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The point that the World Affairs Journal writer seems to be making is that it wasn't the content of the cables that was significant - everyone in Tunisia knew t
by GabrielF00 13y ago
The point that the World Affairs Journal writer seems to be making is that it wasn't the content of the cables that was significant - everyone in Tunisia knew that the Ben Ali regime was corrupt - it was the fact that these cables came from an American source that was particularly humiliating.
I think that's a highly speculative argument. In many of these countries dissatisfaction with the government, social inequality and major unrest have been going on for decades. The kinds of issues that the writer talks about have been discussed very openly in the Arab world (take for example, the Egyptian book and film The Yacoubian Building). I think Wikileaks may have contributed to this milieu, but I don't think it was revelatory.
- btilly 13y agoI acknowledged that it was not an open and shut theory when I said that historians will debate this for decades. However I first heard about it from Teri Gross' interview with Bill Keller, at the time the executive editor of The New York Times. I have every reason to believe that his opinion was highly informed. Certainly it is more so than mine. And if he gives Wikileaks credit, then Wikileaks likely deserves some credit.