Whistleblower!

                   Emile Zola- “J’ accuse !”               

With a spate of articles in the newspapers about whistleblowers like Dinesh Thakur and now Edward Snowden exposing irregularities and covert missions, I was reminded of the great French writer Emile Zola who published a letter in the L’ Aurore daily on 13 Jan 1898,  a letter addressed to the then President of the French Republic.

Letter to the President of the Republic

I accuse!

Sir,

Would you allow me, grateful as I am for the kind reception you once extended to me, to show my concern about maintaining your well-deserved prestige and to point out that your star which, until now, has shone so brightly, risks being dimmed by the most shameful and indelible of stains?

What filth this wretched Dreyfus affair has cast on your name - I wanted to say ‘reign’ -. A court martial, under orders, has just dared to acquit a certain Esterhazy, a supreme insult to all truth and justice. And now the image of France is sullied by this filth, and history shall record that it was under your presidency that this crime against society was committed.

But this letter is long, Sir, and it is time to conclude it.

I accuse Lt. Col. du Paty de Clam of being the diabolical creator of this miscarriage of justice - unwittingly, I would like to believe - and of defending this sorry deed, over the last three years, by all manner of ludricrous and evil machinations.

I accuse General Mercier of complicity, at least by mental weakness, in one of the greatest inequities of the century.

I accuse General Billot of having held in his hands absolute proof of Dreyfus’s innocence and covering it up, and making himself guilty of this crime against mankind and justice, as a political expedient and a way for the compromised General Staff to save face.

I accuse the three handwriting experts, Messrs. Belhomme, Varinard and Couard, of submitting reports that were deceitful and fraudulent, unless a medical examination finds them to be suffering from a condition that impairs their eyesight and judgement.

I accuse the War Office of using the press, particularly L’Eclair and L’Echo de Paris, to conduct an abominable campaign to mislead the general public and cover up their own wrongdoing.

Finally, I accuse the first court martial of violating the law by convicting the accused on the basis of a document that was kept secret, and I accuse the second court martial of covering up this illegality, on orders, thus committing the judicial crime of knowingly acquitting a guilty man.

In making these accusations I am aware that I am making myself liable to articles 30 and 31 of the law of 29/7/1881 regarding the press, which make libel a punishable offence. I expose myself to that risk voluntarily.

As for the people I am accusing, I do not know them, I have never seen them, and I bear them neither ill will nor hatred. To me they are mere entities, agents of harm to society. The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice.

I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Let them dare, then, to bring me before a court of law and let the enquiry take place in broad daylight! I am waiting.

With my deepest respect, Sir.
Émile Zola, 13th January 1898

(It’s a very long letter, I quote the first two paragraphs and the concluding part of the letter, only.)

Emile Zola was a naturalist writer whose sordid detail of corrupt life and degradation of human values repelled the public and paradoxically made him attain fame and win accolades as a writer. The truth hurts and disgusts, but we cannot escape it. His long legendary friendship with the painter Cezanne, too, perpetuates his ideology in life, though one cannot say who took off from the other, but they met at an intersection of their mindscapes. Cezzane painted the world in basic shapes of a circle, a square, and a cylinder, objects and forms reduced to their originality and truth. Zola’s 20 volume series Les Rougon-Macquart is a story of five generations of the respectable (legitimate) Rougons and the disreputable (illegitimate) Macquarts ,  a fallout of the effects of the industrial revolution of greater wealth and its entrapments.

He had followed the Dreyfus affair all along. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer, was tried for treason on slim evidence in a wave of anti-Semitism engulfing the country and sentenced to life imprisonment at the dreaded Devil’s Island, off the South American Coast. Two years later, a Colonel in the intelligence section uncovered evidence that pointed at a Major Esterhazy who had passed on secret information to the Germans and exonerated Capt.  Dreyfus. In the meantime, a few other senior army officers had arrived at the same truth.  But in their minds, the prestige of the army and the country was greater than the honor of a Jewish man. In the name of patriotism, they resorted to perjury.  Major Esterhazy was tried and acquitted, the indiscreet Colonel transferred to far dark Africa, and Dreyfus left to rot.

Emile, a dedicated follower of truth and an enemy of injustice, wrote three articles on the Dreyfus affair, but to no avail. The cynical whitewash of Esterhazy propelled him to write an open, flaming letter to the President of France, which he  took to George Clemeanceau , the editor of a struggling liberal newspaper who in turn printed it on the front page under the heading – J’ accuse (‘I Accuse!’). Zola was prosecuted for libel by a hostile jury under the influence of a raging army and sentenced to one year of imprisonment. He wrote in his letter – ‘In making these accusations, I am aware that I am making myself liable to articles 30 and 31 of the law of 29/7/1881 regarding the press, which make libel a punishable offence. I expose myself to that risk voluntarily.’

He had accomplished his purpose. Dreyfus affair reopened as an open public trial, and he was vindicated. When he died in 1902, he was mourned as a national hero. His service was attended by thirty thousand people, and Capt. Dreyfus too was present at the moment that the priest spoke the final words:  “Envy him! Envy him his destiny and his heart………..He was a moment of the conscience of man!” 

Whistleblowers are a breed unto themselves, who go all the way with their conscience, acknowledging all dangers and repercussions of their actions. Courage in the face of fear! Acts of godliness by a few in an otherwise ever-erring human species!