{"id":4983,"date":"2013-02-18T08:45:40","date_gmt":"2013-02-18T14:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=4983"},"modified":"2013-02-18T08:45:40","modified_gmt":"2013-02-18T14:45:40","slug":"lunch-dinner-with-julian-assange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=4983","title":{"rendered":"Lunch & Dinner with Julian Assange"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Keane<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Lying on his desk is a biography of Martin Luther<\/a>, the man who harnessed the printing press to split the Church. To add to his collection, I hand my pale-skinned host a small book I\u2019ve mockingly wrapped in black tissue paper with red ribbon, tied in a bow. The noir et rouge and dead arm pranks aren\u2019t lost on him. Nor is the significance of the book: Jos\u00e9 Saramago\u2019s The Tale of the Unknown Island. Inside its front cover, I\u2019ve scribbled a few words: \u2018For Julian Assange, who knows about journeys because there aren\u2019t alternatives.\u2019<\/p>\n

I\u2019d been told he might be heavy weather. Fame is a terrible burden, and understandably the famous must find ways of dealing with sycophants, detractors and intruders. People said he\u2019d circle at first, avoid questions, proffer shyness, or perhaps even radiate bored arrogance. It isn\u2019t at all like that. Calm, witty, clear-headed throughout, he\u2019s in a talkative mood. But there\u2019s no small talk.<\/p>\n

I tackle the obvious by asking him about life inside his embassy prison. \u201cThe issue is not airlessness and lack of sunshine. If anything gets to me it\u2019s the visual monotony of it all.\u201d He explains how we human beings have need of motion, and that our sensory apparatus, when properly \u201ccalibrated\u201d, imparts mental and bodily feelings of being in our own self-filmed movie. Physical confinement is sensory deprivation. Sameness drags prisoners down. I tell how the Czech champion of living the truth V\u00e1clav Havel, when serving a 40-month prison spell, used to find respite from monotony by doing such things as smoking a cigarette in front of a mirror. \u201cBradley Manning did something similar,\u201d says Assange. \u201cThe prison authorities claimed his repeated staring in the mirror was the mark of a disturbed and dangerous character. Despite his protestations that there was nothing else to do, he was put into solitary confinement, caged, naked and stripped of his glasses.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Keane: Lying on his desk is a biography of Martin Luther, the man who harnessed the printing press to split the Church. To add to his collection, I hand my pale-skinned host a small book I\u2019ve mockingly wrapped in black tissue paper with red ribbon, tied in a bow. The noir et rouge and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4983\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}