As a young schoolboy, one of the first lessons I learned was that you never snitch on fellow pupils. Whether you like them or not doesn’t matter. It is the biggest sin one can commit. I remember one unfortunate boy breaking this rule once and it resulted in him having his head flushed down the toilet. He was then given a good kicking after school and spent the rest of his poor miserable school life being despised by all the other kids and bullied.
Although honesty is supposed to be the best policy, there are certain times when it is necessary to keep secrets. Some things are just better left unsaid. For example, most companies would go out of business very quickly if their customers found out what was said about them behind their backs.
Now put this on a global scale. If, for example, Mr Sarkozy made a racist comment about Barack Obama and started spreading rumours about David Cameron’s fondness for sheep, he would inevitably upset them. Now, it’s not a good idea to upset people with big guns and other weapons capable of blowing up your country in less time than it takes to say “I surrender”.
This is the trouble with this whole Wikileaks scandal. While I’m sure we would all like to see a bit more transparency in governments and an end to the obvious corruption that is prevalent, there are some things that could be potentially damaging to International relations; things that could potentially lead to military conflict.
This is the subject of this month’s discussion on Dadooda. Do you agree with the publication of confidential documents, or do you think it’s a bad thing? Get on your Soapbox and have your say!
