In Indonesia, it is almost impossible to get anything done if you are not willing to help things along with a bribe or two. The Chinese there have a saying: "If you want big fish, you mustn't be too hung up about small fish."
If you know the right people, you can get your driver's license made on-the-spot for about $20 or so, without so much as stepping foot in a car. If you get a $50 fine for speeding (regardless of whether you were actually speeding), it will be forgotten with an appropriate tip to the policeman. Well-to-do Indonesians actually hire people to check in for them at airports to avoid the hassle!
Singapore is usually commended for being corruption-free. Perhaps some of us are tempted to think that it is in our nature to be as clean and straight as a starched white PAP shirt, but I don't think so. We are only clean because we don't want to get caught!
A case in point: my buddy's Treo 650 got stolen last week. While attending to a patient in an emergency, she placed the $600 palm-phone on the table right beside the bed. By the time she was done, it was gone. This was within closed curtains, outside of visiting hours. Who took it? It could only have been staff.
I think, as a people, we do what we can get away with, and that we only appear incorruptible only because we can get away with so little in this over-watched nation state. When I was ten years old, I used to throw in eight one-cent coins in the bus and pass it off as ten cents. (Yes I was a little cheat.) Not to mention hitting $0.60 on the transitlink no matter the distance I was travelling. Then they installed EZ Link to cut off the cheaters like me.
Does the country with the biggest muscle inevitably bully? Does absolute power corrupt? In a way, if countries are driven by their own self-interests, how can they not bully? Israel and Palestine, trade laws that favour the developed nations... What about the unintended offence US gave Osama bin Ladin in the wars in Afghanistan? Even Switzerland, in the spirit of neutrality, may not do what she ought to do.
Which begs the question: does God have self-interests?
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Does absolute power corrupt absolutely?
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2 comments:
God is interested.
I remember when I went to my "Motherland", I saw some first hand scenarios of bribing taking place. Sometimes my parents would be the ones initiating the action and my eyes'd bulge out as I gaped away in disbelief. They say I'm gullible, and naive. It's true. The world is a wicked place. We try to veneer it with a dash of good manners and good will; we succeed variably.
It seems so easy to be bad and awful. Maybe that's why our world is in this quagmire now. But hey, history teaches is otherwise: Your little world is always in trouble.
It does seem easy to be bad and awful doesn't it? Not saying that bribing is necessarily bad and awful.. That may be the cultural equivalent of tipping, if you know what I mean.
"We try to veneer it with a dash of good manners and good will; we succeed variably."
Well-said. We seem to have the same opinion on human nature. :)
Hope you had a good weekend, E.
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