Did Wikileaks trigger events in Tunisia? Not to devalue the efforts of the Tunisian opposition, street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi’s sacrifice or in any way minimize the real problems with the government; just the opposite. But it could be that Wikileaks publishing a ‘truth that everyone knows’, was just the consciousness-raising event that needed to happen to get to critical mass.
I think that Vaclav Havel wrote about this, that publishing something that everyone knows, does change things. It makes it so everyone knows that everyone knows.
There is even a mathematical proof that such an event can trigger a chain reaction. Its a silly old sexist problem, but this is how I was taught it: on an island, there is a tribe where everyone is married, everyone cheats, and no one has ever been is caught; but if anyone is caught the wife will be tied to the Hoorah tree in the middle of the island for the night. One day, the visiting minister, who was the only unmarried person on the island, announces “there is cheating going on” and leaves. Now, since everyone is cheating, everyone already knew this. Yet on an island of N couples, you can prove by induction that N days after the minister leaves every cheater will be caught. (ok, ok, just the wives..you could change the story to make it fairer if you like).
Start with the case of two couples, and only one cheating. The man who is not cheating thinks, “well, its not me, so it must be my wife with him”, and right away calls her out. Now if this does not happen that night, the next day both men think – “hm, if he wasn’t cheating, he would have known I was. So he must be cheating too.” So in the case of both couples cheating, both are caught on the second day, and so on.
How much of our behaviour is determined by what we think everyone else is thinking?
Back to reality – here’s hoping we get real democracy in Egypt and across the middle east!