Transparency International and our Gilgameshs

Pakistan has dropped a few notches on the Transparency International Corruption Index for the year 2018 and guess what, Imran Khan and his government is to blame. Most political analysts were quick to hold the government from the scurf of its political neck and took it for a bumpy political ride on the issue. Understandably so, because our political loyalties remain divided and the government that came to power on the slogan of ‘anti-corruption’ was not supposed to nudge backwards but move forward. Is the current government, and the country that it runs, as corrupt as it was in its predecessors time? Did the ‘dynastic rule’ that continued in power and followed each other in succession (2008-2018) contribute nothing to corruption in Pakistan?

What if the rulers themselves engage in business and commerce? Were our rulers of democracy not engaged in such an activity? Were they not our rich men and women from the rich dynastic families that always had more money, yet made more — could anyone compete with them with the political power that they enjoyed? Who would dare bid against them? When rulers are businessmen and businesswomen, don’t they buy cheap, forcing the sellers to offer the cheapest possible prices for obvious reasons? Without even thin-slicing their industrial and commercial engagements, one could only have a look at their residential acquiring in the Cliftons and the Model Towns of the country to realise how easy it was to force a seller to sell even when he didn’t want to, and that too at a low price. Obviously all this can happen when the purchaser is the ruler of the country. Not just this, but the ‘business running rulers’ create a critical situation where their competitors give up hopes and give up their businesses and leave the room open for them to further escalate their business and be the sole beneficiaries in that particular sector of the business to make more and more money.

Would this not be called corruption when their earnings skyrocket and their fortunes stand up as skyscrapers compared to the inhabitants of thousands of slums and shantytowns who live and die every day because of lack of opportunities? The ‘ruling morality’ along with its wealth disappears and together with them proceeds abroad. What is left here is their second tier leadership which is already trained in the art of ‘monopolisation and extraction of economic benefits’ and so they continue to extract similar economic benefits from a system largely made unaccountable under an umbrella of ineffective bureaucratic management that was created on purpose. Can all this be turned around in a day, weeks, months or couple of years? Are we all so unreasonable and so irrational not to understand this?

Corruption can never sustain itself in a society unless high-ranking elites, civil servants and our great members of the Parliament are not sucked into a corrupt system. Those that hold on to ‘corrupt power’ do so with their assistance. The incomes and earnings that flow into the rulers kitty is also shared with these assistants as without their support rulers ruling us with ‘corrupt power’ cannot hold on to it and endure. Even when the rulers sidestep and sideline themselves, members of their dynasty and those who co-opted with them continue to run the show.

Thus the imbalance of power created between the ruler and the ruled and the ‘economic disorder’ that is created on purpose is designed to keep the society off balance. Which sane mind thinks that after such a selfishly brutal treatment meted out to the economic order that any balance can be restored back within couple of years? The businessmen rulers who monopolised our economic order made it so dependent on them and their co-opters that it would be a great challenge for any reformer to restructure it and change its shape.

Those blaming the PTI government for not doing enough hardly debate what ‘this doing’ is costing it. Those that got dependent on the ‘corrupt power’ and extracted huge economic benefits could only do that by ceding their loyalties to such rulers. While Imran Khan’s PTI government has no magic wand to change those loyalties in matter of days, it is strange that PM Imran’s team is getting restless without realising that those who are currently focused on weakening the society and utilising all means available to them to ‘buy off power’ are the same actors who have placed us in this dire economic situation.

The ongoing tension between the state and the society is not only due to the unresolved crisis of governance. It is also because of the ‘political and economic garbage bag’ that this government carries on its shoulders. The remains of a ‘despotic political system’ that still showcase themselves in the power corridors of this state cannot be thrown out without political consequences — it would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. For the balance to return and for the corruption to end what is needed is stable distribution of power and independent, powerful, functional and fair institutions. Both these elements will eventually act as the bridge that will bind the society with the state. But this will take time.

Delia Ferreira Rubio is the chair of Transparency International; she is a PhD in Law and an expert on anti-corruption. According to her, “Corruption is more likely to flourish where democratic foundations are weak, as seen in many countries, where undemocratic and populist politicians can use it to their advantage.” If referred to historically, this can be termed as the ‘Gilgamesh Problem’.

Gilgamesh was the king of Uruk, perhaps the world’s first city in the south of modern day Iraq from where world’s oldest surviving piece of written text, the 4,200 years’ old tablet, was discovered. The city had everything that one could ask for at that time but it was in the possession of Gilgamesh who was a king and did whatever he wanted. No body dared oppose him. Gilgamesh represented an ‘ambition’ and that ambition could only be challenged by the creation of a ‘counter ambition’ in the name of Enkidu who fought with him until his despotic power was gone and Enkidu prevailed.

For corruption to end we need to get rid of the Gilgamesh in our politics and respect the Enkidu and give them time.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th, 2020.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.