Ryan O'Neill: Wikileaks, Anonymous, "Media Instruments"

Throughout early 2011, the European liberal left were in a frenzy over the Arab Spring uprisings that were sweeping across the region. The Mainstream Media supplied around the clock coverage of the mass demonstrations in Tahrir Square as we were told that the people of the Arab world were standing up to tyranny and demanding the democratic freedoms and human rights that are held in such high esteem in the west. However, this hysteria took a dark turn in February and March of that year, when armed gangs managed to take control of Benghazi in Libya, and everyone from FOX News to far left political organizations immediately began to hail these events as part of some progressive revolution. In London, demonstrations began to break out in support of these rebel groups and members of the Socialist Workers Party even scaled the walls of the Libyan Embassy and replaced the Libyan flag with that of the King Idris flag, which represented the Benghazi rebels. Its incredibly problematic when organizations in the West feel they not only have a right to attach themselves to developments and struggles throughout the third world, but that they can instinctively and egotistically act on them. This type of behavior rarely considers the importance of contextualization and takes sides in such conflicts, depending on which narrative fits their romantic notions of global revolution, and which version their newly assumed role would sit more comfortable with. Wiki-leaks and Anonymous for instance, despite being relatively new organizations, are merely a new form of such behavior. The problem is that most of these groups in the west are based on the liberal ideas of individualism and human rights, formed in more privileged societies that exist in comfort at the expense of oppressed nations. While following a neo-colonial agenda, countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom are capable to portray themselves as progressive, philanthropic nations delivering democracy, aid and human rights to poorer nations and their apparent protection and tolerance of such free and democratic values among their own populations, only to serve to support such claims.