“J’Accuse”–Emile Zola’s Impact on WikiLeaks
What happens when the average citizen accuses a government of injustice? What about when the same citizen leaks
Copy of original print, January 13, 1898
information that he is told that he shouldn’t, hoping that his accusations may elicit accountability? These actions have been all over the news for the past months, following the highly publicized WikiLeaks scandal. The idea of governmental accountability is a pressing issue around the world today. Questions range on the grand spectrum from where and how our taxes are spent to the truth behind the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence. On this day in 1898, French naturalist author Emile Zola accused the French President Felix Faure and his administration of a gross indecency against not only an individual French citizen but the French nation as a whole. Entitled “J’Accuse (I Accuse)”, Zola’s open letter to the government was published as a front page article in future Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau’s liberal newspaper, L’Aurore.
The article was Zola’s direct accusation of anti-Semitism and unlawful jailing against French Army General Staff officer Alfred Dreyfus. Known today as the Dreyfus Affair, Dreyfus was arrested for what the French government defined as espionage; accused of trading information with the German government via a French maid who collected destroyed documents from Dreyfus’ personal wastebaskets. After further research, Zola seemingly discovered that the information collected for the German government was not laid there by Dreyfus, but another staff officer, Esterhazy. The problem was that if Esterhazy was considered guilty, then the entire War Department was guilty, due to the fact that they covered for Esterhazy by indicting Dreyfus. Dreyfus became the patsy.
French Postcard circa early 1900s
Zola described the affair as “a most shameful and ineffaceable of blemishes” on the face of the French government. Zola argued that the unlawful arrest was based on prior religious prejudices held by the Army General Staff. Dreyfus was seemingly intended as a scapegoat for the treasonous actions performed by the rest of the Army General Staff. Zola seemed to believe that Dreyfus’ status as a Jew were contributing factors that damned him as a liability from the beginning of his career. Zola goes as far to accuse those who sentenced and indicted Dreyfus be subjected to some sort of medical examination to ensure that the three military handwriting experts who reviewed the “evidence” against Dreyfus were not suffering from some form of rare malady that impaired either “eyesight or judgment”. Sarcasm aside, Zola ends the letter with a list of individuals, his accusations against and the punishment he believes should be awarded accordingly.
In this open letter to the French government, Zola has accomplished a task that many individuals in today’s political furor wish they could: to cause a large government to stand accountable for their actions. Is this not what Julian Assange was doing? Also, by having charges brought against them, didn’t Assange and Zola accomplish just that by disrupting governmental movement and legislation? Obviously, they did something that someone saw as worth punishment.
For the record, Assange and Zola were treated similarly, at least considering arrest. Zola was charged with libel for his accusations. In the closing remarks of “J’Accuse”, Zola stated, “while proclaiming these charges, I am not unaware of subjecting myself to articles 30 and 31 of the press law of July 29, 1881, which punishes the offense of slander. And it is voluntarily that I expose myself.” He was fully aware that he was in all probability going to raise a furor and end up on the unpleasant end of the law in his statements. Consequently, he was protecting not only Dreyfus but the right of every French citizen by standing up to the status quo. Zola was sentenced to jail, but escaped to England, where he remained until the collapse of the government after the death of Faure on February 16, 1899. Zola returned to France soon after, but was not completely exonerated of his crime until 1906, four years after his death from carbon monoxide poisoning. Zola may have escaped the fate of incarceration, which is something that Assange can not say; both men stand in similar positions in different times.
Something about “J’Accuse” reminded me exactly where we stand today on the WikiLeaks matter. The inability of
Emile Zola
governments to account for their actions is by now means a new development in world history. But it is interesting how we as a civilization handle it. Here, Emile Zola states his opinion, commits himself to in-depth research, understands the gravity of his accusations and is sentenced to jail for well-documented truth. As I allow “J’Accuse” to filter through reason, I can’t help but wonder what the ultimate outcome for Julian Assange will be for his “crimes” when comparing his eventual fate with that of Emile Zola.
