Robin Hood, everybody's favourite outlaw, robbed from the rich and powerful to give to the poor and powerless. He saw an imbalance in society, and tried to rectify it - at great risk to himself. He was hounded by lawmakers, and loved by the people he helped. A character of folklore, scholars still debate whether a real Robin Hood ever existed, but his legend is still popular today - over 600 years since his name first appeared in ballads and rhymes. Movies have been made about him, and he has variously been played by such cinema legends as Errol Flynn, Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe. I wonder who will play Julian Assange when he is immortalised on film?
Am I getting ahead of myself? Perhaps, but looking at the story of Julian Assange and the controversy that surrounds him and WikiLeaks, it seems highly likely that some Hollywood studio will recognise an opportunity to kill it at the box office glorifying this quietly spoken, white haired man from Brisbane.
Getting back to Robin Hood though... He is a legend, his name known by probably millions of people around the world. Can we draw parallels between his life and that of Julian Assange? While Robin Hood robbed from the rich, Julian Assange 'robs' from those rich in information; mostly governments of Western countries. Robin Hood gave the fruits of his labours to the poor, Julian Assange posts them on his website and releases them to a select number of newspapers - giving to the information poor, in an effort to "bring transparency to the duplicitous antics of the troubled and competitive world" (Truth & Consequence). There are many powerful people who greatly dislike what Julian Assange and WikiLeaks do - Hilary Clinton believes that the publication of 250,000 diplomatic cables was a threat to national security, putting people's lives in danger and undermining the efforts of the US government to build relationships and work with other countries. Sarah Palin went one step further - she labelled him an 'anti-American operative with blood on his hands' (Daily Mail) and called for him to be hunted down with the same urgency as al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Hunted by many, Julian Assange now spends his time holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, just as Robin Hood hid out in Sherwood Forest to avoid those in power who wanted him out of the way.
What will be the fate of this new-age rebel? Will he eventually be captured by his enemies, locked away where he can do them no further harm? Or will he continue to elude the authorities, and continue to bring information to the world, in his attempts to increase transparency? Will he go down in history as a Robin Hood for the 21st Century, or will he be forgotten? I can't say I'm a big fan of his, but I can appreciate what he is trying to do, and I hope that the history books will one day talk about him as bringing about great change in the way that governments communicate with their people.
No comments:
Post a Comment