The Toxic Normality of Corruption

... in crypto-autocratic nations such as Honduras, where wealth and political power are confined to small, wealthy, all-powerful elites, people have a nominal voice, but no clout, especially where their vital interests -- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- are curtailed and further compromised by endemic crime, violence and the appalling indifference and incompetence of their leaders.

By W. E. Gutman
Corruptibility is the mother of all vices. Without it we’d live in a fiction-like world of virtue, love and justice. It is as powerful an impulse as the reproductive urge or the survival instinct. Because we’re human, we’re all susceptible to its siren song. Self-delusion, the perversion of reality as a hedge against the sobering effect of reason, is its commonest form. People who search for (or believe they’ve found) paradise are the most deluded but their fantasies are usually short-lived and harmless -- unless they try to inoculate others against reality.

Also predisposed toward corruptibility are those whose conduct can be manipulated: Pretending to be what our parents, teachers, spiritual leaders, employers and the tax collector expect from us can result in small rewards or, at the very least, protect from censure, reprimand or chastisement.

And then there are those who can be corrupted by money and will do anything for it -- lie, cheat, betray, torture, and even kill. In some countries -- particularly among the poorest but by no means confined to them -- corruption is the bedrock in which business and governance are anchored. It’s become a habitualized, ritualized, institutionalized reflex. It’s part of the social fabric. People have become so inured to it from youth that they no longer recognize it for what it really is: the process of putrefaction by which nations decompose and eventually collapse.

There is a direct correlation between how people are empowered in their societies and their leaders’ propensity to circumvent basic covenants, to lie, to be suborned and engage in the wholesale sellout of their citizens. Where people have an unimpeded voice in governance, and where a lively civil culture thrives, those in authority have greater difficulty avoiding public scrutiny, greater yet in evading public censure.

In contrast, in crypto-autocratic nations such as Honduras, where wealth and political power are confined to small, wealthy, all-powerful elites, people have a nominal voice, but no clout, especially where their vital interests -- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- are curtailed and further compromised by endemic crime, violence and the appalling indifference and incompetence of their leaders. El Querido Pueblo just doesn’t count. Those who protest are either ignored, their grievances lost in the murky corridors of bureaucracy, or they risk surveillance, harassment, persecution and even assassination.

“We’ve been reduced to turning our heads and looking the other way,” says a Honduran judge on condition of anonymity. “We overlook corruption; we tacitly condone it because doing otherwise will have grave consequences. To identify oneself as a paladin is to stand out. Paladins don’t die of old age.”

There are other dynamics that prevent people from listening to their conscience. One of them is the stupefying realization that their elected officials, given their own venality and the tangled cabals in which they engage -- sometimes with criminal elements -- are so inextricably ensnared in shady activities that they couldn’t fix the problems they created even if they tried.

There are two types of corruption: corruption of opportunity and corruption of necessity. The first has existed since the Earth cooled. It will thrive as long as humans rule the planet. The second occurs when, reduced to their primal state and unable to survive by any other means, people resort to crime. Their synchronism is not coincidental. The poorer the nation, the wealthier the governing elite, the more capital is concentrated in the hands of a shrinking few, the greater the opportunity and temptation of both the leaders and the led to fall prey to corruption.

Corruption does not occur in a vacuum. It is a system of values and behaviors that straddles public and private spheres: the corrupted are always faced with a corruptor, often originating with those able to buy influence.

Any profound and lasting reform will entail significant cultural, attitudinal and ethical changes, as well as a radical shakeup of the structures and substructures most vulnerable to corruptibility. According to a recent CNN Special Report, several police precincts in Guatemala fired every cop on the beat, dismissed all rookies and hired and trained new cadres whose character, moral fiber and susceptibility to corruption were painstakingly scrutinized. The result: a significant drop in police corruption and a higher rate of arrests and convictions of narcotraffickers.

It might be worth for Honduras to explore the Guatemalan model. A good start might be by firing every politician, from the president on down, purging all military personnel trained at the US Army School of the Americas, and reassigning every member of the police to the Sanitation Corps.

All whimsy aside, I’m not holding my breath. (1/27/12)

Note: W. E. Gutman is a veteran journalist and published author. Between 1994 and 2006 he was on assignment in Central America where he covered politics, the military and human rights. He lives in southern California.