The outpouring of evidence about Jimmy Savile shows that scores of people working in the BBC, Hospitals, childrens’ homes and even the police knew – not had heard gossip, really knew – about Savile’s paedophilia, but did not blow the whistle.
To me this correlates with the fact that scores of people in the FCO, MI6, MI5, Cabinet Office and other government agencies knew about extraordinary rendition, but did not blow – indeed still have have not blown – the whistle.
Savile had come to be seen as a big and peculiarly “Establishment” figure. The extreme rarity of whistleblowing in society is a strange phenomenon it is worth taking a few minutes to consider. Why did none of those now coming forward with their stories – not the victims, but the eye-witnesses – come forward at the time? Fear is probably the main answer, in particular fear of losing your job if you rock the boat. One problem in modern society is that people’s job is too central to their identity – most people when asked who they are, will reply what work they do. It is not just the need to earn money; your social status and personal relationships are often dependent on your position at work. To lose your job, or to become a social pariah within the organisation where you work, is too much for most people to contemplate.
That is why BBC producers who knew about Savile, saw him at it, did not blow the whistle on one of the Corporation’s biggest stars. It is why so few whistleblowers spontaneously come forward who have seen corruption in local government planning departments or defence procurement, to give an example. For most white collar crime there are people who are not directly involved bu see it and keep quiet. There is also the deterrent of self-incrimination – after a time silence becomes complicity.
In my own case of blowing the whistle on the international torture network, I know for certain that many other Ambassadors and diplomats knew just what was happening, most of them didn’t like it, but nobody but me blew the whistle. One Ambassador sent me a cheery “Rather you than me!” Some were actively complicit by being involved in rendition arrangements, others passively by not trying to stop it. This is why the Gibsom Inquiry into Complicity in Torture was shelved – it could not have proceeded without revealing that scores, possibly hundreds, are guilty, many of them still high-ranking civil servants. It was to protect them and the institutions in which they work, rather than to protect the high profile war criminals like Blair, Straw and Campbell, that the Establishment closes ranks. I always knew I would never be allowed to testify before an Inquiry into Complicity in Torture.
Whistleblowers are not just thrown out of their jobs. They almost never find new employment, as the one quality every employer values above any other quality is loyalty to the employer, right or wrong. Nobody wants a “disloyal” employee, whatever their motives. And if your whistleblowing involves the world of war and spying, they will try to set you up on false charges, like me, like Julian Assange, and not just sack you but destroy you.
Whistleblowers are rare because it is a near suicidal vocation, and everyone else is too scared to help. The Savile case teaches us far more important lessons than the prurient detail of a lurid life. Think about it.
I’m very unsure of the potential for this problem being reversed in favour of whistleblowing. I think people are only willing to come forward when they care enough and are confident that there is a critical mass of complainants with first hand knowledge of offences who are reliably willing to support each other. In Jimmy Savile’s case, the critical mass was brought together through media reports which could be safely made after his death. It might take a change in UK libel laws to allow media to report on isolated but credible allegations of wrongdoing regarding living persons. Although a more powerful media could have unintended consequences.
Clark;
“The brain, they say, is the biggest erogenous zone, and imagination develops with age.”
Key point; Sexual imprinting leaves many with early experiences, whether of legal age or not, with deep learning which seeks replication. It’s a daisy-chain for victims, who often end up victimizers.
@Ben – “Key point; Sexual imprinting leaves many with early experiences, whether of legal age or not, with deep learning which seeks replication. It’s a daisy-chain for victims, who often end up victimizers.”
Good point. But it’s not just sexual imprinting at an early age, it’s all sorts of behaviours and habits. Ask yourself what your favourite food is and it just might be one that you ate a lot of as a child.
But back to sex.. What are adults to do with their memories of sexual behaviour as children? Convention says they should feel self-loathing, as if that were healthy.
Jemand;
” Convention says they should feel self-loathing, as if that were healthy.”
Guilt; as if they should have any. Abuse takes many forms, including psychological, which some view as the least damaging, in error.
Lest we stray too far from topic…had my say on that.
Suhayl Saadi 19 Oct, 7:14 pm:
I think this is likely. I think a lot of this goes on. Covert control through “intelligence” and blackmail. Vices are useful, and the corporate media are forever inciting outrage about vices in and of the general population.
Jemand at 19 Oct, 7:32 pm:
Yep. Organise, collaborate, overcome the divisions. Be courageous, even if it means being howled at by the gutter press for our own minor peccadilloes. How many times have we read the slurs about Craig and Nadira? And in the end, does it matter?
Jemand at 19 Oct, 7:49 pm
Cherish them, and play them for all they’re worth, with your adult partner(s). There’s plenty of fun to be had, and it’s very popular, though rarely mentioned. Spanking? That’s a childhood experience, isn’t it? How many top-shelf magazines have “saucy school-girl” features with adult models? Who likes a bit of slapstick, getting messy like kids? None of it is a problem… until it has to be hidden away. Then it can be used for coercion.
Yes, I think just about everyone, except some very wealthy law firms who allegedly represent dictators and the like, accepts that UK libel laws now are out of control and that the law in this area has become an ass. US libel laws are much more sensible. I’ve read that in the UK, if it gets to court, 90% of libel cases are successful, while in the USA it is exactly the opposite. Perhaps a greater proportion of cases in the USA get to court, though, I don’t know. But judges in the USA will quickly throw out a stupid case of alleged libel. I think Kenneth Clark, ex-Justice Secretary was trying to reform the UK libel laws, I’m not sure whether he succeeded. And now he’s been moved in essence out of power.
More Frank. Warning, explicit lyrics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4hzVpYAP-U
I’d just like to pay tribute to my dear departed friend Martyn Seago. He guided me through some of my early psychedelic experiences, and it was he who introduced me to the music of Frank Zappa. I was an up-tight young man. I loved Zappa’s music, he always used the best musicians, and it was said that his bands were only so tight because he was such a slave-driver. But his lyrics were filthy, and it was only with great embarrassment that I could withstand some of them. Nowadays, they just make me laugh. What on Earth can it possibly matter what one does with those little pieces of erectile tissue? So long as everyone knows what they’re getting into, and no one is coerced, which is only the same as anything else…
My friend Martyn got the bowel cancer. I was at his bedside in Hull general infirmary in 2003, shortly after the tumour was declared inoperable. Together we watched the rip-off Patientline pay-as-you-die telly. We watched the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down by a bulldozer. We didn’t need to say anything; we both could see that it was staged.
RIP Martyn.
1/ The evidence would seem to suggest not that Savile was a paedophile but that he was obsessed with young but nubile women. In other words he was not a paedophile but a hebephile.
Those who cannot see the difference between sexual preference for pre-pubescent infants and a taste for young adolescents ought to get out more: paedophilia is rather rare whereas hebephilia is rampant in most cultures.
2/ The problem to which Craig alludes is that of conformism, which is just a form of successful socialisation. The conformist keeps his head down, makes no waves, follows fashion and never dreams of thinking for himself unless his immediate interests and desires are involved. The conformist reads Savile’s statement (see the Telegraph story?) that “girls of 14 to 16 have no interest in sex” nods his head wisely and agrees with the Rebekah Brooks doctrine that there is no difference between a thirty year old man being attracted to a six year old or a sixteen year old.
3/ The real story here is that the Police appear to have protected Savile in a manner so systematic that as to be instinctive: imagine, for example, what would gave occurred had similar complaints been made against Arthur Scargill. Or Gerry Adams…wait a minute!
Clark;
For years Zappa was dogged by a rumor he literally ate shit on stage. Finally he was asked in an interview and he replied:
“The closest I ever came to eating shit was at a Howard Johnsons Buffet in Nebraska.”
So sorry Clark. You must miss him. And that silly piece of theatre in Baghdad. Do you remember when they forgot to put the Stars and Stripes over it and had to go up again? Then the beating with the shoes when it was down. Did you also know that pieces of it appeared on an auction site? This is against the law to profit from a scene of war.
I think that the nice tribute in Acknowledgements on this book refers to your friend. Scroll down to about page 8.
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nt00e9NeV-IC&lpg=PR13&ots=7TudscAfoz&dq=martyn%20seago&pg=PR13#v=onepage&q=martyn%20seago&f=false
Mark Golding, I’m sending you a plain text e-mail, subject “Just Checking”, within seconds of posting this comment.
Ben Franklin: He he he!
Leah McGrath Goodman, who was expelled and banned from the UK because she was investigating the Haut de la Garenne scandal, said on the Max Keiser show last month that she was told that, if the truth about this matter were aired, the stability of the whole political system in the UK would be threatened.
Mary, wow, thanks. Yes, that’s Martyn, without a doubt. He encouraged me to go and live in York. We knew lots of people at the Uni. Martyn was doing his PhD in Hull. That was later, though. Martyn introduced to me this activist, Zoe Young:
http://zoeyoung.net/
Lysias, how very interesting. I hadn’t heard of her before. It seems to me likely that the Establishment in the UK is rotten to the core – in more ways than one. It beggars belief that a respected, mainstream Amercian journalist would be barred from entering the UK, yet that seems to be what has happened. Mind you, across the world and in Western countries too, people – including journalists – have been killed/declared insane/blacklisted for less.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leah_McGrath_Goodman
http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2012-13/504
Clark, just to second Mary’s comment from earlier, the story about your friend is deeply moving. I’m so sorry you lost a good friend.
How terrible Suhayl that not one other MP supported John Hemming. He speaks up for Palestine too btw.
Thanks Lysias for telling us about the ban and Suhayl about the EDM.
Was Jimmy Savile guilty?
I am pleased that the good journalist Liz McKean has the strength of character to stand up to the BBC establishment. Entwistle is on thin ice.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/revealed-newsnight-emails-that-accuse-bbc-of-jimmy-savile-coverup-8218971.html
So when is the sordid house of cards going to fall ?
Is Savile’s demise going to be the lynch-pin ?
If what Leah McGrath Goodman inferred is true, then it must be soon.
Keep digging !
I don’t think the refusal to blow the whistle is simply a calculation about losing one’s job. It’s a (British?) timidity that goes deeper than that. A deep-seated desire not to rock the boat or cause a fuss, or ‘get involved’. The same reason people don’t intervene in public when confronted by delinquent behaviour. Esther Rantzen tells the story of the cabbie who told her he’d had Jimmy Saville in the back of the cab once, and he’d had two underage girls with him whom he abused throughout the journey. ‘But what could I do?’ said the cabbie. Well, quite a lot, really. He could have driven to the police station. That cabbie’s job wasn’t in danger, so why didn’t he object to the clearly criminal behaviour in the back of his cab?
Also of very great importance is the neglect of the BBC in reporting what has been going on with the ConDem changes to the NHS. I have mentioned here before that Virgin have made large inroads into the privatisation of community health services both in Surrey and in child health services in Devon, as well as in many other areas. I have also mentioned that Lord Patten (chair of the BBC Trust remember) has a financial interest in Bridgepoint, another outfit profiting from privatisation.
Here on Medialens is some further information.
The excellent source of this information is the website called The Green Benches run by Dr Eoin Clarke.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1350676054.html
..Why did the BBC not report on the privatisation of the NHS?
..BBC accept their report of Virgin Court case was “flawed” and now report that Virgin Childcare deal was “unlawful”.
..Explosive reports seen together!
http://itthing.com/the-most-blatant-and-sexually-subliminal-commercials-on-tv
Subliminal messages in adverts
Manchurian candidates,
They be filling our lives with images of hard work, morals, and stability, peace, tranquility.
No that would be too boring and staid.
Happy mediums…
Kingfelix, your comment is excellent but I think you need to go further.
You say the social order is doomed and the government knows it. You also say, ‘there may be a set of class interests that run through the mainstream parties that commit all of them to not opening up regarding the probable impacts coming our way from climate change/oil running out,’ and more importantly, ‘What Craig’s blog rests upon, it seems to me, is the recognition of these interests that are capable of transcending party lines, that are more ‘real’ than any particular policy position or declaration of humanitarian principles, and so on. And, of course, which almost never see the light of day, yet are everywhere, forming a subtext that shapes all sorts of decisions.’
From various experiences in my life I believe that there is a dynamic secret power behind government, which, where necessary dictates. This power is maintained but not run by the intelligence services, which conceal, kill, intimidate and take part in illegal activities both here and abroad to provide funds to sustain the power. Sections of government agencies are used to help carry out these crimes. And just as in the Saville case people keep their mouths shut out of fear or reward. The corruption seeps down to all levels. To stay on the ‘right side’ I’ve seen a provincial solicitor perform a minor action of holding back a letter to a client, which would have severely damaged his client but benefited a government agency in that it helped hide state crime.
Jack Straw in 2005 made a very revealing statement to the Commons foreign affairs committee,
“Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States …There is simply no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop, because we never have been.”
It’s quite clear now that the UK was involved in rendition and Jack himself has been cited as a key defendant in court documents that describe in detail abuse given out to Libyan dissidents and their families after being abducted and handed to Gaddafi’s secret police with the help of British intelligence.
This is the answer to the question on the NSPCC website
http://www.nspcc.org.uk/Inform/cpsu/helpandadvice/organisations/lscbs/lscbs_wda67729.html
Under ‘safeguarding children’ etc Click on ‘what to do if you think a child is being abused’
A.
The Department for Children Schools and Families website has now been decommissioned. Relevant content can be found on the Department for Education website
The DCSF site has been archived and is accessible via The National Archives website.
WHen Louis Theroux met Jimmy Savile, with some very interesting and now topical questions from Theroux.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBC4JNrybKo
I think Ruth has made an excellent point. Someone – sorry, right now, I’ve forgotten who – posed the question of why and how the media (specifically, the BBC) can remain silent on such matters for so long and whether there was some or other censor. Well, in the past, MI5 vetted all BBC employees and some jouranlsist didn;t get jobs with the BBC as a result (the BBC denied that MI5 vetted their prospective employees, but after the Cold war ended they admitted it). And of course, ‘troublemakers’ don’t get promotion, so the senior people tend to be those who share and promote the dominant consensus. Institutinal censorship, one might call it.
But mostly, I would suggest that collective self-censorship – yes, it’s very ‘British’, as King of Welsh Noir suggests – means that people in such organisations come to know and recognise the boundaries of acceptable discourse. So overt censorship – which will be wielded as a last resort (“sorry, we’ve decided to take the prgramme in a different direction…”) – is rarely necessary. Same with print journalism. We, on the outside, cannot see how certain matters do not get attention or even considered. It’s like being at a party and everyone else knows the ‘codes’. Like everything else in this country, it’s tied-up with social class, too.
@Ruth
Well, thank you. Yes, you can add your exposition to what I said, clearly there is a ‘national interest’ in the UK that ‘decontests’ certain postures regarding the UK’s role in the world. The intelligence services also, remember, if we are to believe Annie Machon, also maintain large files on all UK politicians.
I don’t believe timidity, in itself, arises from some essential component of the English character, but it may well have been drummed into most of us over the decades/centuries. Generally, we know our place (mine is now Taiwan). I noticed when living in Ireland, with a long history of occupation and rebellion, that there was a general disregard of the rules throughout the society (for good or ill), right down to every aspect of the Highway Code being taken as optional.
The last decent uprising that even the compliant mass media couldn’t pass off as simple hooliganism was The Poll Tax Riots (or am I wrong?), so, on occasion the opportunity certainly exists for a sudden strike back by the broad mass of the UK population.