Tunisia, Egypt, WikiLeaks, Secrets, Politeness and Tact

The rebellious Egyptians and Tunisians, and their present and future fellow rebels in the Arab world, do not need WikiLeaks to tell them about the misdeeds of their rulers. In fact, the surprising thing about the leaks of WikiLeaks is that there are so few surprises in them.

Omar Suleiman, Egypt’s intelligence chief whom Hosni Mubarak just appointed Vice President, is presumably the head of the secret police, If there is a knock at the door at six o’clock in the morning and a voice says “It’s the secret police,” the secret is lifted very quickly. Being chief of intelligence, Omar Suleiman’s head, his computers and filing cabinets must be full of secrets that everybody knows. However, regrettably, his agents in civilian clothes are hard to spot.

It is important for the smooth functioning of any society that it must be perfectly acceptable for those in authority to have secrets not shared by everybody. Of course, this also applies to ordinary citizens. The concept of dignity includes the acceptance by one and all that it is permissible to keep secrets about certain things that it would be impolite, if not tactless, to challenge.

Politeness and tact are not the same. If a French gentleman inadvertently enters a bathroom where a lady is having a shower, it would be polite of him to say, “Pardon, madame,” but tactful to say, “Pardon, monsieur,” thereby allowing both the lady and the gentlemen to believe the fiction that he did not see enough to establish her gender and in any case enabling the gentleman to preserve the secret that he did. The dignity of both is preserved.

History provides many examples when the peace was kept by the exercise of tact, though it is usually called something else. In November 1918, in Berlin, after the Kaiser had abdicated, the communists yielded power very quickly to the social democrats, telling themselves that soon another occasion would arise for them to seize power. But, in fact, it was tactful of them to yield, whatever their rationalization. It prevented a civil war.

It also seems that the happy outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis was managed through tact, polite rituals of pretended ignorance of certain communications.

In the era of WikiLeaks, the Internet, freedom of information acts and the citizens’ claims of the right to know, it is important that we include in university courses attended by our future leaders courses that teach vital life-and-peace-saving lessons in good manners, politeness and tact.

Source: Slavioj Zizek, “Good Manners in the Age of WikiLeaks,” London Review of Books, January 20.

The CBC’s Ambassador to Quebec (1971–1977) has been posted at YouTube.