Vivienne’s Diary – 11.08.20 – IL FATTO QUOTIDIANO Interview

1) We all have seen the pictures of you in a giant cage dressed as a canary to protest against Julian Assange’s treatment and the risk of him being extradited to the US. Isn’t it embarrassing that it has taken such a performance to see the Assange case hit the world headlines again?

V: It was a good stunt and perfect for me – love dressing up. It went straight to the point, an innocent man in a cage, fighting a living death ending in a concrete cell, solitary and forgotten in the US. I began my speech:

“I am Julian Assange, I am the canary in the cage. If I die, down in the coal mine from poisonous gas, that’s the signal for everyone 2 get out. I am half POISONED already   legal corruption, gaming the system. NO SUN. I am whistling away but 7bn people don’t know what’s going on in the world.

Julian Assange is a publisher, he began Wikileaks in 2006, a safe haven for whistleblowers. Of course the net 2 trap him was cast early on. Since then Wikileaks has exposed worldwide corruption, with a massive release of secret documents in the public interest.  The collateral murder video went viral.

It is not illegal but in the public interest 2 publish American war crimes. Don’t Extradite Assange. It’s a stitch up. The indictment has 18 counts with a total of 175 years in jail. Each count is worded so as to tick the box. Guilty every time, e.g. conspiracy 2 obtain documents 4 the purpose of obtaining them. U R guilty because U R guilty. This is insane. Every publisher does this on a daily basis. Report this! & we might get a Judge who’s not corrupt. Last year a Fed. Judge upheld Wikileaks’ right to publish illegally acquired material.”

Free Julian, it’s a trigger to blast a hole in the political-economy corruption worldwide: exploit land and cheap labour and give it to the rich.

2) You have been a long-time supporter of Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and Chelsea Manning. Ever since he revealed US war crimes and torture, Assange has never known freedom again: he has already spent 10 years confined, and now he’s in prison and risks remaining in a cage for his entire life. It’s an unbearably high price for exposing war crimes in democratic societies and yet we see little public debate about it. Why such public apathy?

It’s a question of changing the narrative and your questions are already helping to do that. Capitalist economy runs on debt and waste, everyone is thinking about money, worried. Every man for himself: the scale begins I’m starving and ends with the faceless evil, the big banks who take all profit from the wreckage. The public are bored + confused by the onslaught of spin.

3) When you started your journey as a designer in the ‘70s, rebels were more popular than nowadays: we live in a world of widespread conformism, endless consumerism and distraction. Do you still feel able to engage young generations on debates you find crucial?

Capitalism, Rot$ is a war economy designed to cra$h, it creates climate change + poverty. War’s R fought 4 land + cheap labour. Poverty is good because it is the source of cheap labour + food 4 rich countries.

My plan to save the world is to change the economy, it’s called No Man’s Land  – no one can own land – this will give us fair distribution of wealth. Save the Rainforest, Save the Ocean, Stop War. It will work because it’s popular.

4) You are extremely concerned about climate change; do you believe that after this Covid crisis, we will see radical changes in our economies and environment?

Covid is a killer, the world stopped in its tracks – headlong rush to mass extinction. We all realised Earth can heal herself if we stop. Everyone now thinks about this: what is my life? Is there another way to live? – Get off the money treadmill. World at the Covid point hiatus is filling up with migration and protest against the ultimate killer poverty and homelessness on an earth that can’t support us. If we pass the tipping point tomorrow nobody will be able to help each other. No Man’s Land is the answer, my plan to change the economy.

5) Apart from the WikiLeaks founder, there is another anti-establishment figure you have supported: Jeremy Corbyn. And yet Britain has ended up with Boris Johnson. Where do you think Britain will go with Johnson and Brexit?

Jeremy and I were speakers at a CND march. He has high principles, but he sacrificed his principles and his popularity in trying to keep his party together – extreme left and extreme right. His first mistake was to allow Trident. Boris is nowhere, a conman and a devil whose every action is destructive – he’s only interested in himself, like Trump, like the rest. We will impose our demands to save the world by our credibility (we are working with the NGOs) and by our popularity.

Now after Brexit, he’s in a box dependent on trade with the US and subject to US legal corruption. Julian is important because he’s anti-war and shine a light on legal corruption.

6.) You are an outstanding artist and activist, but you also live in the world of business, where the market rules. What are the most important lessons you have learned in coping with the fundamental tensions between activism and business?

I am an activist and fashion designer starting with punk, they help each other. My last fashion presentation was an art exhibition about Julian Assange at the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. There are no tensions, I’m just not market led, I just make clothes I like. It’s so great to work with Andreas (Kronthaler, my husband) the reason I love him so much is because he’s so great at fashion – I think oh Andreas, you’re so wonderful!

7) Looking ahead, do you have any specific plan to empower unprivileged people, using your art and activism?

The target is liberty, equality, fraternity. My plan to change the economy.
Liberty because that gives us freedom to control our own lives.
Equality because we have a fair distribution of wealth.
Fraternity we can build community and culture instead of everyman for himself on the money treadmill.