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# Julian Assange Is a 21st Century Marat
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/julian-assange-21st-c-marat/
- Published: 2010-12-08T05:01:05.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:49:06.000Z
- Description: An Australian internet activist named Julian Assange (bio [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange]) exposes top secret American diplomacy on an international website. He's profiled last June in The New Yorker by Raffi Khatchadourian, photographed by Phillip Toledano [http://hyperallergic.tumblr
- Author: Hrag Vartanian
- Tags: Opinion, #image-position-hidden, Censorship, Jacques-Louis David, Julian Assange, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-11-17 09:23 (2009-2011)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2010/12/assange-toledano.jpg "assange-toledano")

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2010/12/death_of_marat_by_david.jpg)

Jacques-Louis David, "The Death of Marat" (1793)

An Australian internet activist named **Julian Assange** ([bio](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian%5FAssange?ref=hyperallergic.com)) exposes top secret American diplomacy on an international website.

He’s profiled last June in *The* *New Yorker* by Raffi Khatchadourian, [photographed by Phillip Toledano](http://hyperallergic.tumblr.com/post/2137706953/fette-photograph-by-phillip-toledano-julian?ref=hyperallergic.com), has a warrant issued for rape in Sweden, he’s denial bailed in the UK, and the right-wing American politicians (which is almost all of them, nowadays) want him to be tried for treason.

Yes, this must be the 21st Century.

Why am I reminded of Jacques-Louis David’s “[The Death of Marat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FDeath%5Fof%5FMarat?ref=hyperallergic.com)” (1793)? Probably because there is a faction in the world today who is trying to martyr Assange as a prophet of the [new flesh](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videodrome?ref=hyperallergic.com), though so far they’re losing.