Author Mandy Wiener has written a new book entitled The Whistleblowers, which shares the stories and experiences of whistleblowers in South Africa, according to an October 6 article from The South African.
The book “looks at a cross-section of people in South Africa who have chosen to speak up, who have chosen to speak truth to power, who have risked everything for the interest of truth and of justice, and about what happens to them in South Africa,” Wiener said in a September 22 YouTube video. She makes a point to mention that the book is not an exhaustive list of whistleblowers, but, rather, stories that “grabbed me in some way, were compelling,” and that represented a range of whistleblower experiences. Wiener teamed up with photographer Felix Dlangamandla to tell these stories, according to The South African.
“One of the reasons that I wanted to write this book was because I really wanted to advocate for some kind of cultural change and legislative change as well,” Wiener said. She mentioned that in the U.S. and U.K., whistleblowers are sometimes celebrated, but that is not the case in South Africa: “They should be treated as heroes. They should be given national orders. We should really applaud them and appreciate them and laud them, and we don’t.”
In the video, Wiener said that South Africa does have a main whistleblower law called the Protected Disclosures Act (PDA), but each of the whistleblowers she spoke to for the book project “said that they had been let down” by the law. Wiener is inspired to advocate for stronger whistleblower protection in South Africa.
