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Afghanistan, corruption, culture, daily life, GIRoA, government, government effectiveness, humor, justice system, politics, services
One final thought on corruption before I get off this topic for the time being. Afghans love to gripe about corruption. The moment they realize that an American is interested in talking politics instead of just asking where the Taliban are or where to build a new school, Afghans settle themselves into a comfortable squat (that doesn’t make sense to me either) and start laying out the reasons their politicians are terrible at their jobs. General inefficiency was one of the top conversations, but the winner was corruption.
To be fair, if you ask most Americans what they think of their politicians, they’re likely to tell you the same thing.
It was that thought that inspired me, one cold winter day, to tell the Afghan man I was talking to that Afghans weren’t the only ones in that boat. We were down in Spera in Khost, a district that didn’t exactly have a stellar reputation when it came to strong government leaders. As we hopped from foot to foot to keep warm, the man had complained about his government with the usual descriptions of excessive favoritism, nepotism, and extortion.
I replied by telling him about a recent case involving a corrupt judge in Pennsylvania that had affected my family directly. The judge had been conducting some shady business for years and had only just got caught. As I spoke, the Afghan man’s eyes got wide and his jaw fell open. That was not the image he had of American. He slowly started to chuckle.
“So you see,” I said, “America has corruption too. We’re just better at hiding it.”
At this, he threw back his head and laughed.
“Well,” he said as he calmed down, “it seems like Afghanistan is better than America because at least our politicians are honest about their corruption.”
Forgive me for writing off topic, but it just occurred to me that those people who have the most severe problems tend to laugh the most. Maybe it occurred to me once before, and I just picked up on that again, I also had a little bit of a deja vue from my trip to Russia, where corruption is running rampant as well. In fact, it is so common place, that people can’t imagine how anything works without a bribe, one reason why they admire western countries. Anyway, when I told them about the cases of corruption I knew of that had gone on in Germany, they couldn’t believe something like that would be such a scandal; for them, it literally was a laughing matter.
As a person who lived in the Middle East – this post really resonated with me. Awesome, thank you for sharing.
Absolutely concur. Every time I hear our “leaders” harass Afghan leaders about corruption it is quite difficult for me to not laugh out loud. Even the ones that are not corrupt in an official manner use the public coffers to in effect “buy votes”…however the ones that don’t typically are unable to get re-elected so where does that leave us as a country?
Politicians are only honest about their corruption when they finally get caught. Lol
Came across this article on the BBC today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21364557#
Thought it was relevant. The notion that one place may be less susceptible to corruption than another is wrong. Every establishment is at risk of letting someone who is corrupt gain influence. The trick is putting a system in place that disproportionally rewards honest behavior.
Oh, I don’t know, I think our politicians have grown much bolder. I don’t think they are hiding their corruption as much these days. “What difference does it make” As one recently stated.