The floods in Jeddah have revealed the weaknesses in our system. Most of us pay bribes when we want something that we are perhaps not entitled to. We salve our consciences by telling ourselves that it was just a gift, a token of our esteem and regard. A SR10 payment for something worth SR100 is in essence no different from a payment of SR100 million that produces SR1 billion. The difference between the two is only in the price of selling our conscience.
I am not attempting to justify corruption by saying that we all practice it. I want, on the other hand, to stress the point that corruption thrives in our society. There is a joke to justify the embezzlement of public money: “There is no difference between a lost sheep and public money. You, your brother or the wolf who comes across it has the right to it.” Even if we as a society do not approve of bribery, we do not protest when someone embezzles public money, accepts bribes or usurps the rights of others. Many of us are familiar with people who have made vast fortunes in illegal ways. And we honor them, dedicate poems to them and write books that praise them. This is a situation that encourages people to seek riches by any means whatsoever. Society itself will be the major victim if it does not stand up and fight corruption.
A religious scholar reportedly told a man who asked him whether he could offer a bribe to a government official to guarantee his right that he could if there were no other way to guarantee it. There was a condition, however: that the man should hate doing it. The question should be not whether he should offer a bribe but why a man entitled to something should have to offer a bribe when there are other legal ways he could resort to? But the pertinent question is why a man with a genuine right should have to give a bribe to obtain what he was entitled to anyway and for which there are other legal ways of getting his right. But people are impatient and want their rights even if it means they have to give bribes.
Corruption cannot be eradicated by a government order. It will disappear only if the people have the collective will to root it out. The phenomenon will not take root in a society with strong social censures. It flourishes in a society with a weak structure in which a social service is a favor and the common man is helpless and has to resort to illegal means to obtain what is his due.
Corruption has different forms. Apart from hard cash, corruption takes the form of favors, favoritism or special considerations; however, when one gets anything undeservedly, or by disregarding others’ rights, it is no doubt corruption. - [email protected]>
