CORRUPTION ON EARTH

Some Countries Are Naughty and Some Are Nice … Sort Of.

by Dean Christopher

 

The 2002 Time Almanac lists “The 2001 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index,” a rottenness ranking of 91 world governments, according to Berlin-based Transparency International (TI).

This non-governmental organization (NGO) operates in big famous countries as well as understated ones like Azerbaijan; Burkina Faso; Cameroon (those exotic stamps with shirtless locals!); Gambia; Georgia (Tbilisi, not Atlanta); Kyrgyz Republic (office in downtown Bishkek); Mauretania (not the ship); Mauritius (not Mauretania); Niger and Nigeria; Trinidad & Tobago; Vanuatu; Yemen; Zimbabwe. They have people in Washington, and also a Palestinian office – although the way Israel is knocking down West Bank buildings, they’d probably be happier renting in Tel Aviv.

 

TI claims to be the only NGO devoted to combatting international corruption. Their sunny goal is to “bring civil society, business and governments together in a powerful global coalition.” Well, fine. Some 80-odd chapters strive “to curb both the supply and demand of corruption,” a challenge only slightly more difficult than curbing teenage demand for sex.

 

What does their survey reveal?

 

As expected, most of the world’s governments are seen as corrupt. On a scale from 10.0 (squeaky-clean) down to 0.0 (satanically decadent), about 2/3 of all countries surveyed lean seriously toward corruption. Malasia, at 5.0, maintains a curious yin-yang balance on the issue. (One might expect such moral equilibrium from neutral Switzerland (8.4) or Sweden (9.0).) There were many ties, especially among the lower scores. But not exclusively: Iceland and Singapore tied at 9.2; the U.S. and Israel at 7.6; Chile and Ireland at 7.5.

 

No “Axis of Evil” countries appear on the list. Perhaps TI feared that their evil would throw the marking curve off its axis. More likely, Iraq, Iran and North Korea discourage the presence of corruption-hunters.

 

So, who comes across as wonderful, and who gets the raspberry? Hats and earmuffs off to honorable little Finland, at 9.9 the least corrupt of all 91 countries surveyed! At the murky end of the spectrum is Bangladesh, with an almost supernaturally low 0.2, giving them the sad distinction of being perceived as the most corrupt nation on earth.

 

But not so fast, reader! Rush not to judgment. Easy enough to go “nyah nyah nyah” or make cruel jests like “How many Bangladeshis does it take to corrupt one Finn?”

 

Statistics never tell the whole story. TI studied 91 nations, at a time when the United Nations listed 189 member states – and some countries are not even in the U.N. Consequently, the Corruption Perceptions Index covers fewer than half the nations on the globe (albeit the half with most of Earth’s population, corrupt or otherwise).

 

Let’s be fair to Bangladesh. How would the 90-odd unlisted states have fared in the survey? Is it not possible that one, or some, or even all of them may have scored lower than Bangladesh – even conceivably an Absolute Zero (not one single uncorrupted soul in government)? In fact, who can say that, in an infinite universe, there cannot be a country so degenerate that it actually scores a negative number? (Of course, one could theoretically score higher than Finland, but it’s more fun to focus on moral decay.)

 

 

* * *

 

 Ah, if only we could see ourselves as others see us! How does Bangladesh see itself? For the answer, we turn to the official Bangladesh government website, last revised on June 30, 1999. (We surmise that their webmaster has relocated and not been replaced.) The site depicts Bangladesh as a subtropical paradise for tourists, culture aficionados and investors; a cheery, happy land of handsome heroes developing the world’s next superpower.

 

 

They make no mention of the typhoons, floods, plagues and other disasters that sweep through the country every few hours, killing hundreds of thousands, overturning ferries, wiping out crops, floating oxen out to sea, leaving millions homeless, leveling the pest-tormented landscape to a mud-flatness that makes the Dead Sea look like the Bavarian Alps. They do not speak of flies the size of Springer Spaniels and crawling things that feed on Japanese compact cars.

 

 

Nor is there any hyperlink labeled Governmental Corruption, or National Bribery and Graft Statistics. Clearly, we must work for this story.

 

Very well, let’s begin with a peek at the government, and the juicy economy that supposedly spawns all this alleged corruption. We check out Prime Minister’s Office, click on Board of Investment. We are forwarded to a page that says only: “This domain is for sale. Please contact: info@ zedandzed .com .” For sale, eh? Hmmm.

 

Next we try Industrial Policy and find “This page is under construction.” So, presumably, is their industrial policy. At last we strike pay dirt at Ministry of Commerce, Export Promotion Bureau. Among their many exported products and commodities, we see:

 

“Fish, Shrimps, Sharkfins & Fishmaws, Animal Casings, Betel Leaves, Cotton Waste, Black Cumin Seed, Crude Fertilizer, Raw Jute … Tortoise & Turtles, Crabs, Duck Chest Feather, Crude drugs, Bamboo Poles, Rattans, Beeswax, Coir & Coir-Products, Human Hair, Hukka Nali, Horns & Hooves…”

 

Now we’re getting somewhere! The excitement of the chase builds. Like all cunning detectives, we ask ourselves the tough questions:

 

How does corruption affect the Fishmaw business, or traffic in Horns & Hooves? Who chooses which horns and hooves to harvest – and from which animals or devils? What backroom shennanigans corrupt the Duck Chest Feather trade? How are contracts really awarded for Animal Casings and Raw Jute? Did the Vegetable Casings people forget to bribe someone at the Ministry of Casings? Is there a Cooked Jute lobby? Who gets to handle Human Hair – and whose? Does Bangladesh export blonde hair? Leg hair? Nose hair? Finally, is Hukka Nali a product or a typographical error?

 

The website maintains a chilly silence on these issues, so we turn to Transparency International’s website for help. TI has a Bangladesh site, but it gives no details on the mechanics of in-country corruption. Perhaps their researchers value their lives. The site has a Corruption Hotline to report bribes and irregularities. Does anyone ever use it?

 

Elsewhere, TI’s Chairman, Peter Eigen, writes “The scale of bribe-paying by international corporations in the developing countries of the world is massive. Actions by the majority of governments of the leading industrial countries to curb international corruption are modest.”

 

Well, as it happens, TI’s donors include many of those “international corporations” and “governments of the leading industrial countries.” Right near the top of the alphabetical list is Arthur Andersen, the international accounting firm currently under criminal indictment for, um, corruption. A little farther down comes Enron Corporation, the former energy giant (and current energy dwarf) that was until recently entwined with Arthur Andersen. Uh-oh.

 

A partial list of other major donors: Bank of America; Bechtel; Boeing; BP Amoco; Bristol-Myers Squibb; Exxon-Mobil; Ford; General Electric; General Motors; Honeywell; IBM; Lockheed Martin; Merck; Motorola; PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP; Reliant Energy; Rockwell; Texaco and United Technologies.

 

Hey – they’re all companies that sell things to foreign governments. Could any of those be on the corruption list?

 

The following countries also contribute substantially to TI. Let’s check their Corruption Perception scores: Australia (8.5); Canada (8.9); Denmark (9.5); the United Kingdom (8.3); the Netherlands (8.8); Finland (9.9); France (6.7); Germany (7.4); Norway (8.6); Sweden (9.0); and Switzerland (8.4).

 

Wow! TI donor nations average 8.5 on the decency scale! Coincidence? Who can say? Who dares imply? Admittedly some of this seems a bit suspicious – but that could just be your reporter’s natural wariness kicking in. Decide for yourself.

 

But stay alert. If General Electric suddenly corners the world market on Horns & Hooves; if Bechtel gets heavily into Bangladeshi Hair or if you hear of a public offering on Transparency Hakka Nali, think it over. But be open-minded. The world is aflood with circumstantial evidence.

 

Come to think of it, that’s usually the only kind of evidence there is.

 

Footnote: There is no Finnish embassy in Dahka and no Bangladeshi embassy in Helsinki. What should we conclude from that?

* * *

YOU ARE WHAT YOU JOIN

Commentary by Dean Christopher

 

We humans are remarkable animals. We think, dream, love, and build; we distinguish among objects and abstractions. We are the naked ape; or at least the badly dressed ape.

We can speak more or less clearly; plan for the future; use charge cards; and visit crowded national parks in RVs brimming with recently-minted humans with strawberry jam on their faces, loud rock music in their earphones and backwards baseball caps on their heads.

 

One of the enduring, endearing traits of homo sapiens is our propensity for highly specialized enthusiasms – hobbies or passions or peculiar interests that unite us in groups small or large.

Intrigued by this typically human quirk, several years ago I paged through the Encyclopedia of Associations. There I discovered, among many thousands listed, about 100 or so which I deemed unusual enough to be worthy of further investigation. So I wrote and asked them to tell me about themselves.

I never heard back from the Confederate Air Force, the Deciduous Tree Fruit Disease Workers or The Gorilla Foundation. But many others did respond, and here are some honest-to-goodness quotes – mis-spellings, weird punctuation and all – harvested verbatim from their replies:

 

   1. Friends of the Tango. [sic] “…yourlet 2/1 is unsigned Please send us a copy duly signed and we will answer all your questions. Also send us free of charge a copy of your magazine Thank you” (NOTE: The Director has been trying since 1984 to get New York City to erect a public statue of Carlos Gardel, the great Argentine tango star who died in a plane crash back in the ‘30’s.)

 

   2. Marx Brothers Study Unit: Most Complete Marx Bros. Research Facility On This Planet. [From their newsletter] “We realized from the start that our group had a lot to share with the rest of the planet….A self-appointed moderator (i.e., a dictator) served as clearinghouse for information….In theory the magazine is published semi-annually, but because of the informal nature and volunteer staff, deadlines are nonexistant and issues are predictably late.” [From their magazine Freedonia Gazette, named after the mythical country where Groucho reigned in Duck Soup] “The entire contents of this issue are copyrighted….We’ve been filing copyright registrations for 11 years and we’d like to be able to sue someone and make it worth our while.”

    3. Cast Iron Seat Collectors’ Association. [From their brochure] “The seat club was formed in 1973, by a few people that had a few seats…The first book on cast iron seats was written by Donald Sites of Grinnell, Kansas. He wrote three books on cast seats, each one was bigger than the one before, because of more seats that had been found….The club meets once a year in the summer in conjunction with a threshing show…[The club] isn’t only for seat collectors. We have many members that collect cast iron corn planter lids, tool boxes and covers. We have members that collect windmill weights and drill box ends and tools of all kinds.”

    4. The Elvish Linguistic Fellowship. “The ELF publishes two journals: Vinyar Tengwar (which in Quenya, one of the several languages invented by Tolkien, means “News Letters”)…and Parma Eldalamberon (“Book of Elven-Tongues”), an annual…Our main function as a society involves writing articles and letters for the above two publications…Various members of the ELF…are also working on what we feel will be the definitive descriptive grammar of Tolkien’s languages…”

    5. Hispanic Energy Forum. [From a FAX dated 2/29/92] “The Hispanic Energy Forum is DEFUNCT! No longer exists. Thx, LT.”

    6. American Quilt Study Group. “AQSG was founded in 1980…and has been bequeathed [an] extensive library of quilt and textile publications. To recruit new members, we distribute our flyer at various quilt events, seminars, shops, and guilds…[papers] are later compiled into our annual pubication, Uncoverings….We also publish a quarterly newsletter, Blanket Statements….Please send us a copy of your write-up for approval before publication.”

    7. Vampire Information Exchange. “Please excuse the delay in getting back to you, but I have been quite busy here of late.”

    8. A California-based high IQ organization that prefers not to be named. [From a greeting-less letter which I here quote in full] “Re: Enthusiast organizations. We are a society of intellectually gifted persons, sort of a ‘Mensa’s Mensa.’ Most know they belong before they even hear of us; we do not want publicity: it is distracting. Very truly yours, [Signature].”

     9. American Bamboo Society. “Also enclosed is a source list describing available species and where they may be purchased….We do not aggressively solicit members. Rather people infected with a curious affinity for bamboo seem to find us.”

    10. American Fancy Rat & Mouse Association. “We have shows every other month, displays several times a year, and an annual picnic/bbq for the members…” [From their brochure] “Our membership cuts across all ages, occupations and sexes, bringing together people who truly enjoy each others’ rats and mice….We were privileged to have the Secretary of the Swedish Rat Society here to judge the pet rat class at one of our shows.”

    11. Friends Of Terra Cotta. “We emphasize the value of and challenges associated with the preservation of terra cotta. The organization provides information and resources for those seeking assistance in understanding terra cotta buildings…”

    12. Flat Earth Society International. [Sic from letter]  “You folks must not keep up with events and things too well…Have been on front page of Examnior, many articles in La Times, front page Valley News in most newspapers of USA Newsweek, TV News,  REAL PEOPLE et  c etc known nationwide and even worldwide. Strange, you dident know anythinaboutit!”

    13. The Antique Stove Association. “In the words of the constitution, our purpose is ‘to form a bond between people interested in antique stoves and related items, and to support their interest in any reasonable way…’ However, these benefits are for members only….we do not extend the benefits of membership to non-members….Parts rescue and parts identification are two subjects of special concern…”

    14. Emil Verban Memorial Society. “We are the Chicago Cubs fan club of Washington, D.C. [Our purpose is] to root for the Cubs. [Meetings?] None. A lunch is held every two years. [From their newsletter] …mark your calendars for…the Society’s 7th Biennial Luncheon….Customarily, the Society hosts former Cubs stars…during the action-filled, two-hour luncheons. So reserve the date now.”

    15. Exotic Dancers’ League Of North America. [From a letter written on a manual typewriter that had no “E,” which was in each case handwritten in red ball point pen: ] “We have 613 members, some are active, most are distant, and can not always attend the meeting, that are held four times a year…We provide the T.V. shows with material on “Nostalgia” information….We furnished much of the information for the motion picture “BLAZ” also the up and coming movie “RUBY””…Farraha Fawasett, is makeing the life story of another one of our members Candy Barr, we will be very concerened how Miss Fawassett portrays Miss Barr….The motion picture star “Cher” is playing Gypsy, in a new movie…and I will invite them to visit Exotic World….Please  feel free to visit anytime, thanking you.”

    16. Circus Fans’ Association Of America. [From their brochure] “Do you get a kick out of clowns and elephants and finely groomed horses? So do we….Do you thrill to the sound of a calliope or a brassy galop as straining steeds race around the hippodrome track?…Does your pulse quicken at the very names and phrases of circusdom…? …We’ve pictured on our cover first lady Barbara Bush holding up a White House puppy so it can touch noses with a clown, all in the interest of promoting reading among young people.”

    17. The Fiber Society. [From their brochure] “Membership is by nomination only and requires evidence of significant contributions and commitment to the field of fiber science. The annual cost of membership is kept nominal.”

    Well! It’s taken me most of the morning to sift through all this material, and today’s mail should arrive any second. I’m hoping for more replies from great enthusiast organizations such as the following, which I swear I did not make up:

 The Melvil Dui Marching & Chowder Society; Save Our Barns Committee; American Toy Goat Association; Intelligent Buildings Institute; Mexican Epigraphic Society; Whirly Girls; International Barbed Wire Collectors’ Association; National Clogging & Hoedown Council; American Collectors of Infant Feeders; Library Cat Society; Accordion Federation of America; Association for Gravestone Studies; International Chinese Snuff Bottle Society; Classical Bicycle & Whizzer Club of America; Occupied Japan Club; and Sons and Daughters of the Soddies.

    If you hear from them before I do, please forward any useful info to me as quickly as possible. We are here to learn from each other.

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Copyright  © 2009 by Dean Christopher