WikiLeaks and the Decent Society
Published in Expresso
(Portugal) on 16 December 2010
by Henrique Monteiro (link to original)
(Portugal) on 16 December 2010
by Henrique Monteiro (link to original)
Translated from
by Diana Coada.
Edited by Heidi Kaufmann.
It’s enough to go back 30 or 40 years to find much more serious secrets than those that WikiLeaks is revealing. This time there are no coups d’état, Bulgarian umbrellas or spy exchanges.
Let’s be practical. Censorship is a stupid thing and one of the biggest signs of disorientation and weakness. What some countries and companies are doing to WikiLeaks and Assange himself is totally inefficient, reminds us of the worst in the world and implies that something horrible still might be revealed.
Also, the opinions on the quality of journalism practiced by the news agencies that have been revealing the leaks are interesting, but debatable. It is not true that these papers are just links of transmissions of WikiLeaks — there are teams working on confirming what they are publishing. But it has become fashionable to categorize what we do not like as “non-journalism”. Pardon me, but the truth is that in open societies there isn’t just one criterion for journalism. There are quite a few, and some of them we don’t like. I can say there is a lot out there that I don’t like.
The world of Western politics and diplomacy is reacting to the revelations of the diplomatic telegrams like a person caught in public in their underwear, with a mix of aggressiveness and shame. However, those who are at a distance from this world — the common citizens — can tell them, without fear of being in error, to calm down. Aside from one or two sins, one or two abuses or even some minor crimes, what WikiLeaks has revealed up to now is a world that is a lot more decent that the one it has been, at least on this side of the hemisphere.
Let’s imagine a leak like this one 30, 40 or 50 years ago. Cuba was secretly receiving missiles from the Soviet Union, tanks were invading Prague, spies were using umbrellas to kill their rivals, and they were regularly being exchanged at “Checkpoint Charlie” in a divided Berlin. Small countries like Granada were being invaded; elected presidents like Allende were overthrown. And in Latin America and Africa, the developed countries were battling in schemes that today we only know from movies.
Where are the assassinations? Where are the invasions? Where are the devious schemes of helping terrorists in order to fight other countries? Where is the support of the more or less invented guerrilla warfare to undermine the established power of a country? Where do we find dictators such as Mobutu or Bokassa, who were under the political and diplomatic protection of great powers? Where is the approval of ETA by France? Where are the complex schemes of the “Perfidious Albion”?
In comparison with what it used to be, the world nowadays is a better place. We can relax and tell our children: “Yes, they are hypocrites, because they are civilized. Before all of this, they were assassins.”
Let’s be practical. Censorship is a stupid thing and one of the biggest signs of disorientation and weakness. What some countries and companies are doing to WikiLeaks and Assange himself is totally inefficient, reminds us of the worst in the world and implies that something horrible still might be revealed.
Also, the opinions on the quality of journalism practiced by the news agencies that have been revealing the leaks are interesting, but debatable. It is not true that these papers are just links of transmissions of WikiLeaks — there are teams working on confirming what they are publishing. But it has become fashionable to categorize what we do not like as “non-journalism”. Pardon me, but the truth is that in open societies there isn’t just one criterion for journalism. There are quite a few, and some of them we don’t like. I can say there is a lot out there that I don’t like.
The world of Western politics and diplomacy is reacting to the revelations of the diplomatic telegrams like a person caught in public in their underwear, with a mix of aggressiveness and shame. However, those who are at a distance from this world — the common citizens — can tell them, without fear of being in error, to calm down. Aside from one or two sins, one or two abuses or even some minor crimes, what WikiLeaks has revealed up to now is a world that is a lot more decent that the one it has been, at least on this side of the hemisphere.
Let’s imagine a leak like this one 30, 40 or 50 years ago. Cuba was secretly receiving missiles from the Soviet Union, tanks were invading Prague, spies were using umbrellas to kill their rivals, and they were regularly being exchanged at “Checkpoint Charlie” in a divided Berlin. Small countries like Granada were being invaded; elected presidents like Allende were overthrown. And in Latin America and Africa, the developed countries were battling in schemes that today we only know from movies.
Where are the assassinations? Where are the invasions? Where are the devious schemes of helping terrorists in order to fight other countries? Where is the support of the more or less invented guerrilla warfare to undermine the established power of a country? Where do we find dictators such as Mobutu or Bokassa, who were under the political and diplomatic protection of great powers? Where is the approval of ETA by France? Where are the complex schemes of the “Perfidious Albion”?
In comparison with what it used to be, the world nowadays is a better place. We can relax and tell our children: “Yes, they are hypocrites, because they are civilized. Before all of this, they were assassins.”