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Virtuality

Despite PM Ms Benazir Bhutto’s wide-eyed poker-faced disclaimer about corruption (what corruption?) to the David Frost question in his Breakfast Show, “Virtual Reality” is that the corruption perception index for 1996 produced by Transparency International (TI), a multi-national organization dedicated to curb corruption in international business, places Pakistan second in corrupt countries behind Nigeria, adjudged to be the most corrupt (not by far) among the 54 countries surveyed. Among the least corrupt countries, New Zealand was first i.e. at No 54. In order of rascality among the Muslim nations (other than Nigeria that preceded us) Pakistan was followed in order of demerit by Bangladesh (at No. 4), Indonesia (at 10), Uganda (at 12), Egypt (at 14), Turkey (at 22), Jordan (at 25) and Malaysia (at 29). It is scant consolation that India is not far behind us (at No. 9 position) in the corruption stakes. Should we be happy that we are more corrupt than our perennial arch-rival or hang our heads in shame that even they are less corrupt than we are? To some of us it is a matter of embarrassment, to those who have worked overtime to put us on this shameful pedestal, does it really matter?

According to the article in Financial Times (Monday June 3, 1996), TI, with Headquarters in Berlin, defines corruption as “the misuse of public power for private benefits”. It tries to assess the degree to which public officials and politicians in various countries are involved in such practices as siphoning bribes, taking illicit payments in public procurement and the embezzling of public funds. TI’s summary of findings is based on 10 international business surveys, most conducted among foreign businessmen doing business with the survey-target countries. In the past three years we have deteriorated rapidly in the corruption stakes, sliding from a low of 2.25 points out of 10 in 1995 to even low 1.00 point in 1996, being bracketed by Nigeria’s 0.69/10 and Kenya’s 2.21/10 (at No.3 position). At the reverse end of the corruption scale, New Zealand retained its LEAST CORRUPT status but fell slightly from its high of 9.55 out of 10 (1995) to 9.43/10 (1996). Even the so-called “Banana Republics” that people in (and out of) uniform are usually scornful about are considerably less corrupt than Pakistan, the closest being Colombia at 15th position with 2.73 points out of 10.

A short time ago, a gentleman of leisure purchased a 400 year old several hundred (or thousands?) acres estate in Surrey in England, out-bidding in open auction the Sultan of Brunei, considered to be the richest man in the world. While there are rich Pakistani expatriate businessmen who can conceivably afford to splurge quite a quantum of money on such real-estate baubles but even these expatriates scarcely have the combined capacity to take on the likes of the Brunei billions. Pretensions of landed gentry notwithstanding, anyone attempting to equal the style and snob appeal of British nobility and the Sultan’s wealth has to have either oil wells a la Brunei or have an illegal “largesse well” in direct approximation to the corruption level obtaining in Pakistan. No doubt such “investments” abroad have contributed to our rapidly declining reputation with respect to corruption.

The virtual reality (or virtuality) of corruption may have seriously damaged the economic fabric of this nation, the more serious havoc has been to the moral fabric of our body politic as well as our reputation in the rest of the world, particularly intending investors. Quite frankly, we have no credibility at any level in any discipline. After all, misuse of the public mandate to conduct outright piracy on such a grand scale can only be achieved through extensive collaboration by government functionaries, willing or otherwise, irrespective of whether they are themselves imbued with an irrepressible capacity to indulge in corruption. The endless greed on display is akin to a platter of food placed before a really hungry man who then proceeds to wolf down the food with both hands. But what about those who are not corrupt themselves but chose to deliberately ignore this reality of corruption? Those among our leaders, whether political civil or military, business, etc who continue to believe that since they themselves do not take part in looting the nation, their benign abstinence absolves them of any responsibility and/or culpability need to be rapidly disabused as to this fantasy. They cannot be absolved of their liability that should affect not only their conscience but is also a constitutional and moral obligation. There is no such thing as a “free ride” in the matter of conscience based on benign ignorance. When one has the intimate knowledge of wrongdoing in high places there is public responsibility that one owes to the State (and its citizens). While some of our hierarchy seem to feel that as long as they choose to close their eyes and ears to the cacophony of malfeasance around them, violation of the public trust by others does not require any protest from them, a stage has come where most of our senior bureaucrats fall over themselves in ingratiating themselves to whoever is in power, compounding the situation by teaching ways around established checks and balances that only bureaucracy can know how to circumvent without creating masses of evidence. The most disingenuous argument used to justify their collaboration in this chicanery is that it does not fall in line with their “constitutional” responsibilities. Democracy’s strength lies in accountability by all the trustees of government, not in their active collaboration on dubious grounds or even feigning benign indifference.

Virtual Reality is that our economy will not be able to withstand further rape, it will lead to the collapse of our financial system notwithstanding all the glib rhetoric in the world. This will certainly have a disastrous effect on the whole socio-economic infrastructure and most particularly national security. The rapid decline of the Pakistani Rupee makes it more expensive to replace our critical military hardware and as everyone knows there is a direct relationship between transferring illegal money abroad and inflation. This is a Catch-22 situation where each negative factor feeds on the other and the cumulative effect puts us that much deeper into an economic morass. Gradually the day to day needs are going out of the reach of the common man as inflation feeds on massive corruption. Electricity is almost unaffordable to the middle class at the present time, in a few months so will the telephone be. With gas and transportation not much behind, almost 95% of the population is well on the way back to the Dark Ages, kept afloat only by the shrill populist rhetoric of our leaders. Virtual Reality is that those who have brought us to this state will probably be enjoying their homes on the outskirts of Paris, the French Riveira, Surrey, etc while we become a footnote to history on the Somalia/Liberia pattern.

Every citizen has fundamental rights, among them the right of self-defence. When the people’s right of existence is being threatened, should they forswear the right to defend themselves? And how does one defend oneself in a sham democracy? And on the same analogy are the people right in expecting that the civil and military hierarchy that is not involved in the malfeasance have a national duty to take up cudgels on their behalf? Or should they stand aloof behind the fig leaf of “constitutional obligation” while the country becomes bankrupt ?

Buffeted by a combination of years of administrative excess and neglect, our people have developed a fatalist tendency when faced with the hydra-headed twin monsters of corruption and nepotism. Ms Benazir went so far as to label the Berlin Report as “flim flam”. Instead of reacting positively by identifying malfeasance the PM has resorted to obfuscation, the rhetoric of the contrary, one wonders why? Maybe she knows that generally those who matter, in and out of uniform, tend to remain reluctant in interfering with nepotism and corruption as long as it does not directly affect them. Her reading of Virtual Reality seems to be based on the sheer apathy of the common citizen in protesting white-collar crime. It is a matter of great regret that even the confirmation of our corrupt status has not shamed us into some action, surely even a hint of protest will be enough to bring accountability into our body politic. For the sake of our continued existence on the face of this Earth one hopes that we should soon find someone who will be willing to risk THAT Virtual Reality.

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