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'We are ready to get arrested and be beaten up, but we have had enough of corruption'
Keeble McFarlane
Saturday, August 20, 2011
AS recently as the late 1950s, any schoolchild in Jamaica could tell you that the sun never set on Britain's holdings around the world. British colonies and independent territories once dominated by London were coloured red in atlases, and any world map hung on the wall would be a sea of red from across the top of North America through Africa and Asia and many strings of islands in between. Although Britain introduced concepts like the rule of law, the jury system, the universal vote and parliamentary democracy, all these colonies were launched and maintained for long periods at the point of the bayonet.
But when the system in its huge holdings in the Indian sub-continent began to unravel, the British rulers had no clue how to counter a new weapon adopted by the leaders of the movement to rid themselves of the colonial yoke. The moral leader of the Indian independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi, called it Satyagraha - passive resistance. This meant that the only force to be used in any public demonstration by those demanding an end to British rule was by the British colonial police and the soldiers garrisoned in the region.
HAZARE... has raised his voice against corruption
Hardened police officers and soldiers just could not wrap their heads around the idea of people who would lie down in public places, chain themselves to contested objects, or allow themselves to be roughly treated while refusing to strike back. It was a very effective tactic which was adopted by protesters all over the world, and is still employed in some places to this day.
Back where it all began, the Indian politicians and bureaucrats who now run the country's affairs have met their match in one of Gandhi's disciples - a 74-year-old army veteran named Anna Hazare (pronounced ha-ZA-reh). The cause he has espoused is one by no means limited to India, although the problem there is very pronounced. Hazare has raised his voice against corruption, which is one of the most serious hindrances to progress in India.
Hazare has made a career of taking on the authorities going back to the late 1970s, when he retired from the Indian army. He had served as a truck driver and was the only survivor of a Pakistani air attack on his convoy, and later survived a crash while driving. These brushes with mortality led him, at the age of 38, to dedicate his life to the service of humanity. He read up the works of Indian philosophers, including Gandhi, which gave him the grounding and direction for his career as a moral gadfly.
Upon leaving the army he returned to his native village, Ralegan Siddhi, in central Maharashtra state. The region was plagued by drought, a fragile eco-system and just about every human ill you can imagine - poverty, neglect, deprivation and hopelessness. He assessed what was wrong and went to work along with a wide section of the population to remake the village. He harnessed the positive aspects of human nature and helped transform Ralegan Siddhi into an oasis of regeneration without relying on industrialisation and high-tech agriculture. For his efforts in turning it into a model village, the government of India awarded Hazare the Padma Bhushan - the country's third-highest civilian award - in 1992.
Like Gandhi, Mazare lives very simply in a small room attached to a temple in his village. He is unmarried and survives mostly on his modest army pension. But his struggles against misbehaviour of public officials are by no means modest. Most of Hazare's efforts have been in Maharashtra. One target was the exasperating habit of state officials to take forever to process the files before them. Hazare forced the state government to pass a law requiring bureaucrats to deal with cases before them in a timely fashion upon pain of severe punishment or even dismissal. He campaigned successfully for an effective right to information law. During a hunger strike in 2004 to focus on this issue, he commented, "All corruption can end only if there is freedom of information."
His struggles for clean government brought him into conflict with the law from time to time and jail became quite familiar. His latest brush with the law began earlier this year when, incensed by allegations that the former minister of telecommunications held a corrupt auction for licences for the country's cellular network, he went on a hunger strike to demand changes in the national law to fight corruption, including the appointment of an ombudsman to oversee the process.
When the law that emerged was not strong enough, he went on a hunger strike and the government threw him in jail. Then they couldn't get him out. After widespread protests arose, they tried to release him but he refused to go until he was allowed to stage a 15-day public protest fast. The headline at the top of this article is from a statement he made this week, explaining the he and his followers are willing to die for their cause.
Many have criticised him for taking the government hostage, but few argue with his crusade against corruption. Especially so, the middle class, who have prospered since the economy opened up during the 1990s. They are fed up with the rampant corruption they face every day - from getting a driving licence to procuring a place to live, and the soaring cost of living has only made matters worse.
The hunger strike has caught the imagination of people across the country, including the younger generation, who are employing the latest social networking systems to spread the word. Students, lawyers, civil servants, teachers and business executives have taken to the streets in cities and remote villages alike. The government has not handled the situation with any deftness, but it could still survive because of a weak political opposition. However, the prospects for economic reform are not bright, especially as they have been hampered by policy paralysis and many corruption scandals.
This movement will no doubt resonate with many in Jamaica, which has its own experience with corruption, from getting through a police roadblock to renewing a passport. Forty-odd years ago, a rising political star made the matter a central part of his campaign for office: "Every act of corruption means that something has been done in the government and management of a country that ought not to have been done. The danger in Jamaica today is not that there is widespread corruption ... the danger is that we are beginning to take it for granted. And the most insidious and dangerous of all forms of corruption is that of graft."
You may or may not recognise those as the words of one Michael Manley, as propagated on a record by Clancy Eccles, who supplied them musical background for Power for the People. It was played in jukeboxes and from political platforms leading up to the 1972 election. But as we have seen, nothing has changed, except that corruption is even more widespread and entrenched than it was in those days.
To the cynics, corruption will always be with us. In the late 18th century, the English historian, Edward Gibbon, remarked, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: "Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty."
keeble.mack@sympatico.ca
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1VafI6iHS
Keeble McFarlane
Saturday, August 20, 2011
AS recently as the late 1950s, any schoolchild in Jamaica could tell you that the sun never set on Britain's holdings around the world. British colonies and independent territories once dominated by London were coloured red in atlases, and any world map hung on the wall would be a sea of red from across the top of North America through Africa and Asia and many strings of islands in between. Although Britain introduced concepts like the rule of law, the jury system, the universal vote and parliamentary democracy, all these colonies were launched and maintained for long periods at the point of the bayonet.
But when the system in its huge holdings in the Indian sub-continent began to unravel, the British rulers had no clue how to counter a new weapon adopted by the leaders of the movement to rid themselves of the colonial yoke. The moral leader of the Indian independence movement, Mahatma Gandhi, called it Satyagraha - passive resistance. This meant that the only force to be used in any public demonstration by those demanding an end to British rule was by the British colonial police and the soldiers garrisoned in the region.
HAZARE... has raised his voice against corruption
Hardened police officers and soldiers just could not wrap their heads around the idea of people who would lie down in public places, chain themselves to contested objects, or allow themselves to be roughly treated while refusing to strike back. It was a very effective tactic which was adopted by protesters all over the world, and is still employed in some places to this day.
Back where it all began, the Indian politicians and bureaucrats who now run the country's affairs have met their match in one of Gandhi's disciples - a 74-year-old army veteran named Anna Hazare (pronounced ha-ZA-reh). The cause he has espoused is one by no means limited to India, although the problem there is very pronounced. Hazare has raised his voice against corruption, which is one of the most serious hindrances to progress in India.
Hazare has made a career of taking on the authorities going back to the late 1970s, when he retired from the Indian army. He had served as a truck driver and was the only survivor of a Pakistani air attack on his convoy, and later survived a crash while driving. These brushes with mortality led him, at the age of 38, to dedicate his life to the service of humanity. He read up the works of Indian philosophers, including Gandhi, which gave him the grounding and direction for his career as a moral gadfly.
Upon leaving the army he returned to his native village, Ralegan Siddhi, in central Maharashtra state. The region was plagued by drought, a fragile eco-system and just about every human ill you can imagine - poverty, neglect, deprivation and hopelessness. He assessed what was wrong and went to work along with a wide section of the population to remake the village. He harnessed the positive aspects of human nature and helped transform Ralegan Siddhi into an oasis of regeneration without relying on industrialisation and high-tech agriculture. For his efforts in turning it into a model village, the government of India awarded Hazare the Padma Bhushan - the country's third-highest civilian award - in 1992.
Like Gandhi, Mazare lives very simply in a small room attached to a temple in his village. He is unmarried and survives mostly on his modest army pension. But his struggles against misbehaviour of public officials are by no means modest. Most of Hazare's efforts have been in Maharashtra. One target was the exasperating habit of state officials to take forever to process the files before them. Hazare forced the state government to pass a law requiring bureaucrats to deal with cases before them in a timely fashion upon pain of severe punishment or even dismissal. He campaigned successfully for an effective right to information law. During a hunger strike in 2004 to focus on this issue, he commented, "All corruption can end only if there is freedom of information."
His struggles for clean government brought him into conflict with the law from time to time and jail became quite familiar. His latest brush with the law began earlier this year when, incensed by allegations that the former minister of telecommunications held a corrupt auction for licences for the country's cellular network, he went on a hunger strike to demand changes in the national law to fight corruption, including the appointment of an ombudsman to oversee the process.
When the law that emerged was not strong enough, he went on a hunger strike and the government threw him in jail. Then they couldn't get him out. After widespread protests arose, they tried to release him but he refused to go until he was allowed to stage a 15-day public protest fast. The headline at the top of this article is from a statement he made this week, explaining the he and his followers are willing to die for their cause.
Many have criticised him for taking the government hostage, but few argue with his crusade against corruption. Especially so, the middle class, who have prospered since the economy opened up during the 1990s. They are fed up with the rampant corruption they face every day - from getting a driving licence to procuring a place to live, and the soaring cost of living has only made matters worse.
The hunger strike has caught the imagination of people across the country, including the younger generation, who are employing the latest social networking systems to spread the word. Students, lawyers, civil servants, teachers and business executives have taken to the streets in cities and remote villages alike. The government has not handled the situation with any deftness, but it could still survive because of a weak political opposition. However, the prospects for economic reform are not bright, especially as they have been hampered by policy paralysis and many corruption scandals.
This movement will no doubt resonate with many in Jamaica, which has its own experience with corruption, from getting through a police roadblock to renewing a passport. Forty-odd years ago, a rising political star made the matter a central part of his campaign for office: "Every act of corruption means that something has been done in the government and management of a country that ought not to have been done. The danger in Jamaica today is not that there is widespread corruption ... the danger is that we are beginning to take it for granted. And the most insidious and dangerous of all forms of corruption is that of graft."
You may or may not recognise those as the words of one Michael Manley, as propagated on a record by Clancy Eccles, who supplied them musical background for Power for the People. It was played in jukeboxes and from political platforms leading up to the 1972 election. But as we have seen, nothing has changed, except that corruption is even more widespread and entrenched than it was in those days.
To the cynics, corruption will always be with us. In the late 18th century, the English historian, Edward Gibbon, remarked, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: "Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty."
keeble.mack@sympatico.ca
Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/colum...#ixzz1VafI6iHS