LAST Thursday, 34 black South Africans were killed and 78 injured when police opened fire on striking miners near Johannesburg. Revoltingly, the mine's owner, Lonmin, the world's third-largest platinum producer, demanded that its workforce return to work or be sacked.

The same day, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was ostentatiously granted political asylum by Ecuador. Left-wingers and liberals in Australia, Britain and elsewhere reacted as if a reincarnated Che Guevara had descended on Ecuador's Knightsbridge embassy.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Ordinarily, the South African outrage would stir the passions of progressive activists. Not on your nelly when the martyrdom of St Julian hastens. ''I hate the thought of him having prison food, because he has a very sensitive palate,'' sobbed an Assange supporter.

The pro-Assange cult gripping sections of the Western left has been exposed for the hypocritical sham that it is. Witness the irony of freedom of speech defenders and bitter opponents of state repression celebrating Assange's potential departure, as a ''refugee'', to a nation where journalists are routinely harassed.