The World has a Common Enemy, Corruption

The World has a Common Enemy, Corruption

By: Erreh Svaia

“The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst”.

David Hume

In 2015, Guatemalan president Otto Perez and his vice president were arrested in Guatemala under charges of corruption, they were prosecuted and remain in jail, it was an example of how anti-corruption laws were working better in small countries like Guatemala instead of larger ones like Mexico, in 2016, it was Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff's turn, she was impeached accused of covering a large net of corrupted acts (the infamous Lavo Jato case) between her government functionaries and engineering company giant Odebrecht, Dilma was ex-president Lula David Silva successor, Lula was a political icon in Brazil, a union leader who became president backed by the  enormous Worker's Party in a continental movement towards a "new left" that saw Brazil becoming one of the brightest star of the so called BRICS, emergent countries whose economic development were improving at an astonishing pace (thanks to China´s new semi open economy), Lula set the stage for Brazil ascension as one of the main economies in the world, a Pope's visit (Francisco first country visited as a Pope), a Soccer World Cup and the Olympics were events set in motion by Lula and continued by Dilma, but accusations of increasingly regular acts of corruption started to blossom, large social protests started to happen in the main cities of the country, first, the nascent and larger middle class, developed during Lula's administration started to demand better jobs and better healthcare conditions, then they started demanding harsher punishment for corruption acts and irresponsible money spending by the government (as the money from the commodities bonanza disappeared suddenly), the Pope visit helped appease a bit the social unrest, but it quickly returned a little before the World Soccer Cup, and Dilma's presidency was finally put to a halt right before the Olympics, again society demanded, she was impeached and busted from the presidential office, as vice president Michel Temer assumed presidential ditties, but rampant corruption still continued haunting Brazilian government as it has spread to members of others parties beyond the Worker's and becoming systemic just like in México´s case.

Before last year's end, massive social protest took the exuberant streets of fast growing Seoul, people demanding the destitution of president Park Geun-hye, daughter of dictator Park Chung-hee, Geun-hye was impeached by the National Assembly accused of being under the influence of one of her friends who apparently was controlling Geun-hye decisions, using her influence on her to bribe several top industries in the country, social protests were impressive and overwhelming prompting Geun-hye to resign her position as South Korean society set an example to the world of disciplined ad peaceful intolerance towards corruption in their government, proving that is the government the one that should fear society's rage and not vice versa, South Korea´s robust middle class managed to put the government under stress in a faster and more focused way than in Brazil, it was a sign of how powerful a middle class should be and why corrupt governments don’t want it to exist and expand, it was an inspiring example of how we meant our society, our government and the world to be.

This year started with social protest (the biggest one, with approximately 500,000 participants, since the end of communism) taking place in Romania, just a couple of days ago, after the government tried to pass a law to lessen the decriminalization of corruption at a certain level, supposedly in order to alleviate the over populated penitentiary system in the country, Romanian society saw this as an attempt by current Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu to open the path to the ascension of Social Democratic Party (PSD) leader Liviu Dragnea as the new Prime Minister, considering that Dragnea is not eligible actually for the position because of an ongoing corruption process against him, which caused Romanian society to flood the streets and protest not only against the initiative of the decriminalization law, but against the government of Grindeanu, Romania, one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the European Union, showed that it's society was not going to accept a step backwards in the fight against corruption, an evil that has made big damage to the country, Romanians stormed the streets of Bucharest in a way the country and the world hasn’t seen since the fall of communism, it was a brilliant and vibrant way to make a stand against government´s corruption, let´s not forget that a couple of years ago, Grindeanu predecessor, Victor Ponta, was forced to leave his position in the middle of  accusations against his government because of negligence in the case of a deadly fire the Colectiv nightclub, Romanians brave fight against corruption in their country is a complex situation, considering that the country has survived the wave of national populism hitting the European Union, the role that Romanian civil society and their National Anticorruption Directorate have played in order to keep corruption in decreasing numbers, has helped the East Europe country to stay away from today´s French tough dilemma of electing either a “crook or a fascist”    

Corruption is begging to emerge as one of the world's largest and worst plague, bigger than inequality, corruption is largely seem as a factor of social unrest and a cause of larger social demonstrations against corrupt governments, society is a slowly taking a more prominent and intolerant stance against corruption and social networks are helping making things more transparent and giving people more and more information about the government's wrongdoings, is not that people are irrationally angry, is just that politicians are more exposed and internet gives people a better chance of finding out and organizing better to fight them, is a fight for democracy and freedom, and a way to help ourselves for falling into a populist trap.

I don’t believe that preaching morality and good old values is enough to counter ever present corruption in the government, is with strict vigilance that we are going to be able to fight this almost endemic evil, and we need to be strictly vigilant over public functionaries and public servants, the same way communist dictatorial regimes kept a hardcore vigilance over society, nowadays is society the ones that should keep the same hardcore vigilance on government.