WikiLeaks, an Old Story …

I was once invited to a literary festival in Luxembourg. The few days I spent there were filled with an opulence that I did not deserve nor ever want. The hotel I stayed at was built above a casino, and its windows were sealed. I was told that several people who had lost money playing roulette jumped out of the windows on various floors of the hotel in the 1970s. There was fine china in the room, and drawings signed by famous artists adorned the walls. We had to cross a large golf course in order to reach the festival hall. Electric carts filled with clubs and other golf accessories passed us by. It was like the movies.

Then I entered a building where tables laden with champagne glasses welcomed you in the hallway. Other tables were covered with plates filled with caviar and shrimp tartines as well as fancy sweets. As a matter of fact, during my stay there, meals were shamefully rich. I told myself that literature had paid off for me: It had magically brought me from the Colentina neighborhood in Bucharest, where I lived in two crooked and damp rooms, to that sumptuous paradise.

The biggest surprise, however, came in the festival hall, because, truth be told, nothing is free in this world. The chairman was old, scrawny and as tall as a steeple, and he was wearing a long red scarf around his neck. Almost all guests came from the Third World and were mostly Arabs, but there were also Africans, Asians, Aboriginals, South American descendants of the Inca. … The Caucasian race was represented, besides me (although I must admit I was not doing it justice), by a small group of Americans, from which a lady, who must have been a beauty in her day, stood out.

The festival chairman gave a zealous opening speech about imperialism at work, about the poor people on the planet, about social injustice, but especially about America, a real shame in today’s world. If you were to take his word for it, America was the world’s Sodom and Gomorrah. Americans were portrayed as a bunch of obese idiots led by bloodthirsty generals. Marx’s name was most frequently used in the opening speech, alongside others, such as Fidel Castro’s and Che Guevara’s, who were seen as great heroes.

“Whatever,” I said to myself. The man was entitled to his opinion. It was not the first time I had heard anti-American speeches. I had recently argued an entire night with a friend who claimed that America was the least democratic country in the whole world. “How can you say that? Is it less democratic than North Korea? Less democratic than Libya? Or China?” I asked in great surprise. Yes, less democratic, apparently! A few years later, this friend of mine, who had lived in the U.S. for years, rejoiced when the Twin Towers collapsed.

But the festival continued on the same note, in a burlesque crescendo. Iranian, Iraqi, Somali, Ugandan, Venezuelan, Costa Rican poets and others did their best to surpass the chairman’s lamentation against the universal oppressor, the United States of America. The most fervent were, however, the Americans themselves. The things they said! “America is a bandit country, the biggest villain in the world, the biggest criminal!” shouted the lady in question, a renowned poet in her country, in a long poem. The other proclamations revealed that the country was a police state, led by a shadow government, where people were always scared, monitored and persecuted on a daily basis. I had been to the States two years before and had not felt that I was being watched, but can you ever know for sure? And the people in the streets were all relaxed and smiling, but they might have learned to fake it perfectly. …

During the breaks, the friends of paupers everywhere gathered around the tables burdened with champagne and caviar. They became likeable and human and a pleasure to talk to. They all had the latest gadgets and designer clothes. But once they were back in the hall, they would again turn into beasts.

I just read a love poem and was the only one not to sign the joint statement against American imperialism. They all responded to my cynical display of political indifference by ostracizing me: They would no longer talk to me, nor did they ever invite me to that festival again. Big deal.

Julian Assange is not a lone wolf. America’s self hatred is the by-product of major democracies, and it would not be possible anywhere else in the world. At the end of the day, it is yet another proof of the tolerance and stability of a political system that is not perfect, but that is closer to normalcy than most others.