to react how are we going to protect our clients? How are we going to protect our clients from being extradited from the UK to Sweden? So that was the big problem. But then we thought, but why does General Assange don't want to go to Sweden? Because Sweden, in my opinion, as I knew it, as a Belgian lawyer, who stood in Sweden, is sort of a model democratic state. Then we did some research on what is the practice of Sweden towards extradition, specifically with the US. And we found like 17 condemnations from international bodies, international courts, which is the Supreme Court of Human Rights, or the Human Rights Council, or the CAT Committee, which is the Committee Against Torture, from 2001 to now, that Sweden hasn't respected the basic human rights and has not understood what the risks were for the people that they extradited to other countries. And then we realized that the fear of Jordan, of being extradited from Sweden to the US, where he faces like life sentence or whatever, or being hanged, as they were saying in the beginning, that it was not an irrational fear, it was a real fear, because there is such a big link between the US and Sweden. And so we understood at the end, why, because when we go there, at the embassy, you know, it's this small apartment, 35 square meters, there is no lights on the face of Jordan, there is no fresh air. It's really like confinement, and we stay there because it's such a complex case. For hours discussing, discussing with all the team, because there are several teams, a Danish team, a Swedish team, a UK team, an Australian team of lawyers, so that's why the fence is such a big expenses for Jordan. And so we discussed for hours, and at the end, after 405 hours discussion, the only thing I want to do is just get out of the embassy and have a little fresh air or sun, but that's not possible for Jordan, and it's not been possible for more than four years, because before that, he was in house arrest, he was in isolation in a prison in the UK. So now, as lawyers, we are litigating a lot, we litigated in the UK, and we are litigating in Sweden. And what's something very special about his litigation is that the UK litigation was not a disaster because we tried to stop the extradition, but then we went to Majesty's Court, London Court of Appeal, House of Lords, but they all decided, they all took very odd decisions, very special decisions, they were not respecting their own case law, and even the House of Lords just suggested to the UK Parliament that they had to change the law because the situation of Julian Assange saying he's not charged, he's not been interviewed, but he's asked to be sent somewhere is something totally against every UK principle. So they changed the law, but not for Julian. And that's also the situation of Julian, but not for Julian. And that's the same in Sweden. In Sweden, we are litigating on this case, and we say, oh, we want to see the file, what is the file? We want to see the file as a lawyer, you want to see what are the elements against your clients, but we are refused, we are denied this fundamental right to see what are the evidence against Julian and all the exculpatory evidence, we don't have any access to that. And even the judges in Sweden report from the prosecutor saying this is what is in the file. So now the big thing is we consider, and we had this morning again a meeting in London with all the team and with Equatorian authorities also because what's going to happen next do we have as lawyers any idea that we can find a solution? Of course we are fighting and resisting, that's what we are all trying to do. And the big idea is just to go international because we consider now that national judges they don't have, I would say the freedom or they are not strong enough to take the good decisions. So that's why we went to some UN bodies who take decisions and then we have this very nice and very big news that in December 2015 this UN working group on arbitrary attention, it's a big complex name, it's part of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations took a decision saying that Julian Sanchez is deprived arbitrary of its liberty, that he's in detention. The big question we were all asking why don't you leave the embassy now we have an international body who said yes you are right not to leave the embassy and you are deprived of liberty. So now the next step is just we are in the 21st century can we consider that the situation of Julian Sanchez is normal, do we have any legal possibilities to attack it and continue that more on the international level at other UN bodies to stop this horrible situation. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now actually simultaneously in eight different countries somebody is going to speak out and I suppose you know who. Allah I understand that I am speaking to 10 cities I am normally very isolated here at the embassy so I understand that it's a bit of a shock to be speaking to perhaps 100,000 people from these different venues and online but it's quite incredible to see this extent of support for me for WikiLeaks for the people that we fight together for knowledge and understanding of the world. Of course this event didn't come from nowhere it came from the blood and sweat of courageous people and a lot of hard work at the different venues and I'll mention some of those afterwards. I only have a few minutes to talk and so I thought I would just say something perhaps it is not to be expected I'm sure all of you must expect that I speak about the injustice that I have personally gone through and others and well I have been detained without charge as of today for 2022 days and four years in the embassy but there are some consolations to be arbitrarily detained and there is some luck in being an accused person to luck in being accused of being a spy a terrorist luck in being accused of being a sex criminal and you might think that surely it is a shock and a devastation to wake up to find one transformed into a demon into a thing into an unspeakable thing a frightening thing no it's wonderful because it is not that you change it is that others change you stay the same but you now have a gift you now have a superpower the superpower of the accused this superpower is to reveal the true characters of others who does not long from childhood for such a power to understand the true nature of one's friends we are not reduced we the accused but the people and states around us are great characters rise and great cultures step forward step forward to shine false smiles fade concealed alliances are revealed the timid retreat and love is no longer merely a word but it is an action this is the superpower of the accused and it is no more prevalent in the superpower of the accused by superpowers there are many of us now Chelsea Manning serving 35 years in a US military prison tortured, alleged to be my co-conspirator feel is coming in two months Jeremy Hammond sentenced for 10 years in the United States for allegedly revealing information to the public Barrett Brown US journalists that we work with Laurie Love here in the UK where the United States is about exoditing Edward Snowden who has asylum now in Russia Gottfried Spartan Wag one of our consultants who was renditioned illegally by Swedish intelligence services from Cambodia to Sweden although none of us are special we gather around us the very special and we do it because of this superpower of the accused the people who have constructed this event are special people they have resisted the filters and fear that normally keep timid people or people with false alliances at bay so I want you to look around you and understand that at least for the organisers and the speakers who are performing all for free that these are interesting people with good character and you should form alliances with them and to a degree the people in the audience having come out their quality that is special I want to very briefly look ahead for WikiLeaks through the next year WikiLeaks is our greatest modern library it is now 11 million volumes of persecuted knowledge that reveal how the world works it is a romantic dream to construct such a library to educate the world on where power truly resides and by understanding that we have a hope to change it this library has been built by our love the love of our sources our savings and yes even by nearly 100 years of prison time all over the world from different people this is a library of modern knowledge containing a treasure and this is a library that is besieged by barbarians besieged by barbarians who want to destroy it they besieged it by for years but the library is library keeps growing and its defenders keep growing and I hope that people in this audience will come defenders of this great romantic dream now some of those defenders who exist already I want to name none of this of course for me personally would be possible without the people and governments of Ecuador including the president Rafael Correa but a very brave and principled country whose position in defending my asylum and that of others has been an inspiration to many for this particular event there's more than 60 speakers and I cannot possibly begin to thank all those people involved but who's principal idea this was and who spent an enormous amount of time together Costas de Temoros from the press project Paddy Smith and PJ Harvey the performing artists Liabac who made that amazing whistleblower Vivian Westwood who transferred to a whole fashion show to represent our struggle today 60 wonderful speakers who are too numerous to name except for Noam Chomsky now in his 86th year I see you Noam I see you with my superpower of the accused and now I have managed to get a really unusual and special guest which is really quite impressive that they've turned up let's see if they have actually turned up this is the foreign minister of Ecuador who came to the embassy today because of four years he has an appointment tomorrow with the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office of course because I keep causing him in Ecuador a bit of grief in this situation but anyway he has a few words to say thanks guys I really appreciate it ok good afternoon greetings to all of you a big hug to the Ecuadorians who listen to us this afternoon and who support our cause I gather that most of you are English speakers so I'll speak to you in English on this day on a day like this four years ago Julian Assange entered our embassy the premises of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and requested asylum to the government of Ecuador he feared for his life his physical integrity his liberty he felt that he was facing persecution for his journalistic work that exposed terrible crimes and grave violations of human rights the treatment handed out to Chelsea Manning justified these fears two months later the Ecuadorian government took a bold decision Julian Assange was granted asylum Ecuador took this step in order to protect and safeguard his life and his integrity it was a principle decision that resonated across the whole world despite threats harassment and smear campaigns Ecuador stood firm in the face of all the pressure it faced to revert its decision we have never regretted it we've never regretted our decision we are a country committed to protecting and promoting basic human rights and to defending those who devote their lives to human rights sometimes when other governments often evade their responsibility and refuse to welcome people that escape political persecution or war Ecuador takes principled and effective action some of you may not know that our country hosts the largest number of refugees in Latin America and these people the refugees in Ecuador are not refugee camps but are fully integrated in our society four years on we uphold our decision to grant Julian asylum because the conditions that made him fear for his physical integrity have not fundamentally changed despite Ecuador's multiple efforts to broker a satisfactory solution for all parties Sweden and the UK refuse to commit themselves to not extradite Julian Assange to a third country the UN has recently declared that Julian Assange is being arbitrarily detained he is confined in a tiny building his health has substantially deteriorated the UK and Sweden have repeatedly called on countries to comply with such UN rulings on arbitrary detention and yet in this case both countries are ignoring that decision my government believes that principled action brings fundamental change Julian Assange Chelsea Manning Edward Snowden and many others have made a unique contribution beyond denouncing terrible crimes against humanity as well as severe violations of human rights they opened up and shaped a global debate which is fundamental today how imbalances of power affect the ways information is produced distributed and controlled and how this impacts all aspects of our lives of everyone's lives four years on Ecuador remains firmly committed to uphold the asylum granted to Julian Assange and at the same time to devoting its best efforts to end Julian Assange's arbitrary detention four years is far too long let's put an end to this well we've just heard Julian Assange so Yanis Varoufakis there's this strong very strong statement of his saying that because of his situation of a detainee because of being accused of what he has been accused of he would take it as a chance the chance to show that he was not the one changing but precisely give us the opportunity to see the other the other change and he said just said that it makes him some kind of superhero did you have when you were confronted to the European nomenclature did you have also the impression that your presence so to speak in the fact that you were holding a democratic truth in a system that was denying it you're also forcing let's say to manifest this change towards those who are your intelligent tutors I don't want to make the comparison with Julian because incarceration is a very tough condition to be in I felt incarcerated during those long meetings there were times here in Brussels 10, 12 hours of being closed up holding these neon lit windowless places I had this urge sometimes I felt weak and cowardly and the urge was almost overwhelming to simply get out of there and walk at night in the streets of Brussels in the rain the idea of having the rain on my face was actually causing so much yearning in me so Julian doesn't have that opportunity at least I did I could have walked out I chose not but Julian is at a different level of superhero that any one of us can be and that must be stressed having said that the takeaway for me from just listening to him here is that the world we live in is ruled by insiders and there are two ways in which you can respond to finding yourself within the insiders circle one of the first things that were said to me by a very high ranking American official was when we met when I was minister was Janis you have a choice this was a personal piece of advice well meant, it was very well meant he was not threatening me on anything he said you have a choice you can be an insider or you can be an outsider if you're not an outsider you will retain your right to say anything you want whatever you believe in but know that you're going to be persecuted you're going to be vilified and you will be jettisoned by the insiders to play the game what you must understand is that if you choose to be an insider you will be given information that outsiders don't have you will be given a small a modicum, an aorta of an opportunity to make some changes small tiny marginal changes within the inside but the one rule that you must respect is that insiders do not tell outsiders the truth now I made the choice and this is why I'm here to be an outsider Julian was never inside but what he did was he created the technology that allowed the outsiders to get a glimpse within and this is why he's being persecuted this way and one of the worst aspects of his persecution from a feminist perspective is that he's been accused of a crime for which he's never been charged that turns progressives against feminists and feminists against progressives this attempt by the establishment to turn progressives against themselves in order to prosecute someone who has shown them up and who has revealed their crimes is a heinous crime in itself thank you thank you very much superhero figure that has popped in in the conversation and we know that in the imaginary of the whistleblowers one of the major icons is of course this comic book V for vendetta and of course you also know that it's a common critique of superheroes to say that towards superhero and superhero culture to say that as a matter of fact well superheroes cause a problem because they'll tell us that we are not capable of moving ourselves on our own and we need some providential being to help us somehow so how do you maybe displace here or reframe the question of superheroic power maybe ironically of Julian Assange in this context since my friends mentioned the superheroes in a positive context I must destroy the party and be an advocate Diablo I don't believe in superheroes I believe in the politics of friendship and Julian mentioned it very well I think there are so many people who are not only Pettismith or Yanis Varoufakis or P.J. Harvey or Chomsky who are here tonight who are watching us on the live stream there are families who are behind these things which we are doing Yanis's family who was behind him during the hard months of negotiations friends who backed him when he was attacked tremendously by the German media mainly because he drives a motorbike because he has a leather jacket because he showed or didn't show the finger and so on and I think what it shows is the strength of friendship Jacques Derrida a French philosopher was talking about the politics of friendship and I think maybe sometimes you have this temptation to think that we are not important that the powers are smiling at us and laughing when we occupy a square that they are laughing when we are in a public space but hello we have 2,000 people here tonight in eight cities at the same time hundreds of thousands watching the live stream and I think the most important thing is and I've seen this being part of different occupations from Bosnia Sintagma Square to Nui de Bu recently the main thing is and think about it what will you do when you go out of this room you can buy the t-shirt of WikiLeaks, you can donate to WikiLeaks and I ask you to do that because the t-shirt is cool you have a cat on the t-shirt which is a new friend of Julian Assange and actually to give you a joke you know what's the difference between cats and dogs a cat could never work for the police and that's the reason why Julian Assange has a cat another dog because you know how cats are they don't give a damn you know one day they are friends the other day they are not but they stick to you in the end and to return to politics of friendship what I learned from Julian Assange is that you have to be consistent this is something what I learned also from my great friend Yanis we met in 2013 it's not so long time ago I invited him to a festival called Saburzi Festival in Zagreb where he was still more or less unknown professor in Texas working for a computer company I mean me and my friends knew about him we read his books and so on and he came there he was not yet minister of finance the current prime minister of Greece Alexis Tsipras also came to that festival Gizek, Oliver Stone Franco Berardi before who is the organizer of the event in Napoli at the moment a lot of people who are now part of this historical event and this big story gather there and we are together and it shows that by politics of friendship we can create something bigger and what I learned from Julian I want to say this as well is precisely continuity I don't know if he knew but Julian Assange was 16 years old when he hacked the Pentagon this was before Internet as we know it today existed most of us who use the Internet today perceive Google as Internet we think once we Google something we are in the Internet but there is 90% of the Internet which is not Google today although Google has already 80% of the monopoly in Europe and in US so it's very difficult to wake up without Facebook, Google and big companies so the Internet didn't exist in Australia Julian was 16 years old he changed 30 different schools which actually made him what he is today I think because if you change so many schools if you travel all the time mentally you change as a person and you appreciate the people who stay with you during these changes because sometimes it's very difficult to change all the time for people to appreciate the changes I know it very well because I change cities every 3 days every time I come back to my home which I don't have anymore some people stay the same but I change and they appreciate those people who stick to me so Internet didn't exist what does this young Julian do he doesn't connect to dial up he hacks the telecommunications telecommunications system and he enters the Pentagon and with Julian told me when we had a long night in the embassy and I must say these nights are beautiful we are not crying, we are smiling sometimes we have a glass of wine with us and Julian said once I hacked the Pentagon I was completely intellectually isolated in Australia I hacked my way out of Australia and I think we should do that precisely today we should hack our ways out of our cocoon of our capsulas of our small places and connect to the other people who think the same at that time here I return to your question about pharmacone, about technology at that time that was the only way for someone as Julian who was a hacker and who is a genius to connect with other people in the world who otherwise without technology couldn't be connected and what about continuity what Julian revealed when he entered the Pentagon was something what he reveals even today he revealed that the US had secret bases during the Gulf War that they were already doing collateral murder where they killed civilians and so on and up to this day today he's doing the same and I think this is the biggest strength to see that someone sticks to the continuity such as Yannis as well when he resigned the next day after the Ohi referendum was turned into a NER referendum the very next day so I think all of this even if we can be desperate even if we should condemn the very fact that this person, our friend is sitting at the embassy for four years already it gives us hope but I'm completely opposed I'm sorry for repeating myself we had this discussion to optimism to naive optimism I think what we need today more than ever is hope without optimism we live in deep shit and we must realize that one million refugees entered the European Union two days ago I was in Romania at a mountain of 2000 meters and it has the biggest number of intact forests in all Europe and at the same time it has the biggest number of illegal cuttings of forests in all Europe by an Austrian company three days before that I was at Port Pireus which is now on 67% by Costco by the Chinese you have austerity measures everywhere in Croatia where I come from you have a right-wing extremist government at the moment and 60% of unemployment of young people think things will get better unfortunately they won't but if we don't have hope and this is what we are doing as well with DiEM and as friends we don't have any reason to wake up so I think we need hope but without optimism Janis Arufakis I want to add to this narrative of hope friendship and continuity Sajko mentioned the 16-year-old Julian Assange hacking into the Pentagon it is important to remember that the continuity goes a long way back not just to the 16-year-old Julian we stand on the shoulders of great human beings who have paved the ground for us for Julian, for us for our children allow me to mention one of them I'll take you to the 1950s to the time when the Cold War was brewing and it was spreading its poison and toxic tentacles everywhere at that time in Rand Corporation Research and Development Corporation the Cold Warriors were developing firstly nuclear weapons secondly a theoretical construct called game theory the purpose of which was to design the strategy of conducting nuclear warfare and thirdly the internet one of those extremely intelligent bright mathematicians who were working on these projects simultaneously as a young man was Daniel Ellsberg he was a brilliant mathematician he was a Cold Warrior he was induced inducted into this magnificently well resourced corporation as the years were going by he began to develop doubt about his own participation in this endeavor by the time in the mid 60s that the Vietnam War had resulted from this mindset and from this military industrial complex of which Rand Corporation where he worked was so significant he began to realize that he was a criminal that he was an active participant in a crime and do you know what you did there was no internet then in the sense of having a capacity to hack into an information system he spent months waiting for all his colleagues to leave the corridors of the Pentagon and he would take all the documents which proved beyond reasonable doubt that the leadership of the United States armed forces and the politicians knew of the crimes that were being perpetrated in Vietnam and primarily that this was not a war that they could ever win and he would take them to the basement of the building and spend all night up to 4 or 5 in the morning photocopying, xeroxing these pages it took him months and he was carrying them secretly outside in his coat, in his bag surreptitiously creating a library similar a WikiLeaks of the 60s and then he published them he got in touch with the New York Times and other newspapers and he did what Julian Assange did later on but he did it the hard way guess what happened to him he was persecuted he was prosecuted they tried to create a narrative of debauchery that he was morally bankrupt that he was involved in a number of crimes in other words history repeats itself so if we look at our history there were always such people they were not heroes, you are right he was part of the problem and decided at a personal basis a private personal revolution to become part of the solution just like a very large number of people are doing today throughout the world Julian Assange is a symbol of this collective effort which in the end creates such strong bonds of friendship among all those people who are involved thank you Yanis Varoufaki speaking of friendship and continuity you have met a few months ago with someone who has not been able to come here today to see Slavoj Gijek so if we could see Slavoj Gijek's communication but only Slavoj Gijek please that would be swell those who want to change the world to fight injustices are today in a very strange situation on the one hand there is enough energy for change there is universal rage people are protesting all around Europe countries but there is a tragic dimension to this rage it is as if one cannot transpose or translate this rage into concrete political project what do we want what to do here Julian Assange whom I am honored to consider my friend found one of the solutions we all like to quote the old saying by Mahatma Gandhi don't wait for another person to do the change what has to be changed be yourself the change you want to be Assange did exactly this he showed us what we can do so the situation is not one of blind despair you do it you don't believe it look around the world forget about him and just think remember how the fact of WikiLeaks and all others who follow it how it changed the entire situation even the big powers behave in a different way they try to cover their tracks and so on the field where today the fate of our economies is decided all these secret agreements they no longer there to do them in that secret way and so on and so on so you see that's why Julian is my mother he doesn't have a big project change the world and so on he picked out one precise field the free circulation of information especially the information which concerns our security our economic fate and so on and so on and he just insist on the end on this again just remember in what a different situation we are today how things which simply nobody was thinking to do them years ago now there simply something that those in power have to take into account and the field of WikiLeaks where Julian is acting is one of the central fields on the one hand the digital space offers new possibilities of people directly connecting forming networks all around the world at the same time as we know those in power try to control this and as we know sooner or later for computers it will be possible to know us literally better than we know ourselves imagine a computer following through Kindle what you read how much when did you read it when did you stop reading books did you read remember your medical records everything they will know everything about you here we need public to intervene and that's the big revolution literally that he did but of course we should never forget that concrete people made of flesh and blood pay for this revolution and while we are all aware that he is not in prison isn't it that in a way he is in a prison just in a better prison now we are if I may use this obscene word celebrating the fourth anniversary of his de facto imprisonment in the embassy there cut off from normal social life cut off from sunshine and so on and so on and what's the problem here and what is our duty the problem is that you know he is not just Julian Assange he is also in a good noble almost poetic sense a creature of our imagination in what sense I mean this I mean his fight goes on he persists in this specific prison which is still better than the real prison he can be active he is a hope to all of us only in so far as he is remembered only as long as we think about him from time to time we we awaken the public sorry he is still there and so on and so on he functions in so far as we think about him stop thinking about him first in the spiritual sense of being part of our community at the end who knows maybe even in literal sense he is dead so we should always remember this what keeps him alive working is us thinking about him having him in our mind this is why I think it is absolutely crucial for all of us to remember not only to remember but to do something these are small things tell around talk with your friend write a letter to your newspaper mention him on facebook whatever and so on and so on his name has to continue to circulate and even more because it is there are even now when people talk about him so many outright lies going around again and again these days I read the news that he is charged of rape he is charged of nothing not to mention all other news are we aware that it is not just a legal case he is a victim of a well orchestrated campaign by the strongest superpower in the world it is again the old biblical story of David against Goliath but we can make the difference our number is our strength so to conclude with because Julian knows this the time always tempted to end in a slightly tasteless joke you know hello Julian and please don't get too busy relax a little bit take a walk go around to fresh air if I say this now it's an obscenity it's a cynicism he cannot do this so my wish to you Julian is that there will be time and I'm sure there will be time not too far ahead 20 years ahead when if I tell you Julian you look a little bit depressed tired why didn't you take don't you take a walk in a nice park go to a restaurant when this will no longer be an obscene joke but the desire that he will be able simply to fulfill to do so remember this Julian lives in us and in this case it's not some poetic bullshit it's literally he lives in us through us and he's fighting for us so yes you are all guilty if you don't do something and Julian already did the risks for you you are not really risking anything I know that I will be going and on thinking about the feeling guilty that I don't do alone and so on and so on it's not some abstract ethical point it's simply literally in my blood so again my not only greetings but deep admiration for Julian he not only is one of the few authentic heroes of our time he also has shown to all of us how to be a hero today that it is possible to be a hero today dear prime minister Cameron I am living westward I'm a fashion designer and an activist and I am a friend of Julian Assange I go to see him once a month in the Ecuadorian embassy I want to thank Ecuador for protecting him now Julian has never been charged with anything because there's no evidence of anything he's done nothing the UN have ruled that he is illegally detained that means you illegally detaining him and it's been a long time you must let him out he needs some sun I must say though that whatever you do I don't think you're ever going to stop him from telling the truth well as you see there are friends popping in unexpectedly from everywhere so we just so living westward making also a command maybe one last question to you you've heard Jijek asking what can we do next he said that what's great with Julian Assange is not that it's about change and so on so far it's about one precise thing so what would be your precise thing well it's not actually mine because what Jijek Julian and I have in common is that on the 9th of February last February we started and what is the first campaign transparency in Europe what is the second campaign the stabilisation of Europe so that we end unnecessary suffering in Europe and what is the long term prospect of our movement democratisation a surge of democracy throughout Europe which is going to at the same time take Europe from the European Union and provide Europeans with a shared prosperity dream this is what we all have in common this is proof in action of how struggles incarceration whistleblowing brings people through friendship together to try to do something will we succeed who knows who cares what matters is the actual process of trying to do it exactly as Slavoj said allow me to just give you one very brief example a very practical example of what Slavoj was saying that Julian is actually doing it and he's doing it from within the Ecuadorian embassy what's this it look last year the press was reporting this is speaking personally that there was a tussle between my negotiating team on behalf of Greece and the Troika the Troika wanted reforms they wanted fiscal consolidation program for Greece that would settle the Greek crisis and I was portrayed as somebody who was saying no to reforms who was being recalcitrant who was being difficult and so on that was the official story I was at the time trying to convince the world that you know the reality was exactly the opposite that I was going with my team to the lenders with very moderate cuts and dogs and having no proposal and the only thing they agreed upon was to strangle our fledgling democracy and government now it was impossible to convince the vast majority of people who listened to the systemic media and Julian did it in one afternoon one afternoon few months ago he published through WikiLeaks a conversation about the IMF's international monetary funds European chief and one of his minions who is the IMF's person in Greece just read the conversation between them that's it case closed if you read the conversation between them it's all about how the greatest impediment to an agreement that makes sense for Greece is Berlin and they were planning and plotting how they are going to push Angela Merkel into a kind of sensible solution which wasn't very sensible but it's the one that the IMF wanted and it is clear from that conversation that the Greek government is simply not an agent ever since we surrendered they simply waiting for the big boys and girls to decide amongst themselves what they want to do so this is just a simple example years of obfuscation of lies through the systemic media was pierced like a balloon earlier did from that one simple, small, tiny airless windowless room thank you Strychko Horwitz same question what's your precise thing to do okay let me turn since I think soon don't worry we will open the floor for questions and for some democracy let me come back to what Yanis said before and then I will give a kind of I'm not good at recipes and when we had the launch of the IMF he said start cooking and the recipe will follow and I think this is the point what Occupy Wall Street was doing what all the movements are doing when you occupy a square even if you don't have a precise idea what you will do the day after you're already creating the change you want to see that's something what Slavoj said as well let me turn back to what Yanis said before mentioning Daniel Ellsberg and mentioning how internet was created people tend to forget that the internet was created by massive state sponsorship without state investments mainly in US MIT mainly there wouldn't be the internet and then what happened something very interesting happened at Silicon Valley some guys gathered and they started to do something in the garage but the same as I'm opposed to superheroes I'm opposed to the notion of a genius as well if it comes to them of course because what they've been doing let's take the case of Steve Jobs for instance when Steve Jobs died he was celebrated as the biggest humanitarian genius of the 21st century because he invented the iPhone he invented the Macbook and so on but what he actually did was that he was building the iPhone and the Macbook on the shoulders of the others who were building it before and it brings us back to what Karl Marx said in the fragments on the machine in his Grundrisse when he was speaking about the general intellect the general intellect as an accumulation of knowledge of all of us, of generations of centuries Nikola Tesla comes from ex-Yugoslavia there is still a fight whether he comes yeah now we will see with the applause does he come from Croatia or from Serbia there is a big fight still going on so is he from Croatia okay no applause so it means he is from Serbia you just solved a century long problem it's not important of course Tesla wouldn't be Tesla without the general intellect without the accumulation of knowledge and it's interesting that Steve Jobs even said as a rate is in an interview sorry that he couldn't create what he did without the knowledge of the others but what they are trying to sell us today precisely Silicon Valley ideology is that they are geniuses and that they created the knowledge but look at Google is there a genius behind Google no everything what Google did and that's something what I learned from Julian don't forget that Julian is a philosopher of technology today what Google is doing is acquisition acquisition acquisition did Google invent Google Maps no it bought it did Google invent all other applications no it bought it and here you can precisely see what the privatization of general intellect means it means monopoly capitalism you buy a small firm you buy a bigger firm you buy a smaller firm and then you do data integration which means that the politicians who are working in national governments and so on which is also one of the reasons why CIDISA for instance failed because the power doesn't reside in the national government anymore and this is the reason one of the reasons why we formed DM because we believe that only by radical internationalism which at the same time doesn't only mean combining different nationalities different kind of organization models but it means combining and bringing together people such as Julian Assange such as Brian Eno who is a musician such as Gizek Economist but also direct horizontal democratic movement such as Nui de Bu Blockupai that only by building a radical internationalism a platform which would include different organizational models on the vertical and horizontal level that we can oppose these powers so this is in a way my answer to your question but to finish I believe in the politics of friendship without the politics of friendship there can be no radical movement I'm sorry it's just a very short letter from a friend from India so she couldn't film a video as others did and I must tell you that on the freeassange.org web page you can find videos by Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore Jean-Michel Jarre and others but we didn't have time today and Arun Datiroy sends us the following letter and I would like to finish and then open the floor for the audience with this letter in a worn torn valley a little north of Delhi from where I'm sending you this message a few weeks ago something interesting happened the army had surrounded a village in which a group of militants was holed up the army ordered the villagers to come out of their homes so that they could open fire on the house the militants were in the villagers came out with their hose houses and showers surrounded the house brought the militants out put them in their midst and escorted them out of the village to the edge of forest and to freedom I wish we could do this for Julian Assange he's our militant in the war against imperialism and neoliberalism unfortunately he's imprisoned in a little house right across the road from Herod's London where he has been for four years now there's no forest near so we can't do what those villagers did not literally but we can in spirit and in metaphor and we must free Julian Assange now thank you very much it is time of course where there's been a lot of things going on so it's time for you to ask question if you have and I suppose that there will be some kind of microphone walking somewhere so you have to raise your hand and grab it yeah we'll take all the questions in one round because if else we're going to be there until 3 in the morning the 4th of June, 2089 2 in front to begin with, it's stressful I just have a question because there's a multiplication of initiatives around the world initiatives that that tend to be willing to change to overturn the system but it's kind of difficult to coordinate all those initiatives together shouldn't we have a common agenda or try to find ways to find a common agenda on which all those movements can agree on for being able to effectively overturn the system, thank you hi, thank you for your intervention so far I'm a volunteer of DM25 here in Belgium and the type of change that you're advocating for and we are advocating for with you requires a very broad platform of citizens that breaks across all types of cleavages, political social, religious or otherwise and sometimes I feel like we are preaching to the converted so my question is how can we as DM25 and in general as concerned citizens break through to the people who are not listening and who would be agreeing with us for listening, thank you thank you there's a question on the first row on the and maybe some gender balance so we take now two questions by female if they are since you didn't do it I had to well we can hello, sorry so my question is for you have a male voice, where are you here I am this is for Professor Varoufakis and also for the other speakers and it pertains to his erratic Marxism and also its relationship to the goals of DM and I wonder if his erratic Marxism and DM as well have plans or hold the goal of changing the relations of production and if so how do we back there the fingers hello Mr. Varoufakis the question is for you when you talk about Europe, you talk about TDP and you don't take care of the TPP when we have signed a United States have signed a treatment with the Pacific and we are seeing as the first allias of the United States are going to Asia and you are talking about Europe are you taking any care of China are you taking any care of them how are you going to the political situation of Europe is going to lead with that if you post to that kind of treatment thanks for your time thank you I'm glad you pointed out the gender imbalance because we do have three men on the panel there is there is we do have a movement in Europe called EU panel watch I'm going to make sure you are pulled up on it but my question was about the last point on your manifesto I picked up on the way in and I did notice it from your February conference as well though you are only focusing on the TTIP as someone who is starting up an NGO called the health and trade network I would strongly encourage you also please to take into account trade policy as a whole CETA EU Philippines, EU Ecuador you name it it's not just about the TTIP one more to serve it France so I try to add something to the gender balance I'm happy to see you back I was in Berlin I have a question which has been coming up several times indeed we have to construct an international movement or movements that can develop force to resist to eventually overturn somehow the powers that be but as we all know real democracy is only possible when it is also rooted locally if we do not want to just reinforce the mechanism of globalism by our own resistance movement how do we may cooperate the local and the global thank you you're in front there's one are you already have the microphone thank you I would like to ask a question that relates to technology and that also relates to the work that Bernard Stigler is conducting Bernard Stigler being the organizer of a similar event currently in Paris at one of Stigler's seminar someone has established the historical link between technology and youth young people and he has also pointed out the fact that progressive political parties have no vision whatsoever towards technology and in having no vision whatsoever towards technology they basically abandon and give up use what do you think about that thank you we're going to take two more I think we have to wrap it up otherwise we'll lose track actually I just got a message that all the other cities finished and that we are the last one which is kind of cool hello good evening I would like to ask something to Giannis Baroufakis and I share I think we all share your concerns about the lack of deep democracy of this opacity in Europe we appreciate these progressive efforts to propose other alternatives but what another concern is we have to acknowledge that the European Union is one of the most successful political projects in the world we have a lot to thank to it a lot of prosperity and peace and we have to also protect this project we have to criticize this pose good alternatives but also to care and let it fall down so as I know you are a strong pro-European person I would like to ask you about specific changes you would like to see in the European Union and also ask you do you stand for a federal Europe would you like to see a more united politically speaking union thank you I have a short last question I'll keep it short I have something to the question of the other guy relating youth and technology you are talking about technology being part of the problem and the solution hacking as being part of the solution as well so how do you see this role evolving in the future so technology being part of the solution thank you very much we are going to take that already and then we will see where it leads wonderful questions firstly we certainly need a common agenda this is what DM is trying to do we are trying to create an infrastructure for movements we are not antagonistic with any existing movement or indeed with any existing political party what we want to do in Europe is to bring people together in a coalition that we should have had in 1930 against the slide into an abyss which resulted in magnificent human costs and it is essential to be internationalist you are quite right those of you who talked about the need to have to build bridges with for instance those magnificent hundreds of thousands of people who got involved in Bernie Sanders campaign and who are creating on the other side of the Atlantic exactly that which we are trying to create here with this ambition to create to build that bridge on the TPP and the TTIP it is true that we mention TTIP because in our manifesto because our manifesto focuses on Europe but exactly what we say about the TTIP applies to the TPP they are the same project the project that was born out that are the collapse of the World Trade Organization round of the United States if you want a monopoly of knowledge for American multinational corporations and at the same time and this is extremely dangerous in the Pacific basin to encircle China and to separate it from its national markets making sure that it is American and multinational that write the rules and the industry standards so you are knocking on an open door those of you who are asking of us the thing internationally and to include the TPP in our agenda against TTIP one of you said that it is you did comrade from the DM25 here in Brussels that we must stop preaching to the converted well this is the great test for all of us at the moment there are people out there watching football watching reality shows who don't give a damn about what we do in here who don't have any interest in politics but who go to bed every night utterly worried about what the future holds for them if we do not manage to impress upon them how important it is to become engaged in a common project for democratizing Europe we are going to be delivering them in the arms of the AfD in Germany of Golden Dawn, of Le Pen so this is what we need to do how are we going to do it? well how about stop the practice of the left of the past which is naval gazing and being completely consumed by internal fights that remind me personally of Monty Python's life of Brian with the Judean people's front fighting against the liberation front of Judea and putting out an agenda in a very simple language explaining to people how investing can grow how can we invest in the things that humanity needs like green energy and disinvestment in the things we don't need like Volkswagen diesel and toxic derivatives and how this can be made to work using existing institutions developing them in a manner that will inspire them to think that you know Tina is dead long live Tatiana that is there is no alternative, it's finished and Tatiana is replacing Tina where Tatiana stands this is my acronym form that astonishingly there is an alternative or the gender imbalance we're guilty as charged nothing more to say on the local or the global let me give you a very small example of how we tackle this difference between local and global in Diem one of the things that we did from day one was to include not only movements like Blockupai like Nuitepu but also the rebel cities that are emerging throughout Europe our great friend and one of the Diem 25 initial signatories Ada Colau the mayor of Barcelona that magnificent woman is showing us the way Ada Colau became the mayor of Barcelona by starting a movement to protect people in Barcelona from foreclosures evictions in the hands of the bankrupt banks that were being bailed out by the very same people who were being evicted by the very same bankers that they were helping and very soon that movement for defending those people became so strong that the great city of Barcelona was won and yet Ada Colau and Gerardo Gerardo Pizzarello who is deputy mayor and Jordi Aguila are comrades in Barcelona understand that to have a city of Barcelona agenda that actually makes a lasting difference and which can flourish it needs to have an overarching European agenda in which that rebel city is embedded and now there is such a network including La Coruña, Madrid, Valencia very recently Napoli has entered and we are now what we are doing as DM is providing them with a European agenda that will provide them with the overarching narrative in which they can flourish as cities that look after their citizens this is our way of combining local and global action technology actually somebody asked me to speak as an erratic Marxist by the way the reason why I call myself an erratic Marxist is because I believe that the only way of being genuinely Marxist is to be erratic any attempt to be dogmatic leads to the gulag and at the same time it might sound as erotic this is the author of the radicality of love speaking his latest book outside which is unsavory I was asked to comment on about changing the relations of production look the left has failed spectacularly to create a revolution that changes through political means the social relations of production to move away from capitalist relations to socialistic shared practices for producing and distributing we must learn our lessons from that spectacular failure of the last century or so but fear not because capitalism is doing a magnificent job at undermining itself by creating technologies that it cannot survive all these wonderful recent technological innovations and revolutions are making corporations absolutely irrelevant very soon when economies of scale have been destroyed by the combination of the internet and 3D printing there will be no need to have Volkswagen there will be no need to have any of the corporations that have become part and parcel of corporate capitalism we will have the capacity with these technologies very soon, sooner than we think to produce immense wealth to replace a lot of the chores actually all of the chores all repetitive work including intellectually repetitive work that most doctors and most lawyers actually do these days with machines, once machines pass the Turing test then we are going as a species we are going to have a choice we have a choice between two science fiction movies one is Star Trek which is the ideal communism they are all sitting around not working they have a hole in the wall that produces anything they want and they have philosophical discussions and explore the universe that's communism but there is another possible extreme the matrix where all human beings are attached to a system of machines that suck the life out of us create illusions in our heads of a world that doesn't exist and where we are the ultimate dystopia in a Dr. Frankenstein kind of way the choice is ours it will be political and the only way we are going to shift towards Star Trek rather than the matrix is through the energizing of democratic politics and transparency and facing the truth and taking the red, not the blue people further on the question of technology I remember we were having I think we were together in the Ecuadorian members and we were having a discussion and Julian said something really worrying and probably true he said to us were we together then? I think so or maybe he told us the same story separately it's a favorite of his and I think it's a very pertinent one he said look we are losing the 16 year old, 17 year old 18 year olds in Mumbai in Portugal in Ghana who dream of producing the next up that will net them a billion years or dollars they don't give a damn about us about whistleblowers, about politicians they just want to be the next Google the next Steve Jobs the next Spotify the next inventor of Instagram and unless the left develops a narrative that convinces these young people that the future is going to be very brutish very nasty and very short for them if those endeavors are private and they think that they can get away simply by making this success or carving out that success story for themselves unless we have a capacity to inspire them the importance of creating those apps and these technologies but to do so in a collective spirit and in a society that is working after each other they are going to end up burnt out even if they succeed on drugs in therapy by the time they are 35 or they will most likely have failed and be unemployable people living on the streets suffering a mental disorder and this is the task of the left the chances are not that good that we will succeed but we have a moral duty to try it on the question of the European Union projects if you read our manifesto we are very clear on that yes, the ultimate goal is the scripting through a constitutional assembly a pan-European constitutional assembly of a federal democratic constitution for the European Union let's be absolutely clear on this either we are going to move in the direction of a pan-European democracy or what we now have is going to turn into a dystopia of course we need to design very carefully the steps we take because today Europe is subject to centrifugal forces that make a discussion about the federation sound ludicrous and pie in the sky it's as easy to think of a socialist Europe as it is to think of a federal Europe as we speak this is why we need transparency stabilisation redeployment of existing institutions in order to create again prosperity upon which we will build the constitutional assembly that will create the federal Europe and finally this is something that wasn't asked but I want to mention with which to close we talk about brave people like Julian like Dan Ellsberg like Zizek like Brian Eno all those people that are putting themselves in the line of fire on behalf of all that which is good and proper but there is a lot of power at this friends, ladies and gentlemen today Julian Assange has a problem with his shoulder do you know that it is impossible to get a specialist, a shoulder specialist to come into the embassy and take a look at him because they fear that they will lose their clientele we have to remember that human beings are capable of the best and the worst and our job as a movement is to cultivate the former against the latter since Janis answered almost everything and I need to go desperately to the toilet I mean we are human after all I will just focus on one question it will be short is the question on technology I appreciate that you mentioned Bernard Stiegler because unfortunately and I think that's our fault of the philosophers as well there are not so many interesting philosophers of technology today name a few, Bernard Stiegler Franco Berard de Beefo who else, Evgeny Morozov he is not a philosopher but a very interesting thinker but the most interesting guys are from the other side and as Janis said they are using technology for other means and I think I would like to end with this because Julian is a great philosopher of technology as well at the end of his life Martin Heidegger the great German philosopher gave an interview for the first the German newspaper and it was published 10 years after his death he was asked about technology as you know Heidegger really feared technology thinking that our brain is already becoming technological and instrumental I'm not sure why he couldn't see that when he supported Hitler and the concentration camps it couldn't be possible without the instrumental mind and Siemens of course and Ford the big companies and when he was asked the question about technology you know what Heidegger said only a god can save us now I think we from this side of the spectrum which is opposed to Silicon Valley although as thinkers and philosophers I think we have to appreciate what they are doing because it's so exciting we have to be opposed to this that we cannot fear technology anymore I will give you an example which is really scary shit I mean if you want to see how ideology functions today read the wire read the wire every month and see what new killer apps are coming two months ago there is a killer app it was small but probably in the meantime it was bought by Facebook it's called Emoticon no Emotion from France I think the emotions which the customers the audience have when they watch television they made huge analysis of the facial expressions of people who watch Super Bowl in order to predict which products they will buy and you remember the science fiction movie I will add to what Yanis said about the Star Trek and Matrix I think today we already live in a documentary minority report which was a novel by Philip K. Dick again and a movie by Steven Spielberg and you remember ok this is a movie about pre-crime and so on but there is a very interesting scene when Tom Cruise is walking on the street and then a hologram appears and the hologram says ok last month I'm now banalising the thing but it's something like that last month you bought these jeans and then a jeans appears in the hologram maybe you should buy this because you have a date and then the girl likes these jeans and so on this is already happening you know what are the three main fields where Silicon Valley is investing money and we are not even close to this people, philosophers of technology don't even think about it except a few first, virtual reality second, artificial intelligence and third there comes a surprise it's not a bizarre joke immortality those guys from Silicon Valley really believe that they will be able to upload their brains into clouds and that they will be immortal and if you think this is a joke when Julian told me this for the first time the next day I was flying he told it at the public event at Folkesbyn I was flying with British airwaves to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and I took the magazine the business magazine of British airwaves which also poor philosophers as me in the economy class can read because it's there you read the business magazine, in-flight magazine of British airwaves this was December last year and if you think I'm exaggerating the title was immortality the new dream of Silicon Valley and why is this important and here I finish with Fire Macon again because I think and the same goes for Brexit and Grexit if you want it's not possible to exit even if you exit as Greece or Britain you will still be part of a global capitalist system and I know this very well because I was born in Yugoslavia now it's Croatia, now it's European Union, whatever but Yugoslavia had several decades of real existing socialism it had one of the strongest diplomacies in the world one of the strongest armies in the world and it had self-management and it was part of the non-aligned movement together with India, with Egypt and so on Iran and so on and if this huge project which lasted for several decades which created an alternative economy which was called self-management couldn't exit the global market actually the global market the failure of Yugoslavia wasn't the nationalist war it was the integration into the global market already in the 70s and the 80s if this decades long project couldn't exit the global capitalist system how can you imagine that a tiny economy as Greece or even UK which is much bigger could exit and then what's the lesson the lesson is what Franco Berardi before says in his last book also our great friend and a great philosopher of technology to hack the system to get inside of the system to get to know how the system functions and this is precisely what Julian Assange did instead of going to an island yeah he ended up in the Ecuadorian embassy but he entered the system with 16 years he entered Pentagon he entered MIT he entered Harvard and I think this is the future and this is also a lesson for us we have to enter the system and this is the only way to change it thanks a lot for the evening thank you very much ladies and gentlemen thank you for being there tonight if you want to read more of Yanis Varoufakis and Slavoj Gizek their books sorry search kohovat sorry my friend just your bird to grow and it will be of course available for you to sign them if you want thanks for being there good night