Sunday May 1, 2005
Lip service to ethical standards
Politics in Canada starts to feel like those old black-and-white Saturday serials at the movie houses – every episode leaves you hanging, wondering what will happen next.
Last week, Prime Minister Paul Martin swung a deal to avoid defeat of his minority government. However, the deal so infuriated opposition leader Stephen Harper that he vowed to defeat the government immediately.
After the NDP agreed to support the Liberal government\’s budget in return for program concessions, Harper announced, “As soon as we get back, I will be asking our caucus to put this government out of its misery…”
Harper defined the problem: “The prime minister has just cut a four-a-half billion dollar deal to buy votes to deal with allegations of vote buying.”
Thus the sponsorship scandal, the systemic corruption exhumed by the Gomery commission, fuels our off-again on-again federal election.
Endemic corruption
I came home from Africa on April Fool\’s Day. Most of the western world thinks of Africa as riddled with corruption. In many ways, it is. The Toronto Star launched a feature report with these words: “In Kenya, people routinely pay bribes for just about every service – health, education, policing, the courts, railways, telephone – even those services supposedly covered by their taxes.”
British High Commissioner Edward Clay didn\’t mince words in attacking Kenya\’s government. He directly accused Kenyan ministers of being gluttons who vomited on the shoes of western governments that provided billions in development funding.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair\’s Commission on Africa, titled Our Common Future, blamed corruption as Africa\’s major impediment to growth. Africa, he noted, is the only continent that grew poorer in the last 25 years.
And then I came home to find corruption similarly endemic in my own country\’s political system. Not to the extent of Kenya\’s, perhaps. But certainly common to more political parties than just the federal Liberals.
Perhaps Africa offers some insight into how these things happen.
Most people assume that corruption involves an absence of ethics. I disagree. The people involved do have an ethic. They stick to it religiously. It\’s just not the ethic to which they pay lip service.
The rest of the world may be more honest about acknowledging that mismatch than we Canadians are.
An alternative ethic
Years ago, a missionary in Zambia explained the African ethic to me. Nothing since then has caused me to reject his interpretation.
In Africa, he said, the dominant ethic is to look after your family. If you have wealth, or access to wealth, you have a responsibility, indeed, an obligation, to share it with your children, your siblings, your parents, your cousins, your uncles and aunts…
After the family, you share with the clan or tribe. And after that, with your region, your nation, your world… Except that before long everyone beyond the clan or tribe starts looking like an enemy.
When I talk with people who have worked in India, in Indonesia, in the Philippines, in China, they tell me the same ethic prevails there too.
It doesn\’t much matter to this ethic whether the money is actually your own, or just happens to be passing through your hands.
It takes incredible courage and integrity to reject this whole social system, and to ensure that money goes to the destination for which it was given. All of it. Not just some of it.
That is why corruption reigns in Kenya, in Zimbabwe, in Nigeria, in the Congo… And in Ethiopia, where I was. Although many people continue to venerate the late Haile Selassie, the self-titled Lion of Judah, he ripped off his people as unmercifully as any other African dictator.
Only Botswana seems to have made distinct progress in reducing corruption.
Based on my own personal observations, the most likely place to find a Mercedes in Africa is near a government office. Elsewhere, they drive cars and trucks that would give any motor vehicle inspector in Canada a heart attack.
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The root of this ethic is loyalty. You are expected to be loyal to those who are loyal to you.
Which is precisely how the mandarins in Ottawa used sponsorship funds. They rewarded their benefactors. And vice versa.
The warlords in Afghanistan reward their mercenaries by handing out weapons.
African officials reward their supporters by handing out cash. Or jobs. Or favorable treatment in court. In Rwanda, the reward for belonging to the right tribal group was the privilege of staying alive.
In Canada, they hand out contracts.
Let\’s not kid ourselves that this particular ethic is found only among politicians, either.
We pay lip service to the ideal that individuals should be utterly trustworthy. They should not profit from funds entrusted to their care.
Many individuals live by that ethic. But even the most idealistic of us would be hard pressed not to dip into available funds if our children were starving.
We\’re expected to stand by delinquent relatives, whatever their offence.
Institutions and corporations consider themselves entitled to make a profit on funds that pass through their hands. They charge commissions and handling fees. They pay their own staff for the duties they perform. Not too different from hiring members of your family in Africa.
The business I know best is publishing. All Canadian publishing houses are currently struggling. Even the mighty Harlequin empire failed to lay golden eggs last year.
If some philanthropist were to give a few billion dollars to encourage Canadian literature, you can bet that publishing houses would first reward their own employees and pay off their creditors. Then they would hire consultants. Only as a last resort would they hand out cash to potential authors, who might or might not eventually produce brilliant manuscripts.
A corporate entity or institution is just a different form of extended family.
The root of corruption is not an absence of ethics. It\’s adherence to the wrong ethic for today\’s world.
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Copyright © 2002 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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