Corruption in the Arab world .. When repression and greed meet!

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"There is enough in this world to meet all the needs of man ... but not enough to satisfy his greed!"

- Mahatma Gandhi

Corruption, one of the most representative expressions of human greed and greed, is an old phenomenon of human history. We hardly find a society of old or modern societies did not know corruption with differences in course in its methods and levels. Corruption in our world today has reached catastrophic levels of shock and shock. According to the Secretary-General of the United Nations in September, the cost of global corruption could amount to about two trillion and one trillion dollars a year, or five percent of world GDP, which is dozens of times the value of humanitarian aid, which is provided annually to hundreds of millions Of the poor, displaced and displaced around the world. Corruption can be defined by Transparency International as an abuse of public power for personal gain. Corruption can be divided into three levels:

Petty Corruption : It is the corruption that is done by middle or lower class employees from public administrations, and its public is usually the sum of ordinary citizens who want basic public services such as education, health, police assistance or otherwise. The amounts disbursed in this type of corruption are often small.

Grand Corruption : It is the corruption that is done by the public authority employees in the higher administrative levels and the amounts are much higher than the first type.

Political corruption : refers to the manipulation of political decision-makers in the state with its policies and institutions or rules of procedure in order to collect resources that maintain their wealth or status or strength in the political arena.

Corruption in the Arab World

Unfortunately, most of our Arab world occupies a prominent place in the list of the most corrupt countries. According to the Transparency International report of last year 2017, except for the UAE and Qatar, there is no Arab country among the top 50 countries on the list. Yes, this is true and familiar to the ordinary Arab citizen. Most of our countries have become hotbeds of corruption and corruption. The Arab citizen hardly turns to the right or the left, but sees corruption with the naked eye or feels the effects of everything in it. While people speak with fascination and admiration of order, order, rule of law, justice and social solidarity in the West, they wonder, why does corruption corrupt our countries and steal our goods?

Many of the scientific studies that analyzed the relationship between corruption in the state and the level of democracy in it ended up with an inverse relationship between the two [1]. The higher the level of democracy, the lower the levels of corruption, without anyone claiming that corruption can reach zero anywhere in the world. The inverse relationship between democracy and corruption seems natural and understandable. Democracy is basically linked to the rule of law and freedom of expression, which are indispensable tools to expose corruption and hold corruptors accountable, but things may be more complex than that!

In fact, repressive dictatorships are not necessarily financially corrupt. We have many examples of dictators who ruled their country with iron and fire, but they were not corrupt. Moreover, such periods of government were characterized by a sharp decline in the level of financial corruption at all levels because no one dared to exploit his position for personal gain. For example, between 1966 and 1976, Burundian President Michel Mocempero was an ardent dictator, but he was not corrupt and did not steal the wealth of his country. Instead, he accumulated huge amounts of money in his coffers used by his successor, Jean-Baptiste Bagaza (who turned against him). Political dictatorship does not inevitably lead to corruption, although it is certainly one of its most important factors.

While the president of an Arab country shouted to his people that they are "very poor" and that they have to endure and patience and tighten the belt, which was close to the interruption of the already large tensile, he put red carpets to march his motorcade to several kilometers

Egyptian Press

What leads inevitably to corruption is the meeting of political dictatorship with the economic greed together in the ruling regime, and this is the situation unfortunately dominant in most countries of the Arab world. Although most of the Arab countries are rich in resources, this dichotomy has led to the accumulation of the wealth of this country in the hands of very few greedy exploiters. This wealth is not used in the overwhelming majority to push any development process in the country, but is destined to either smuggling to be placed in foreign banks with fictitious names so as not to reveal itself, just like thieves and Mafia traders or are paid to satisfy and accept the "hyenas of the world" to ensure Their support for survival and the continuation of power or being wasted day and night in a provocative and disgusting way before the eyes of crushed peoples.

In this case, the spread of corruption becomes inevitable as infectious disease from the head of power down to all members of the political and administrative body of the state. The corrupt regime can not surround itself with people who are not corrupt. In turn, they must surround themselves with a circle of corrupt collaborators. In this way, the circles of corruption go on and on to the lowest administrative ranks. People have to deal with them and gradually become a culture of the people. From the womb of my Lord.

The fight against corruption in such cases often turns into comic plays funny and wailing at the same time. While the president of an Arab country cries out to his people that they are "very poor" and that they have to endure, patience and tighten the belt, which is already close to the tension, he is putting red carpets to walk his car for several kilometers. In another country, while the leader of the Holy Muqtam campaign to fight corruption and corruption of the most important people in his country, he personally bought a luxury yacht or a painting of hundreds of millions of dollars without being blinded and without fear of accountability, while many of his compatriots are under the poverty line. Imagine.

margin:

[1] Fjelde, H., & Hegre, H. (2014), Political corruption and institutional stability. Studies in Comparative International Development, 49 (3), p. 267-299.