‘The Emperors New Clothes’ was one of my favourite childhood stories. You probably know it (no?) but it goes something like this:
A vain, none too bright but powerful Emperor of a small European State (always handy for this kind of story) was persuaded by an unscrupulous tailor that his beautiful new clothes were actually invisible – though made of the finest quality. His courtiers were too afraid to tell him that he was actually naked so, being none too bright he came to believe it and proudly showed off his new wardrobe to everyone. He even led a procession through his capital to show off when a young boy (who knew no ‘better’) pointed at the naked Emperor and declared that he was wearing nothing but his skin. With that public pronouncement the ‘spell’ was broken and the Emperor became a laughing stock.
That little boy has long been a hero of mine. He saw through to the reality of things and spoke out about it. Of course, being a child, he was innocent of any possible consequences. The Emperor could have had him and his family killed for Treason. But luckily the vain Emperor had lost all credibility and nothing bad happened (that I remember anyway).
Just think how brave adult whistleblowers are as they ‘go public’ with secrets our Governments and Businesses would rather we not know. These people are fully aware of the consequences of their actions – and still they go ahead. They face possible prosecution, jail or worse – and still they go ahead.
They are modern day heroes and I applaud them.
3 comments:
'The King is in the altogether, the altogether, he's altogether as naked as the day that he was born'
[hums distractedly....]
I am not so convinced by the wholly altruistic reasons of whistleblowers in general.
Whistleblowers are only truly brave if they have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Most whistleblowers these days do it for gain (newspaper article payments, 'sweetners')
cq
I don't agree CQ. MOST whistle blowers do it for altruistic reasons, out of real moral outrage, or possibly revenge. We only get to hear about the big-money, big-business cases, because they are the ones in the media.
Whistle-blowing varies from bringing bad practise to the attention of a line manager, to taking legal action against your employer. In most cases it doesn't have an impact on anyone outside a department or small company, but it always takes courage to do, as you are putting youself forward for scrutiny, intimidation & often loss of your job (indirectly or directly).
It's a horrible experience to go through & very stressful. But hopefully each case makes our workplace a slightly better place.
Oh, I agree - I whistleblew on a bullying manager.
Although I like to think my reasons were altruistic; making sure she didn't use those tactics on other staff etc - they were also incredibly selfish...she made me feel bad and I didn't like that.
It's a fine line between selfishness and unselfishness.
cq
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