Business Report

25 January, 2011

By Jonathan Yudelowitz

A properly functioning democracy requires a well-informed public to make proper judgments at the polling booth, to hold politicians accountable and to understand the true consequences of having voted a particular politician into power.

A free press confronts and challenges society and the government, by analysing their actions and decisions and exposing fraud and the general abuse of privileged information, money or resources.

However, it is equally true that leaders need to hold private deliberations and robust internal discussions about controversies and complex issues.

Although US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's remarks detailed in WikiLeaks are potentially damaging, she is only human and like anyone who faces complex dilemmas, needs time and space to be honest with herself and her trusted advisers.

Having caucus time during which to reflect on one's feelings often sparks new imaginative ideas and gives one the opportunity to validate one's convictions - ultimately enhancing decisions and strategies.

If WikiLeaks had its way, such privacy would disappear.

As a result, diplomatic and political communication would probably become so furtive and euphemistic as to render them useless. Facts would be manipulated in order to play to the "gallery" of public opinion, compromising both judgment and responsibility.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange implies that every private thought and comment of diplomats and politicians must spring forth fully formed, pure, intelligent and fair enough for immediate universal consumption. In so doing, he betrays that behind his espoused iconoclasm, he has a bizarrely idealistic opinion of diplomats and politicians - and a superhuman and hence dangerous notion of what it means to hold power and lead.

WikiLeaks, like social networking and reality television fads, fails to distinguish between public and private spheres - or between what people ought to know and what is frankly none of their business.

WikiLeaks' mass of unedited, undigested and uncontextualised documents containing many amusing titbits of diplomatic life only titillates voyeurism, but does nothing to enrich debate or promote good governance. Knowing that someone said something about somebody else is information. Knowledge on the other hand means having insight into context of the information at hand. The absence of such insight results in false meaning being attached to information.

Electronic communication has exacerbated this problem.

WikiLeaks' revelation that Saudi Arabia wants the wild man in Teheran neutralised will inhibit Saudi Arabia's confidential debate, strategic thinking and difficult conversations that normally would happen within the confidentiality of government and diplomacy. This begs the question as to whether Assange is willing to take responsibility for his actions.

Just think what the outcome might have been if the discussions between FW de Klerk and his ministers regarding the desirability of talking to Nelson Mandela while he was still in jail had been in the public domain.

What a hue and cry there would have been that the upholders of apartheid intended to talk to the enemy.

In the event, the discussion happened in private and in confidence and a blood bath was averted.

Jonathan Yudelowitz is a joint MD of YSA.