Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Corruption is a Cancer and Some Countries are Sicker Than Others (An Opinion Piece)

“Why is corruption so hard to remove in our country?”

This question was asked by a person on Facebook. The question and the answer they provided were country-specific. They were discussing the present situation in India and presented an outsider’s point of view on why corruption is an accepted way of life in that country.
I am also an outsider. I live in the United States and have never been to India or to a lot of other places in this world. (Never even been to California.) That doesn’t stop me from having a point of view and my perspective is not country-specific. It’s a world view.

Corruption is a cancer that exists all around the world. ALL countries get sick from it. Some countries are more sick, more than others. But no country is immune to corruption.




In fact, there is no place on earth where people live in a community with rules that should be followed for orderliness, settling disputes, punishing wrongdoing, and living a peaceful happy life, where corruption won’t rear its ugly head. Once it happens …

CORRUPTION is hard to remove in ANY COUNTRY!

How does corruption occur? It’s the G-men!
We won’t include organized crime, cartels, gangs, and thugs in this discussion. Let’s talk about the other G-men. Not “G” for gangster. “G” for government officials.
First, the corrupt person (one lone individual) provides “fake promises” that will dutifully serve the people; knowing full well that they really only intend to serve themselves and help themselves to whatever they can get!
Once The Corrupt get into their positions and hunker down, they have absolutely no plans for leaving. EVER! Not only that, they surround themselves with supporters who get treats and rewards for “being naughty” FOR THEM.
They build a stronghold of “invisible soldiers”. Invisible? Yes. Quite often you don’t know who’s serving who. It’s not like these people walk around wearing a badge that identifies them.
Then there are those who are NOT supporters but they are too afraid to do anything or speak out against the pernicious acts of the G-men because they fear for their lives or the lives of those they love. It’s just a matter of self-preservation.
As complicated as the matter is, when faced with corruption there are only 3 solutions/choices.

Fight, Flight or Stay.

Fight. Stand up for your rights and demand change. Some use force, weapons and violence. Some use peaceful nonviolent methods. Either way. THEY FIGHT!
Flight. Leave and go live elsewhere. Hey! Home Sweet Home is wherever you can build it. Mr. Von Trapp was a wealthy man (according to the movie “Sound of Music”)’ but he took his family and left the country anyway!
Stay. Live with it. Not everyone has the physical and mental strength to fight. Not everyone has the means to leave. If you can’t leave and you feel you’re not strong and/or brave enough to fight, then you acquiesce. You resign yourself to the fact that corruption in your daily life is the “normal” and you take each day as it comes. There is a tiny bit of hope buried deep down inside of you that maybe one day you’ll be delivered from evil.

Even though corruption is hard to get rid of, it’s not IMPOSSIBLE!

The purveyors and perpetrators of corruption can be brought down. I would say brought down low. But The Corrupt are already LOW! They just take their seat in high places.
Cause and effect. If one can eliminate the cause, one can eliminate corruption.
Most people think Divine intervention is too slow, so often a military overthrow is the solution.
But well-known singer/songwriter Sting says that he “never saw a military solution that didn’t end up as something worse”.
So why is it so hard to root out corruption?

Simply put … the root cause of corruption is … Brother Against Brother.

That’s why it’s so hard. Hard. Not impossible.
Agree or Disagree.
** Since the question on Facebook was specifically about India, here is an interesting link.  India Corruption Rank | 1995-2019 Data | 2020-2022 Forecast | Historical | Chart






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