Thu 24 May 2012 | 
Email to friend
Print
Enlarge textAndy Martin considered life as a whistleblower but decided it's not for him until the perks improve. Still, he argues, we should probably all do more to help their cause.
- 40 Comments | Join the discussion
Imagine the following headline: ‘GOVERNMENT TELLS THE TRUTH!’ It is as improbable as ‘PIG FLIES’ or ‘COW JUMPS OVER MOON’.
On the basis of endless bitter experience, we have to proceed on the assumption that everything they say is a lie. Lying is what they do. It is what they are good at. They pay large sums of money to people to make their lies sound good.
Which is why, more than ever, we need the lone sceptics, the dissidents, the whistleblowers who are willing to stick their heads over the top, in serious peril of getting it shot off.
I was educated at the school of Deep Throat, via the revelations of those heroic Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Nixon was such an obvious B-movie bad guy, with a Pinocchio nose, no one in their right mind would have bought a second-hand car from him (no, they made him President instead).
But the problem with Nixon is that he made everyone else look good by comparison. Surely Watergate – all those lies (not to mention the liberal sprinkling of obscenities in the tapes) – could never happen again?
On the other side of the then Iron Curtain, I revered Solzhenitsyn, his novel/memoir, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, his great historical work on the Gulag, and the whole tradition of the samizdat, smuggling scribbled notes out of the camp, publishing clandestinely, at the risk of a few more decades in the Siberian chain gang.
While celebrating the anti-totalitarian refuseniks, we could implicitly congratulate ourselves that at least we were living in an ‘open’ society.
In reality, the art of institutional crime and cover-up has become globalized. The more information the more disinformation.
So who do we blame? A simple answer would be – and the list is potentially infinite – Howard, Bush, Blair, Colin Powell… But a much shorter answer would be: us. Let us finally own up. We are at least co-conspirators.
We like the Mickey Mouse cartoons that politicians serve up. As T. S. Eliot once said, we cannot bear very much reality. We prefer to be told simplistic feel-good fairytales and sob stories. And vote for them.
I think Plato may have been one of the first to notice this. In the Republic we are all sitting in the cave admiring the shadows on the wall thrown up by the campfire and saying, ‘So that is what the world is like!’ Then one of us gets up and dares to venture outside. Eventually he comes running back in. ‘You’re never going to believe this!’ he starts off saying. But before he can say any more, we set on him and murder him.
It’s not just the ‘intelligence community’ or the ‘government’: we, the citizens, generally don’t react well to having people subvert our image of the way things are. It was the Greek demos that executed Socrates for corrupting Athenian youth.
According to the Gospels, the mob is baying for the blood of Christ. Unfortunately this primeval scapegoat ritual – exile or death for troublemakers – is one we never seem to have got out of our system completely.
Personally, my own feeble attempt at a fearless exposé means there is now one vegetarian collective cafe to which I can never return. But, for more successful folk, it is time to turn things around and begin officially recognising their bravery.
Maybe we could start a terrestrial paradise for whistleblowers with a pool and flunkies and constant cocktails with little umbrellas in (or something like that), just in case they don’t have one to look forward to in the afterlife.
Andrew Wilkie, the great Australian Deep Throat, ends up in Tasmania. I guess that is a start.
top
Blog Home 
Comments (40)
Previous 10 |
24 Oct 2010 19:17 AEST
From: Sydney
Law and Disorder
The documentary caused me to write to my federal member asking what the government has planned to improve whistle blower protections and whether there is any interest in amending Section 70 of the Crimes Act to protect public servants for public interest disclosures
23 Oct 2010 17:16 AEST
From: Southern Highlands
Good on you Andrew Wilkie & all whistle blowers
It is such a pity that true sincerity and genuine compassion can be surpressed by people who say they are but in reality put political & military & trade & personal short term ambition ahead of such things. We are all flawed but no one should have to pay such a terrible price. Yet it makes people strong such as yourselves - whistle blowers. Good on you Andrew Wilkie & all whistle blowers.
02 Oct 2010 11:19 AEST
From: MACQUARIE UNI NSW 2113
LAW and DISORDER
We live in fools paradise claiming monopoly on democracy lost to bent lawyers. Best democracy money can buy?
19 May 2010 22:27 AEST
From: queensland
whistleblowing
I currently work with people with disabilities. I witnessed shocking abuse by a fellow worker on a person with a severe disability and reported it. It was reported by me to the relivant people, but what a joke. Because of my whistleblowing i have been ostricised by fellow workers who know what is happening in the workplace, but are to gutless or scared about losing their jobs to stand up and be counted. Surely with numbers, we should be able to make a stand against people in the workforce who are abusing these defenseless human beings. We are told it is our DUTY OF CARE to report this, but it falls on deaf ears when it is reported, somebody needs to advocate for these beautiful people,as Karen Smith stated in her interview, if you are reading this Karen , i would love to get in contact with you, as i am finding it very hard to get justice.
19 May 2010 20:53 AEST
From: Brisbane, Queensland
Law and Disorder
Next time a politician gets up on their hind legs to bey at large on law and order issues, remind them of the pitiful state of whistle-blower legislation throughout this land of the fair go. No doubt PM Rudd will not introduce decent legislation on this before he calls the next election for fear that there would not be enough votes in it, unless the issue was powerful enough to distract the electorate from other pressing issues... that's the way it goes in this evitable presidential-style of parliamentary democracy. Shame on all your houses (of parliament)
19 May 2010 12:59 AEST
From: Melbourne
Law & Disorder exposes draconian Information Privacy laws
Stuart Goodman and Mark Hamlyn are to be applauded for this series. Commonwealth laws erode the rights of individuals but there are State laws that do so as well. The Information Privacy Act 2000 (Victoria) defines personal information as "information or an opinion (including information or an opinion forming part of a database), that is recorded in any form and whether true or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information or opinion, but does not include information of a kind to which Schedule 2 applies". In brief this allows state government/employees to make false claims about citizens which can lead to criminal prosecutions based on circumstantial evidence. We saw the outcome of circumstantial evidence in court in episode 1.
28 Dec 2009 12:48 AEST
From: QLD
Allan Kessing
Where has this episode disappeared to? I am trying to locate it to share this story with friends and according to the SBS it doesn't exist any more. Am I jumping to conclusions, or have the new federal govt. laws regarding censorship (supposedley aimed at pornographic material) already been put to use? Too sensitive maybe? Whats your take? ???
06 Dec 2009 19:23 AEST
From: Umina NSW
Jane Doe Sydney
It is not much help if a link results in a 404 error http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/dissent/documents/NPWS/index.ht There are many of us out here who know first hand about how dysfunctional the system is. Some of us have simply grown tired waiting for others to link up and work together. For example i offered to hire a bus so locals could go to parliament and do a protest before end of business this year. Of the people whyo were objecting to the loss of their rehabiltation ward for over a year now attending meetings and collecting sigunaturs not one person wanted to do a protest. Anyway it is impportant to have links whicvh work. You may wish to use one of the indymedia sites to become a public trust journalist. Unfortunatly sydney has crashed but there are other sites. or try ringing 0243419140
04 Dec 2009 16:16 AEST
From: Brisbane
WHISLTEBLOWERS
A lady who comes into my office regularly has issues with Queensland Health and seems to getting no-where - she has asked me if I can find out if she can contact the Nurse you featured in your story? By the way great and scary programme. Thanks.
04 Dec 2009 15:22 AEST
From: ACT
Evidence of Police Perjury and coverup
Evidence of Police Perjury and coverup I wish to get into contact with the makers of this Documentary series. I have firm written evidence of a large Police perjury including transcripts and statements made under oath which were hidden from the court. I am an ex 25 year serving member of NSW Police with commendations. I need to get to talk to the right people to expose these corrupt activities, if exposed it will be one hell of a series and I have been threatened many times not to take it further. Could you please assist. Thank You. technoart@ozemail.com.au
Join the discussion
PLEASE NOTE: All submitted comments become the property of SBS. We reserve the right to edit and/or amend submitted comments. HTML tags other than paragraph, line break, bold or italics will be removed from your comment.
Most Popular
About this Blog
Andy Martin's two most recent books are 'Beware Invisible Cows' and 'Stealing the Wave'. He is currently working on a project called 'What It Feels Like To Be Alive'.
Andy Martin Andy Martin was born in London, a mile down the road from West Ham United football club. He dreamed of playing at Upton Park but got sidetracked by (a) philosophy (b) Brigitte Bardot and (c) surfing. He studied at Cambridge, Paris, Hawaii, and Yallingup. He married a woman from Perth and they have two sons who fervently support Australia in the Ashes encounters. He is a former surfing correspondent to The Times (London). He teaches French at Cambridge but is currently attached to the Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library. His two most recent books are 'Beware Invisible Cows' and 'Stealing the Wave'. He is currently working on a project called 'What It Feels Like To Be Alive'.
Other Blogs
TV
- Living Black
- Italian Food Safari
- Thalassa
- Luke Nguyen's Vietnam
- Behind the Scenes: The 2009 Deadly Awards
- My Family Feast
- Costa's Production Blog
- Eurovision 2011
- Swift and Shift Couriers
- Global Village
- My Bogan Diary
- The Road to the White House
Food
Films
Documentary
- Britt Arthur
- Catharine Lumby
- John Birmingham
- Rory Medcalf
- Mark Jones
- Emily Booth
- Bob Wurth
- Andy Martin
World News Australia
- Ricardo's Business
- 180 degrees
- Reporters' Blog
- The Hashtag
- The Other World Game
- Window on Africa
- Pop, Cultured
- PJ's Notebook
- The Sweet Spot
- Back of the.net
- Source Code
- The Road to 2012
- Candid Canberra
Sport
- The Circus
- The Interchange
- The Hangover
- Lip Service
- Deep in the Dust: On the Dakar trail
- Dakar Dreams
- The Finktank
- Open Season
About SBS
Business
Internet and Technology
Cycling Central
- Rochelle Gilmore
- Matthew Price's Broom Wagon
- Anthony Tan's Velo Files
- Matthew Keenan
- Al Hinds
- Sophie Smith
- Philip Gomes
- Scott Sunderland
- Mike Tomalaris
Festival Reports
Tour De France
