issue8 [OB小组] leaders should withhold information

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TOPIC: ISSUE8 - "It is often necessary, even desirable, for political leaders to withhold information from the public."
WORDS: 673   TIMES: 00:44:05+10:00          DATE: 2007-8-20 0:50:45

In this issue, the author states that it is sometimes necessary even desirable for political leaders to withhold information from the public. I agree with the author fundamentally that the ability of hiding certain information is a indispensable quality for political leaders. Yet, they can not abuse this ability or privileges to undermine the democratic average people deserve.

To begin with, lacking the ability to secrete some information will fail a political leader even before s/he become one. In most countries where political leaders are elected in certain forms, elections are all idealized by the heroized images the candidates create, the encouraging speeches they made, the imposing blueprints they draw. In many circumstances of real world, an election for political leaders is a competition of advertisement, which in nature is to outshine the luminous characters and abilities while hide the flaws. Therefore, to reveal the information about the deficiency in characters or capabilities may end up with losing an election, thus fail to be a political leader in the first place.

Second of all, when political leaders are actually in reign, they are obliged to withhold information for the sake of the country's stability. On the one hand, as a political leader, it is inevitable to deal with some ace-class secrets of a country, which are extremely crucial not to be accessed by certain groups of people with spite purposes. Consider the information about the manufacture of weapons of massive destruction is disclosed to terrorists. The security of many countries can be seriously threatened. Everyone in these countries can hardly concentrate on their works and daily lives but worrying the possible attacks. On the other hand, political leaders are in position of coping with the social difficulties or making proper policies in their country even though some of these issues can be quite thorny. Nevertheless, these tough problems will cause chaos if disclosed to the public especially when it comes to the problems concerning dominion. In many countries in the world, schism happens or maybe in latency. Political leaders try their best to seek out peaceful methods to settle these problems, among which certain compromise could be made. If the entire negotiations between different powers are revealed to the public, a portion of folks may be aroused to over-react or even start severe conflicts, leaving the society in an unstable situation. Thereby, withholding certain information is necessary to keep a society from chaos.

However, political leaders should not hide too much information if they wish to continue the prosperity and stability of a country. After all, living in a country where people are endowed with the right to enjoy democratic, the average people should be able to access to certain information. The occurrence of SARS can serve a cogent example. This catastrophically epidemic disease was utterly avoidable if the political leaders in Guangdong province in China, instead of withhold the information about the disease at the very beginning, disclose the situation can inform people of appropriate precautions. The final casualty can be sharply reduced to around the number of victims in the start-phase. Meanwhile, the energy and money would not be spent on the producing medicines, equipments and saving infected people. Moreover, scandals also should not be concealed by political leaders. Corruption was once a serious issue in China which occurs through several provinces in the country. Nonetheless, the political leaders hide this problem from public supervision until years after when the issue cause a series of deadly economical crisis. Yet, it had already resulted in financial disasters locally when it is exposed. Clearly, by abusing their rights to withhold any information political leaders want, the development of the society can be hindered severely.

In conclusion, to be a political leader, an individual need possess the quality of hiding certain information to win over the public’s trust in this realistic world. It is as well the ability to function as a political leader, maintaining the social stability and developments. Notwithstanding, withholding over-extra information will harm the democratic of a society and its progress.