Yes, it is that time of the year. The time to turn off the computer and phone, draw the curtains close, get out the diary and do some reflecting on the year almost passed. I daresay it's better time spent than getting slapped in the face by shopping bags in crowds of Christmas shoppers, whose holiday sprit - at least in France - I always find surprisingly lacking.
So, what happened in 2010? It's a simple question to which the answer is far from evident. Try asking yourself or someone you know what did this year mean for them, and you'll be surprised how much of the answer has to do with banal facts of life: career changes, house renovations, and other types of more or less successful facelifts to their lives. It's all about us what happened to us, as if we were the earth and everything else rotated around us.
In our world of political correctness, it seems uncomfortable truths are all the more uncomfortable, even if they are hardly news. It's been a long time politicians have generally politely agreed to disagree and any real disagreements, short of North Korea and the US, are quietly swept under the carpet, at least in the eyes of the public. There is no more rendering politicians naked in public. Perhaps our politically correct world is kinder to all. The paradox though, is that it renders even the smallest truth that much more personal and therefore damaging.
While the answer to this question is deeply personal for each of us, the Time qualified 2010 as the Year of the Leak. "We could not control the leaking as if we were all sneezing women who'd just had a baby and we'd just drunk a bottomless cup of coffee and that baby was sitting on our bladder". Bravo, Joel Stein, I was considering unsubscribing and this single article has got me considering sending another cheque to Time magazine.
And it's true that if we look beyond our immediate surroundings, step above our little or not so little problems, and think about what happened in the world in 2010, the past year was really a year of the leak. And one which might not be repairable in the long term. In the short term, governments may be able to dismantle Wikileaks (think US), stop Google (think China), ban Facebook (think North Korea), block any image of women bodies (think Saudi Arabia), or issue their own competing propaganda (think Russia).
And yet this leak may not be a simple physics problem with water flowing in the bathtub of a certain pre-determined size. It might just continue flowing in and out until the leak might indeed become a state of mind. But, I am getting ahead of myself. Before we jump too far into the future, I invite you to look back. Of course, there were Wikileaks, containing nearly a half a million documents, including reports from Iraq, Afghanistan and cables from US diplomatic service about just about every country in the world. Established in 2006 by Julien Assange, the audacious organisation was virtually unheard of until 2010.
Aside from this major leak, there were small leaks all over the bathtub, as if it was shot through with a machine gun. In France, arguably the only entirely independent newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné is entirely founded on gossip provided primarily by disgruntled civil servants. To his great disillusionment, Sarkozy has not yet found a way to sue the paper or its journalists. On the contrary, Le Monde, one of the oldest French papers, is currently suing the President's Office for spying. It appears that the President's Office was seeking to stop Le Monde from publishing further damaging details about the scandal associated with Eric Woerth, French Labour Minister "replaced" in November.
Leaking is not contained to France. Israeli left leaks on the Israeli right and vice versa. In Russia, Putin's and Medvedev's camps are engaged in mutual leaking. In China, the political establishment is engaged in a predictably losing game of trying to contain the real story by shutting down access to Google and Facebook. The Chinese political establishment might want to examine carefully the history of the Soviet Union for hints why such methods are bound to fail. In Italy, everyone these days seems to be leaking on Berlusconi, though sometimes I wonder why the juicy gossip appears in the press at the exact same time when Berlusconi needs to deflect attention from another impending political disaster.
That is not to deny that some leaking has been successfully contained. Only in July this year, Russia and the United States, have quietly swapped spies in a deal that reminded me one of the first swaps of political prisoners during the Cold War. Undoubtedly, much more is contained from the general public than is leaked. We have to get used to the idea that we are not jurors in the courtroom where witnesses swear to tell the whole truth and nothing by the truth. Even for stories that make it out of black boxes, I wonder if the journalistic and blogger community has the capacity to process them (cf. the 2200 page report to the Senate on the Lehman Brother's bankruptcy).
I have to admit that I have no problem with leaking per se. My guess is that unless you are employed by the US Foreign Service or CIA, reading cables unleashed into the public domain by Wikileaks have been at least entertaining, at most fascinating. It has certainly created pretext for some debates over tea, or coffee, whatever your favourite beverage might be. And there is a specific reason for this. I woud humbly propose that there is something dramatically different about these leaks than the Watergate cables, espionage during the Cold War and even the footage of treatment of Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
First is motivation. While previous leaks were motivated by a specific political agenda, a desire to expose a specific political plot, to obtain valuable information about an enemy state, Wikileaks is about none of the above. In its repertoire of scandals are Islandic bankers, the scientology church, even members of UN peacekeeping forces. Secrets closely guarded by the American political establishment were merely the next step in the ascent of the Wikileaks dominance, not its primary target.
Julien Assange does not appear as a man with a political agenda, but a man in the search of a truth - a far more dangerous substance. A man of a certain ideology can be converted, convinced or co-opted, while man in search of a truth risks becoming more stubborn in the face of obstacles. And this is exactly what appears to have happened to Assange, though only time can tell how unbending his willpower might be.
Wikileaks has clearly hit sore spots in many capitals, not only in the United States which is scambling to find grounds for criminal charges against its founder. And yet, most of the very controversial information released by Wikileaks is really no news. The misconduct of American soldiers of Iraq, the thoughts of Saudi king on Iranian political establishment are hardly grounds for newspaper headlines. These are old news dressed up in brand new outfits.
Beyond the scale of the Wikileaks, what is really different about them is that they are no longer about events, policies, countries, but about living people. They talk about what individual people, with names, faces and titles think about other individual people with those other names, faces and titles. They reveal the thoughts of the American ambassador to Italy on Berlusconi, the Saudi King on Ahmadinajad and a host of concrete allegations against specific people.
Wikileaks has made gossip people-specific. Therein lies it's biggest power and at the same time it's biggest danger. In its noble search for truth for the public's benefit, it is targeting the private. There is nothing in the leaks that is not personally offensive to specific individuals, which is exactly why they have all rushed to "dismiss allegations" of the cables. Some of the individuals which Wikileaks targeted are now seeking revenge, making it very personal to Assange.
In our world of political correctness, it seems uncomfortable truths are all the more uncomfortable, even if they are hardly news. It's been a long time politicians have generally politely agreed to disagree and any real disagreements, short of North Korea and the US, are quietly swept under the carpet, at least in the eyes of the public. There is no more rendering politicians naked in public. Perhaps our politically correct world is kinder to all. The paradox though, is that it renders even the smallest truth that much more personal and therefore damaging.
So, does the world need more or less truth? Would the world be a better place if human beings could, like in a sci-fi movie, read though each other's thoughts so that secrets would be impossible? I cannot pretend to have a answer, but to arrive at one I suggest you imagine a friend revealing to you all the defects they think you possess. On the one hand, it is desirable to know who you real friends are, on the other, the risk of losing some friends is real. Do we need more real friends or are we better off not knowing the truth? How much of the disinfecting quality of the sunshine do we really need?
