When corruption is blamed on the West

In response to a recent report by the anti-corruption organisation, International Transparency, in which Bangladesh came at the bottom of a list of 91 countries as the most corrupt country in the world (It was given 0.4 out of a total of 10 points), I could not hear a worse comment on this issue than the remarks made by Bangladesh's Finance Minister Saifur Rahman to the BBC in early October.

I wish Saifur Rahman had not made these remarks as he gave a funny justification by saying that corruption in his country was initially taught and practiced by the West, hence denying the responsibility of his government and previous Bangladeshi administrations for such a phenomenon.

Of course, this justification is the easiest and least costly. Indeed, the easiest thing for anyone in power in the Third World is to blame the West for corruption, defeats and backwardness. It is certainly simple just to blame the consequences of such state of affairs on the foreigners, employing the common conspiracy theory.

By doing so, an official can clear himself of responsibility and shine up his image as being honest, a man of integrity, and having acumen in leadership. The task becomes easier when his people is captive to a state of chronic hostility towards the West as a result of religious, nationalistic or ideological mobilisation.

Tree of corruption

It seems that the Bangladeshi minister forgets, or deliberately ignores, the fact that if we assume just for the sake of argument that the West has cultivated the seeds of corruption when his country was under a Western colonial power, the latter has departed Bangladesh some 50 years ago and transferred the power to local nationalist elite.

Consequently, it was assumed that the tree of corruption should have been uprooted immediately or the water supply would have been cut in order that it would die out on its own.

It also seems that the Bangladeshi minister deliberately forgets that had the West continued to intervene in his country's affairs and water the tree of corruption in the 1950s and 1960s when Bangladesh was Pakistan's eastern wing and the latter was involved in Western strategic pacts, the Bangladeshis have become for more than three decades free within their own independent entity. This brings to mind the question of wasn't it possible in such a new situation and with strategic disengagement with the West to uproot corruption?

Favouritism

Wasn't it possible to pave the ground for creating a transparent, just and ethical society, especially with the disappearance of the generations and elite that learned corruption at the hands of the West and the emergence of new political and economic figures?

In other words, were not the latter supposed to introduce invulnerable democratic mechanisms that could prevent the growth of corruption or at least reduce it while sending the corrupt persons to fair and just courts, instead of allowing favouritism, covering up mistakes, and using the judiciary as a tool for political revenge as seen in the case of the two fierce rivals, Hasina Wajid and Khalida Zia?

However Bangladesh is not the only country that uses the above-mentioned excuses for its corruption. China, which according to Transparency International ranks 57th among 91 countries with 3.4 points out of 10, also holds that the blame falls squarely on the "imperialist capitalist West" for being responsible for the spread and growth of corruption within the circles of the government agencies, the army, ruling party and economic institutions.

Usually no other parties are held responsible for this phenomenon and not a word of self-criticism is mentioned.

Perhaps the nearest example that proves the point we are making is the official book that was recently published in China over the case of the former Shenyang city mayor and deputy party secretary, Mu Suixin, who received a suspended death sentence.

Mu and 23 other officials were accused of accepting cash and gifts totaling millions of renminbi in exchange for approving land deals, waiving taxes, and selling state-owned firms at cut-rate prices. They were also accused of using public funds in gambling at casinos in Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia and Korea.

In the book, we first read details of how Mu and his colleagues abused their power. Then the book goes in another direction to say that what has happened could not have occurred if it was not for the Western hostile forces that "plot to stop our planned growth" through cultivating corruption among government officials and encouraging them to evolve away from communism and toward capitalist and bourgeois values.

The book goes on to offer recommendations to the ruling Communist Party including the necessity of paying more attention to the morality and loyalty of candidates for public office and semi-public bodies.

Here one must ask wasn't it better to recommend the appointment of the right person in the right place according to the principle of the people's right to choose their own leaders in a free and transparent way and their right to oversee and hold them accountable for their performance instead of just imposing some figures whose only qualification is their loyalty to the one party ideology?

Strict measures

The book has deliberately ignored that in the case of a vast country like China, where current economic boom and investment opportunities created almost ideal conditions for the spread of bribes and committing financial crimes, there is no way of curbing such trends except by reforming the political system, adopting plurality, transparency, openness and accountability in addition to an independent judiciary and free media.

It is true that the Chinese regime has adopted strict measures against corruption to maintain its credibility towards the masses and to deter those who may consider abusing their positions to make unlawful gains.

It is also true that not a long time passes without a government or party official being arrested for involvement in such offences as proven by the number of cases handled by courts of white collar corruption during the period from 1997 to 2000 ( 118,600 cases). The most recent conviction for imprisonment for 15 years last October involved the chairman of the state-owned Everbright Group.

Lack of transparency

Meanwhile, the head of the China Construction Bank and former Chairman of the Central Bank, Wang Xuebing awaits the issue of a judgement against him for loan manipulation. However, it is also true that with the lack of transparency, free press and independent judiciary, it often happens that the small heads are toppled while the bigger corrupt heads are safe from prosecution let alone the inability to follow all cases of corruption.

On the whole, whether corruption is a Western or purely local product, it is an ill that spreads and can destroy the body if it survives in the appropriate breeding ground.

The best ground for its growth is a closed environment that does not believe in freedom of speech and people's accountability. Chasing those involved