First of all: Happy New Year. Joe Klein wrote in the Time magazine recently about 2010 being the year of the leaks: from the massive leaks in the Gulf of Mexico to the Wikileaks. It was a leaky year, all right, though most people I have spoken to wonder what the big deal was. Was the BP disaster totally unexpected given the way ‘big oil’ (or any other major corporation obsessed with the bottomline) go about their business? Was anyone surprised that diplomats often have to lie through their teeth to clean up the mess left behind by their political masters?
Many are getting their knickers in a knot, “How could they?” Welcome to the real world, darlings. In the internet, nothing is sacred and nothing is secret. Anything you say can and will be used against you. Cry what you want for Assange to be tried and jailed, but he is only the messenger. This is the 21st century, you hide stuff and people will find it. Maybe, diplomacy has to grow up? As Robert Zimmerman says:
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal
We have plenty of experience with that in this country: hiding stuff. It is called censorship. We hide books on religion and politics to protect our people from deviant teaching, not that people can’t get whatever they want off the internet, or a hundred other sources. Brilliant is the way we ban sex from adults (but not babies -- wonderful contradiction that), ostensibly to protect our young who still believe that pregnancy is caused by sneezing. If you are gay, please keep it a secret: we will send an entire ministry after you and, yes, the minister has nothing better to do. (It would be interesting to find out how many people think the Official Secrets Act is designed to protect nations, and not to cover-up the misdemeanours of the rich and powerful.)
So, we come back to the point of lying. The curious thing about lying is that we can’t live without it. We lie everyday, almost every time we open our mouths, actually. Think about it. Call them white lies, green lies, blue lies, whatever; but they remain lies. Like the false laugh when we speak on the phone; or the way we’d claim, “She wouldn’t let me put down the phone,” after a three hour conversation. Remember the time you drove 25 miles into the boondocks to get a packet of cheese biscuits for your sister’s cat in Ipoh, swearing all the time, and then saying to her afterwards that it was no problem (when what you really wanted to do was kill her)? Is lying a human condition, then?
I have customers who will come into Silverfish and declare very loudly (for everyone to hear) that they didn’t read fiction. I would feel like saying how sorry I felt for them, but I wouldn’t. Silence is another form of lying. But, coming back to the point, is fiction a lie? If it is the truth, why disguise it as a lie?
I will tell you a story. This was in the early seventies, just after I graduated. I was on a ‘guru’ trip like many others; one of those tantric yoga groups. I didn’t feel out of place because everyone was friendly and everything. Then, they decided on a retreat to Fraser’s Hill to which I went along as a driver. At this retreat was a young man from Thailand, very personable, but with only a stuttering command of English. He had just returned from India after meeting ‘Baba’. He was asked for an account, and this is how it, more or less, went:
How was it? (Excited.)
It was okay.
How was the Baba? (Still excited.)
He was okay. He was nice.
That’s it? Did he not materialise a flower for you? A watch? A radio? (Disappointed.)
No. (Laughs.) But Baba likes to joke.
What did he say?
He asked about my folks. I told him that my mother was okay, that she has recovered from her illness ...
Was your mother ill?
Oh, that was two years ago. She had a minor stroke, but she has recovered almost completely ...
Were you a devotee at the time?
Yes, yes. I have been a devotee for five years ...
Hah! A miracle! Don’t you see? Baba cured your mother. (Loud noises of approval, group excitement.)
I watched the performance, stunned. I was speechless. Baba had cured someone’s mom of cancer.
I stopped going to the centre after that.
