Avoid the pitfalls
ON our way towards progress as one nation, as one people under God, we find many pitfalls. All too often, the biggest pitfall of all is created by corruption.
No wonder, corruption has been referred to as the biggest obstacle to progress. It is a millstone hung around our neck. It slows us down. It weakens us. It is often likened to a cancer that keeps gnawing at our vital organs. It makes our society sick.
Naturally, the fight against corruption has become the call of the times. It has become priority number one: unless we extirpate it; unless we remove it as a dead weight, we would never be able to go fast nor far. We would always be left lagging behind, shamed by our inability to do good and great things, and bereft of a good name and a solid reputation as a respectable people. We remain mired in mud, with mudslinging a favourite pastime: with so many slinging mud at so many others, especially at so many of our public officials.
And yet, the fight against corruption, high priority as it is, cannot be undertaken by passing more laws and rules alone. It cannot be pursued by employing many more auditors and additional gate-keepers, who check on every transaction and pass on the propriety of every government decision. It cannot be won by conducting endless investigations and creating more entities to police and if necessary prosecute (actually sending them to jail or barring them forever from public office) corrupt officials. All these are absolutely important; they all help carry on the anti-corruption agenda.
Corruption being systemic also has to be fought in a systemic way. Bits and pieces of initiatives would not do the job. Only if they are properly coordinated and synchronized would those bits and pieces prosper. Moreover, coordinated and synchronized anti-corruption initiatives need to be sustained: they have to be pursued year in and year out, over several years. It is as though the big monster of corruption has to be chipped down, bit by bit; its blood has to be drained, drop by drop; its tentacles chopped off, little by little. Here, the value of small things becomes awesomely clear: for as long as we are systematic and sustained in our efforts, and smart in striking where we can do the most damage to a corrupt system, then every bit and piece — no matter how small — would count, and count enormously in the end.
“Systemic, sustained, and smart” are three key words that can often be put together in one word, and that word is “strategic”: among many things, “strategic” entails striking where it is smart to do so in order to make an enormous difference. It also entails sustained effort over a long enough period of time such that the difference it makes would affect the entire system positively.
Everything that “strategic” entails points to governance: it is never about the short term only; it is mainly about the long term. It is never about tactics merely to go from point “A” to point “B”; rather, it is about making smart choices and decisions in order to clean up an entire system or significantly improve the way of doing things. It is about introducing a new culture; it is about positively changing the manner in which the game is played. It is never about winning a few battles here and there; it is mainly about winning the war (and the peace as well that comes as a consequence of war).
It is in this light that the fight against corruption is one side of a coin; the other side of that same coin is a program for good governance. The first highlights the core problem; the second, the side of governance, highlights the solution; both, however, are two sides of exactly the same coin.