Corruption
By Dr Ghulam M. Haniff
St. Cloud, Minnesota
Most people have heard of the legendary tales of corruption in Pakistan and some even have gone beyond that to tie bad government decisions with the demands for (rishwat or baksheesh) money. At one time, before General (retd.) Pervez Musharraf overthrew Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan was rampant with the demands of money from minor to major officials for doing their regular jobs. For a brief period of a few years corruption virtually disappeared but then as the government changed it re-appeared with a vengeance.
Every year a small academic organization collects data on corruption worldwide, analyses it and publishes them for the international community. Just a few months ago it again collected the data and published them. The condition in Pakistan has not changed much although there is a marked improvement from what it used to be. For several years Pakistan used to be a permanent fixture at the bottom ten of the scale but in the most recent publications it has moved up beyond that and improved its position.
Transparency International, the name of the organization, has devised a scale through which it is possible to measure corruption. The scale varies from 0 to 100 and the data point which scores the highest of all is the least corrupt and that which scores the lowest is the most corrupt. In the scale designed for 2012, Denmark scored 90, the highest of all the 177 nations studied while Somalia scored 8, the lowest of the cases studied. The other nations fell in between the two depending on their quantitative score.
The other nations at the top were Finland and New Zealand with the score of 90, so the three countries would be considered to be the least corrupt of all. At the other end of the scale were also three countries, all scoring 8 each and two countries joining the one already mentioned were Afghanistan and North Korea. The three countries have been very much in the news and corruption may be a part of the culture which had led them to a corrupt future.
The top ten countries which are the least corrupt include the European nations while the most corrupt are all the Third World countries. Only one non-European country broke into the ranks and was placed in the top ten category. This is the nation of Singapore, now very well developed with a high GDP, and has well constructed infrastructure.
The ranks of corruption-free nations do not include any Muslim country. None of them have any substantial Muslim minority population. On the other hand six countries in the bottom ten are Muslim with overwhelming Muslim populations. These have been described as the most corrupt countries in the world.
Two features of these nations stand out: none of them has achieved democratic form of government, and all of them are rent by substantial disorder and conflict. From the projections one is likely to deduce that none would develop a democratic form of governmental order either in the distant or near future. Democracy is neither understood nor appreciated in most of these nations. What is understood is raw power exercised in primitive ways. At least in the perspective of this writer, most nations which occupy geographical area in the bottom ten, should not have been made into political states.
As for the countries in South Asia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are somewhat more advanced and have managed to hang on to the reins of power in an expeditious manner. They have shown some progress in marching forward in an organized way. They have barely hung on. As far as corruption is concerned India comes in at 36 while Pakistan is at 27 and Bangladesh at 26. India is still on the downward side of the second half. Pakistan and Bangladesh are closer to the bottom ten though both of them have improved their positions. Several years ago Pakistan acquired the reputation as the most corrupt country in the world and it was on the bottom ten for a long while, though Pervez Musharraf turned it around. However, it is still behind India which should be a concern for the people of that nation. There is no reason for Pakistan to be that far behind India since both were created from the same social and human resources.
When it comes to asking for money Muslims show no shame. If it was not for the oil wealth Muslims would be among the poorest people in the world. The only Muslim countries in the first half are the small nations, such as Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, etc. In managing public wealth the weakest area for the Muslim to manage has been, and continues to be, that of finance and economics.
With millions of dollars passing through their hands Muslim managerial personal should be good at dreaming at what could be done with all this money. Unfortunately, others take advantage of them and come up with imaginative innovations. The organizations and people in the West have come up with novel ideas in all fields and have forged ahead. If students were given rigorous training in liberal arts they would be in a position to benefit from the unlimited supply of dollars.
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