Corruption or Incompetence?

“We have to draft the constitution in a way that even a fool could run the government, as one day a fool will run the government”. The quote is attributed to the founding fathers of the USA. This profound wisdom highlights on the one hand the importance of institutions in a democracy and on the other hand the pitfall of a democratic system.

Institutions include the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government that enable necessary checks and balance and the independence of judiciary which means a society based on justice and meritocracy. These institutions, coupled with free markets, lay the foundation of inclusive political and economic systems which are critical for a society to achieve prolonged prosperity.

Absence of these principles infests a society with corruption. Corruption or dishonesty eats any entity (institution, government, business, society or family) like termite eats wood. It manifests in extractive political and economic system where a small group yields most power. That is the reason, corruption has a zero tolerance policy in every institution. Businesses fire their star employees on the first instance of corruption and have performance improvement plans for low performing employees; government policies also have similar rules and even punish the highest level of corruption, namely treason, with death. Infidelity or adultery in a family also results in a break up.

So those who prefer corruption over incompetence should consider the impact of their stance at the core level of a society.

Coming to the situation in Pakistan where corruption and injustice has caused extractive political and economic system to flourish for decades, one has to start reversing the course somewhere. A seven decade old malaise and a rapidly deteriorating financial situation brought Pakistan to the brink of bankruptcy. On the one hand, current government has to tackle this massive economic crisis and on the other hand, stop the bleeding by plugging the ruptured arteries because of corruption in all aspects of the government and society.

Any change towards progress takes time and goes through an initial period of chaos and disillusionment. I’ll give you three such examples from history.

1) The first 10 years of Prophet Muhammad’s prophetic life could not be classified as success by any stretch of imagination. Not only his handful of followers were the laughing stock of Makkah, they were economically crippled and the movement almost died the night when Prophet Muhammad escaped persecution with his friend Abu Bakr and migrated towards Madina.

2) Mahatma Gandhi’s life is full of struggle against a tyrant imperial power and even then he could not achieve Hindu-Muslim unity or abolish caste system in India, the two most important goals in his life.

3) Even after 190 years of declaration of independence, blacks didn’t have voting rights in America. A massive movement in the face of tyranny in 1965 under the leadership of MLK saw the equal rights legislation. Even today we see injustices embedded against people of color in USA.

Will you call these idealists incompetent?

These three examples should highlight that movement for justice is long, hard and full of challenges. And results are not achieved immediately; rather not even achieved in one life span. But the progress must continue…

So those who expect a miraculous improvement within a year of power, should take lesson from history, and patiently support the movement towards justice, rather than exhibiting naive impatience. This is just the start towards a better and just Pakistan. The alternative is status quo that will see the nation collapse; the graveyard of history is full of such nations…