Former MI6 Chief Credits WikiLeaks With Helping Spark Revolutions

EnergyScholar writes "Sir Richard Dearlove, former Intelligence Chief of MI6, credits WikiLeaks with helping spark revolutions in the Middle East, in (what was supposed to be) an off-the-record speech. 'I would definitely draw parallels at the moment between the wave of political unrest which is sweeping through the Middle East in a very exciting and rather extraordinary fashion and also the WikiLeaks phenomenon. Really, what ties these two events together, and of course a number of other events, is the diffusion of power, away from the states and the empowerment of individuals, and small groups of individuals, by technology,' he said."

Misstatement

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that any causal relationship is being drawn by Richard Dearlove in the article: he merely says that they're driven by the same phenomena ("Diffusion of Power").

Re:Misrepresentation?

[Adambomb]

No you're exactly correct. He's relating both phenomena as originating from recent changes in technology in how people can communicate and form groups, not that one caused the other

Re:wtf?

[_Sprocket_]

Or everyone can take another breath once they realize that he isn't saying Wikileaks is good. All he's doing is drawing a parallel to the decentralization of power due to decentralized communications technology. Wikileaks is an example of that. The revolutions / protests against various regimes are another. He did not say one caused the other. He did not say any particular example is "good" (although he notes the political unrest as "exciting" and "extraordinary"). The actual quote is:

“I would definitely draw parallels at the moment between the wave of political unrest which is sweeping through the Middle East in a very exciting and rather extraordinary fashion and also the WikiLeaks phenomenon,” Dearlove said. “Really, what ties these two events together, and of course a number of other events, is the diffusion of power, away from the states and the empowerment of individuals, and small groups of individuals, by technology.”

Re:wtf?

[Kagura]

"Sir Richard Dearlove, former Intelligence Chief of MI6, credits WikiLeaks with helping spark revolutions in the Middle East, in (what was supposed to be) an off-the-record speech. 'I would definitely draw parallels at the moment between the wave of political unrest which is sweeping through the Middle East in a very exciting and rather extraordinary fashion and also the WikiLeaks phenomenon. Really, what ties these two events together, and of course a number of other events, is the diffusion of power, away from the states and the empowerment of individuals, and small groups of individuals, by technology,' he said."

He didn't say Wikileaks is responsible for the revolutions. The editor read that... In reality, the former MI6 chief says there are parallels between Wikileaks and the revolutions in the Middle East, where a small number of people are able to affect great change through technology.

And all you have to read is the summary... now we will have "former MI6 chief said Wikileaks caused the Middle East revolutions!" posts in all Wikileaks stories from now on. :(

Re:Misrepresentation?

[j_presper_eckert]

We really need to get a mathematician to take a serious look at human history. It appears to be fractal: it not only repeats itself, but the same patterns show up on different scales as if there were a great deal of self-similarity.

[pokerface]
I heard that some math-and-history whiz named Hari Seldon has already got that covered. In spades. There's even a few books out there detailing some interesting things that happened when he published his findings. Any serious conversation about the subject really has to acknowledge his work as the foundation of the entire field.
[/pokerface]

Re:Other factors

[Sique]

here was no WikiLeaks or global economic crisis impacting Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. They were all just sick and tired after a few decades of oppression, and did something about it.

I beg to differ. There was glasnost, which was mainly about being transparent about everything in the government and the industry. You could call (albeit with a stretch) glasnost a governmentally mandated WikiLeaks. But for the overly secret communist governments of the time, glasnost was a revolution. And there was a very low oil price causing the USSR to bleed because they couldn't earn enough for their crude oil to sustain the Afghan War, the overblown military in the satellite states and the social benefits which kept the soviet people mainly quiet.
The same oil price low also hit East Germany, which made a fortune in the early 80ies by selling refined gasoil to Western countries, because the oil price within the COMECON was set as being the average oil price of the last five years. As long as the price was steadily climbing, this was a source of income for East Germany. But when the oil price started to tank, East Germany in average paid more for crude oil than the Western countries, and the business went sour.

So your theory about transparency and economic turmoil not influencing the Change in 1989 has some problems with the facts.