Democracy's Saviour?

Dec 2, 2010

Democracy's Saviour?

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A democratic government is a transparent government, and motives like Wikileaks may be the crucial ingredient.

Major media outlets have consistently proven to the people of Canada and America they are unable to behave autonomously in doing their job. When a government hides facts from the public it is not disinterested. By assessing which details to reveal and which to omit, a government is effectively working through a mass media to disseminate its intentions in a very nuanced way. Democracy has fallen to its knees before a ruling class. 

The fact that power corrupts does not need to be scrutinized or questioned or called ingenuous or speculative – it has an air of physical, material truth to it. Power has always changed its initial intentions – if ever benevolent – to the fanatic pursuit of retaining their power. And this most often turns into seeking more.

When a body of authority is made transparent, we see the populace able to observe and scrutinize apparent injustices and abuses of power. A civic-minded populace is thus positioned around the panopticon – the government can see us and we can see them. 

This is a primary function of journalism – to maintain power’s transparency and disseminate an unbiased, unharnessed base of information. An organization like Wikileaks is able to harness the technological infrastructure to create transparency for the masses, allowing them insight on important issues. And it is adequate information on important issues that a democratic populace deserves – these are, after all, the issues that define our lives. And democracy is, after all, a people’s government.

When major media outlets criticize Wikileaks for fulfilling our hungry void where should be proper journalism, we have to question what those media outlets are doing. By denying a transparent government, media outlets are denying the principle from which they should be operating.

We are seeing global powers responding to a torrent of leaked communication cables. We are seeing every news publication in the world interpreting the leaks, gleaning what they find significant and criticizing what they find offensive. We are seeing the emperors of the world butt-naked, confronted by one and other, and it could get weird because some of them are prudes.

The political unrest that is inevitable after a global media event of this scale can in no way be blamed on Wikileaks. A government that is relying deeply on secrecy to operate is going to be shaken up when it is exposed.

It is not even a matter of pulling the covers off, just showing we can is enough to send the authoritarians into a fluster. If our governments had nothing to hide, the leaks would be no problem for them.

We are presented now with a real approach to reestablishing democracy. But power does not withdraw – by its very nature it moves forward until confronted by more power. We now have a power to confront it with. Our power is information able to reveal injustice and question the legitimacy of governance. Our fight is to retain transparency of authority so that when it behaves undemocratically or in ways that challenge fundamental human freedoms, it can be scrutinized. 

But this will be a fight – the moment we loose hold power will surge back into secrecy. And if we can maintain a transparent government through constant exposure, a natural adaptation to the will of the public will follow.  If they are exposed over and over again, and the people react to injustice, a new approach will have to be taken by governance to maintain their approval. This means being more careful in following fundamental policy.

This opportunity is unique because never before has a majority had at their hands a communicative infrastructure so readily accessible and able to be harnessed to mobilize intentions. Law officials say the US will have a very hard time pressing criminal charges on Assange – there is nothing illegal about this way of disseminating information. A silent reform is gaining potential; let us not turn a blind eye to it.