Snowden: why there will be more like him
Diplomatic rows and farcical airport spats over the fate of the US National Security Agency whistleblower are obscuring his real political significance, writes Bonnie Greer
He is part of the global town square, created by social media, which is effectively running politics in Brazil, Egypt and Turkey Empowered by the tools with which they are also at war, they are neither of the left nor the right
WE arrived at an absurd moment in the saga of the American whistleblower Edward Snowden this week. The aeroplane carrying Bolivia’s President Evo Morales home from a conference in Moscow was searched during a stopover in Vienna on suspicion of carrying Snowden to asylum in Latin America. The Bolivians declared that France, Italy, Spain and Portugal had refused to allow the plane to enter their airspace, forcing it to land in Austria.
Bolivia, no friend of the US, accused European countries of doing the US’s dirty work. “We have no doubt that it was an order from the White House,” said Sacha Llorenti, the country’s ambassador to the UN. “By no means should a diplomatic plane with the president be diverted from its route and forced to land in another country.”
France, Spain and Portugal subsequently denied that they had closed their airspace. Austria insisted that Morales had agreed to a voluntary inspection of his plane; Austria’s deputy chancellor, Michael Spindelegger, said: “Our colleagues from the airport had a look and can give assurances that no one is on board who is not a Bolivian citizen.” Eventually, amid talk from the Bolivians of an act of aggression and a violation of international law, the plane was allowed to take off.
About 21 countries have become involved in Snowden’s request for asylum. Five have rejected granting Snowden asylum, seven have said they would consider a request if made on their soil, and eight said they had either not made a decision or not received a request. Obama warned that any offer of asylum to Snowden would carry a heavy cost.
Meanwhile, Snowden is believed still to be in Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. Russia has no extradition treaty with the US; President Vladimir Putin has stated that there is a possibility that Snowden could stay, but that he must not leak information “against our American partners”. He ended this statement by saying that “this may sound surprising coming from my lips”.
If you look at the photograph of Obama and Putin at the G8 last month, seated together at a press conference almost with their backs to one another, it would be easy to assume that Snowden would provide a perfect opportunity for Putin to wreak mischief and mayhem. This affair has provided, instead, another chapter in the Game of Nations. And there sits Snowden, in a Moscow transit lounge, the lead character in what must have been, to him, an act that was straightforward: he had a personal mission to complete.
To many, particularly those on the right-of-centre, the Snowden revelations are interesting in the particular, but no big thing in the general. Of course we are spied on, listened to, observed, the argument runs, what’s new? London has more security cameras per mile than any city on earth. You are likely to be captured up to 500 times a day if you live in the West End. Our smartphones have become big data collectors and, as long as we have done nothing wrong, we have nothing to hide.
Snowden is, to those who feel that way, another lefty on the run — not worth thinking about other than as an amusement in the daily news bulletins.
Then there are those who argue that, although the US government should prosecute Snowden, the media’s focus on his personal life and his whereabouts draws attention away from more important issues — serious questions about US government surveillance and how the Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are interpreted.
But they are wrong. Something new is revealing itself in the tale of Snowden and it is coming quickly into the general consciousness. Snowden is part of the global town square, created by social media, which is effectively running politics in Brazil, Egypt and Turkey, and will do so in the West too.
Snowden, who spent his 30th birthday on the run, is one of a new breed I call the “Libertarian Millennial”. Apolitical, perhaps even post-political, they do what they do because they have come to their own conclusions in their own time and in their own way. “I don’t want to live in a society that does these [surveillance] sort of things… I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded,” Snowden declared. There you have it: “I don’t”, “I do not” and “everything I do and say” are the key phrases here.
Snowden is not like the main whistle-blower of my youth, Daniel Ellsberg, who in 1971 leaked what became known as the Pentagon Papers, a defence department history of American involvement in Vietnam. Ellsberg was steeped in the se- curity mechanisms of the US; he knew what the consequences of his leak were. He was a professional who saw what he did as part of what we, the young, were doing in the streets. He pondered long and hard over his actions and, in doing what he did, saw himself as part of something bigger, something collective.
In a sense, he took his permission from those of us who were against the Vietnam War. Ellsberg came to us as the vehicles who would take his action forward. The press were largely on his side. They understood his intentions. He was not alone.
At the trial of Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of passing classified material to the WikiLeaks website, attorneys are arguing over what the prosecution calls Manning’s “arrogance” and the defence call his “good intentions”. But Manning’s actions fit neither of those definitions. He and Snowden and other Millennials are empowered by the tools with which they are also at war; it is these tools that are their engines, the shapers of their consciousness. They are neither of the left nor the right.
Snowden has become, in his fight, what Millennials look up to: a charismatic individual who, by sheer power of self-belief, can create support, even a movement. The darker version of these charismatic individuals are the lone wolves who commit their acts of terror in plain view.
In Boston, the hijacking of a car and the revelation of his crime to its passenger was not simply a mistake on the part of the alleged bomber who survived. Tweeting his whereabouts, his thoughts and his feelings was apparently necessary to what he set out to do. It completed the act. In Woolwich, the alleged killers of Drummer Lee Rigby remained at the scene seemingly to be filmed for YouTube.
In the world of the Libertarian Millennial, the act is not complete without social media, without the bringing together of the crowd as a receptor of their personal feelings, their manifesto. And because it is embedded technology — which we wear on our bodies or will even have implanted inside our bodies — that is our future, more and more Libertarian Millennials will emerge, both as lone wolves — individuals out to do maximum physical harm and wreak mayhem in the name of a religion or a political ideology — or as charismatic individuals: people doing what they think is right and rallying people and movements around them.
Snowden has been quoted as having written: “The consent of the governed is not consent if it is not informed.” And that “the truth is coming and it cannot be stopped.” His breed of Libertarian Millennial is coming, too. It is they who cannot be stopped. — Comment on this: write to tellus@sundaytimes.co.za or SMS us at 33971 www.timeslive.co.za