Truth or Consequences

“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned”

Richard Feynman

Quantum physicist Richard Feynman coined this phrase which reflects the importance of curiosity and questioning in the pursuit of scientific learning.  Throughout history, many scientists have felt the frustration of having their fact-based conclusions rejected by authorities who saw these as potential attacks to their power.

One has only to recall the tribulations of such revered scientists and Copernicus and Galileo and their fight with the Catholic Church as they challenged orthodoxy in the name of science and truth.

Today, this same refrain is applicable to the world of politics and international relations.

One only has to look at how Dr. Anthony Fauci was treated by American politicians, beginning with former President Donald Trump, during the COVID epidemic.

Many of us are charged with delivering the party line rather than the truth.

When I served as Canadian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson for Africa and Latin America, one journalist accused me of repeating the government line rather than speaking the truth. My reply was that I was paid to give the government line!

When leaders speak, they rarely speak from the heart. Rather, they repeat lines that have been carefully crafted by their communications staffers. These messages are produced to serve the leaders’ interests rather than share the truth with their audiences.

When I served as spokesperson the Secretaries-General of the Organization of American States (OAS), the Commonwealth, and the U.N., I often delivered lines that I personally knew were deficient.

For example, today it is accepted that the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) is practically an arm of Hamas, I spent countless hours refuting this fact when I served at the U.N. from 2011-13 – although I knew that this was true, and that many members of the Secretariat were antisemitic and anti-Israel.

Yesterday we saw an example of how a Spokesperson can be made to look ridiculous by the organization when we saw the Deputy Spokesperson for the U.N. Secretary General try to justify how the U.N. got the number of Hamas victims wrong and had to cut the number by half.

He skated on very thin ice and unfortunately fell through it with a feeble excuse about “the fog of war”.

The U.N.’s decision to accept casualty figures from the Hamas run Ministry of Health was absurd, and Mr. Haq’s response about “the fog of war” seemed naive when the UN didn’t question the figures it got from the Hamas run Ministry of Health in the first place — simply publishing them as the truth.

Nor when world leaders, including the U.S. President, accepted this disinformation verbatim, nor when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators around the world used this disinformation to rally its supporters to engage in their current activities.

I have yet to hear an apology from the U.N. Secretariat or from world leaders who fell for this ploy on the part of Hamas.

When we discussed human rights at the OAS or Commonwealth, we spokespeople often tried to block the truth – preferring to make the organizations look good rather than hold member states to account.

At the Commonwealth, we often used the phrase “lend a helping hand rather than a wagging finger” to justify the lack of action against member states that egregiously violated human rights or democratic processes.

Always, we provided answers that could not be questioned to questions we did not wish to answer.

Today this continues to be true.

Media groups like the BBC and the CBC that avoid calling terrorist groups “terrorists” for fear of being labelled Islamophobic. They are actively engaged in “political correctness” to justify their obfuscations.

Indeed, yesterday, British Foreign Minister David Cameron raked the BBC over the coals for refusing to call Hamas a terrorist organization six months after the October 7th terrorist attacks and all previous and current Hamas terrorist activities.

This is a case when media avoid questioning their own answers for the sake of profits and market share.

As the world becomes more polarized politically, so do journalists and media organizations.

Rather than seek the truth, many simply amplify the positions of their political masters and only question the answers promoted by their opponents.

In the United States, this is the state of the art as FOX News, CNN, MSNBC, and others offer competing versions of the “truth” without questioning the validity of statements made by their political clients. If one watches newscasts simultaneously, it appears that each is reflecting a different reality in a different world.

Liberated now as I am from my former employers, readers would be wise to ask if I tell the truth in my columns.

I would say that I report the facts I am aware of.

However, my opinions, as those of everyone, are shaped by the environment in which I live. As an opinion writer, I share them and try to question the answers that others might try to avoid questioning. But I would be remiss if I insisted that I speak the absolute “truth” as I can only work with the facts at hand.  

My answers can be questioned, and this is what holds me to be honest with my readers. I have a response button that encourages a healthy debate. I also change my views if presented with facts of which I was not aware.

In this, I try to use as much critical thinking as I possess to ensure that my writing is as honest as possible.

And this is the bottom line.

If leaders are to be believed, they must use critical thinking, based on the facts at hand and a thorough understanding of the pros and cons of the options available to deliver the truth as accurately and honestly as possible.

Journalists must also be open to exploring all the facts available from all sides of a story and be ready, like scientists, to question the answers others want to avoid and pursue the truth to its ultimate consequence.

And in this day of information overload from all sorts of news sources and political spin masters in media and government, the public must more than ever use critical judgment to interpret information to identify and elect honest leaders and follow honest media.

Absent this, answers others don’t want questioned will remain so, and we will be all the poorer for it.