Araz Gholami

Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks and one of the few people you could truly trust, was arrested after seven years due to the unforgivable betrayal of Ecuador’s new government under false pretenses. The risk of extradition to the U.S. and facing a fate similar to Ross Ulbricht (founder of Silk Road) is very real.

The moment of his arrest, and his face while being escorted to the police car, mirrored a scene from George Orwell’s 1984, where Winston Smith stands in front of a mirror and sees the last human being in a shattered state.

Perhaps in our era, compared to any point in human history, wars are fewer and personal safety is higher, yet the danger of an irreversible drift into the world of 1984 and Brave New World is felt more intensely with every passing moment.