EVEN OUR STUDENTS ARE NOW BRIBING AND CHEATING!

Al-Mada, Iraq, June 30

I’ve already written and commented at length about the problem of corruption in Iraq. Just when I thought I’d seen it all, a new incident is exposed – leaving me stunned about the grave situation we’ve reached in our country.

Last week we learned that middle-school graduate examinations in Islamic studies have been leaked to students ahead of the test, forcing the government to cancel the exam across the country. The person behind the leak is assumed to be none other than a Muslim clerk working for the Education Ministry in Falluja. What irony! A clerk undermining the importance of teaching students the beauty of Islam.

And yet, corruption is not unique to religious figures. It is common across all realms of life in Iraq, from big to small organizations. We’ve all read of the forging of ballots in the recent parliamentary elections, which led to the manipulation of election outcomes. We’ve all learned that military commanders fake their units’ rosters to increase the salaries paid to them by the government. We are all aware of what it takes to speed things up in government offices, and how far a bribe can get us.

Indeed, corruption has become so ubiquitous in our society that it is now an integral part of our lives. It is almost as if public figures are expected – even encouraged at times – to cheat and lie. They are evaluated by the public not on the basis of their platforms, but rather on their ability to come up with new corrupt schemes to enhance their power. This is a very big problem. Iraq is already a poor country suffering from many social ailments. We cannot afford to waste our limited public funds on bribes and extortions.

We are a nation rich in natural resources and human capital, yet we fail to achieve even our most basic goals because of our chronic corruption disease. This corruption has now reached a shocking level, plaguing even our education system. Instead of educating for honesty and morality, we are now teaching our children the merits of fraud and deception.