WE are Homo sapiens, the species to which all modern human beings belong. It actually means "wise man” in Latin because Homo sapiens had the smarts to survive the evolutionary game that eliminated Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis.
It’s been 300,000 years since Homo sapiens arose from Africa, and now another primate species is fast evolving. It’s Homo corruptus. This species is thriving in the Age of Corruption and Malaysia is one of the fertile founts for its rise.
As Prof Asit K. Biswas and Cecilia Tortajada observe in their commentary, “From our ancestors to modern leaders, all do it: The story of corruption”, graft is as old as human history and it’s endemic globally.
Sadly, it seems to have become an epidemic in Malaysia. We haven’t even got over the trauma of the huge 1MDB financial scandal and now we are grappling with yet another multibillion ringgit fiasco involving littoral combat ships (LCS).
To weary Malaysians, it’s like another day, another scandal. Not only that, it looks like LCS, the Farcical features several familiar leading actors with a few new faces in the supporting cast.
Biswas and Tortajada’s commentary was published on theconversation.com in 2018. While the statistics cited may be somewhat outdated, its insights remain relevant, so much so it was republished by Channelnewsasia.com in February last year.
The authors write, "As the global economy expanded significantly during the 20th century, levels of corruption increased as well. It is difficult to estimate the global magnitude and extent of corruption since these activities are carried out in secret.
"The World Bank estimates international bribery exceeds US$1.5tril (RM6.734tril) annually, or 2% of global GDP and 10 times more than total global aid funds. Other estimates are higher at 2% to 5% of global GDP.
"Corruption permeates all levels of society, from low-level public servants accepting petty bribes to national leaders stealing millions of dollars.”
Well, Malaysians can take cold comfort in the fact that our country is not the only one so mired in corruption scandals. Transparency International’s website lists the 25 corruption scandals that shook the world. Our 1MDB makes the list, and it is truly disgusting and gut-wrenching to see that most of the scandals have similar modus operandi involving top government leaders of Brazil, Peru, Nigeria, Tunisia, Ukraine and others who abused the instruments of power while in office to enrich themselves.
Kathmandu University professor Manish Pokharel and columnist Bimal Pratap Shah, examining the situation in their country of Nepal, points out the three stages of corruption in their article, “Rise of Homo corruptus” published on myrepublica.nagariknetwork.com.
"In the first stage, people’s everyday life is not affected. The adverse effects of corruption are limited as it takes place at high-level government circles behind closed doors. At this stage, bureaucracy is not affected so much.
"In the second stage, corruption begins to slowly affect bureaucracy, society, religious institutions and the private sector. Laws designed to curb corruption are passed on a regular basis without any improvements in the corruption scenario.
"In the third stage, corruption penetrates every aspect of a citizen's life, degenerating their norms and values. A few government officials involved in corruption are brought to trial and punished, but corruption continues to grow because of its protection by the political class; the groups responsible for most corruption are least affected by anti-corruption measures.
"At this point, bureaucracy, judiciary and law enforcement become unable to punish those involved in corruption. This system gets re-calibrated to the benefit of Homo corruptus as those who stand against them are ejected.”
That article was published in 2017 when the authors believed "Nepal is at this [third] stage” and warned, "The next stage is total anarchy”.
Five years on, while Nepal’s economy has been pushed to the brink by the Covid-19 pandemic and global rising prices, the nation has not descended into anarchy.
But what stage of corruption is Malaysia at? I think I can safely say we haven't reached stage three. At least not yet, as evidenced by the Federal Court's decision to uphold Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak's conviction and sentence in the SRC Sdn Bhd case yesterday (Aug 23) despite delaying tactics like his "I am the victim" shenanigans and repeatedly asking judges to recuse themselves.
Still, we are on shaky ground. Going by what former Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission deputy chief commissioner (prevention) Datuk Seri Shamshun Baharin Mohd Jamil observed, Malaysia has been breeding Homo corruptus for 20 years.
In September 2019, The Star quoted him as saying that a survey carried out by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in 2002 showed that 30.5% of the respondents, who were students then, had expressed willingness to accept bribes if they were in power.
He then revealed that those within the age group of those respondents made up the majority of people facing corruption cases in 2019.
"The study yielded alarming results, but society remained in denial. It was not taken seriously. But now it has been proven that 53.2% of the 5,024 offenders nabbed (from 2014 to 2018) are aged 40 and below.
"This figure tallies with the survey carried out 17 years ago, as the respondents are now between 38 and 40 years old," he said ("UKM's 17-year-old survey on willingness to accept bribes proves prophetic").
What is more alarming is that in this Age of Corruption, the perpetrators are glorified and seen to be redeemable instead of condemned and discarded.
Even in the 21st century, Homo sapiens as a whole are really not very wise and are easily manipulated. We have become trapped in a fantasy called democracy that is touted as the most desirable political system for a civilised world.
As Pokharel and Shah put it, citizens of a democratic state believe they hold the power to choose and replace their government through free and fair elections, with laws and procedures applying equally to everyone.
"In an ideal situation, elections are designed to judge a political party’s performance. The parties are either allowed to continue or forced to step down from power through these elections.”
Unfortunately, the reality, they add, is far from the ideal situation in many countries. They cite Nepal as an example of how the political and bureaucratic system and democratic process have been re-engineered to allow Homo corruptus to thrive and vote for their kind, creating a system that is favourable for more of them.
Politicians who hold power for too long unfailingly become arrogant, self-serving and, therefore, corruptible. Term limits on how long a leader can stay in office is one way to curb such avarice but it’s not foolproof.
We see that clearly in South Korea’s case where, of late, just about every president has been charged with corruption after serving a single five-year term.
Homo sapiens get angry easily but they also have short memories. In South Korea, presidential pardons are almost a given for rich and well-connected convicted Homo corruptus, the latest being Samsung defacto leader Lee Jae-yong who was found guilty in 2017 of bribery and embezzlement involving disgraced president Park Geun-hye.
Park was pardoned by her out-going successor Moon Jae-in while Lee was pardoned on Aug 12, 2022, by the new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, reportedly because he is needed back at the helm of Samsung, the country's biggest company, to spearhead economic recovery post-pandemic – even though the conglomerate performed very well when Lee was in and out of prison.
Surprisingly, South Koreans, whose fierce protests toppled Park because of the bribery scandal and that railed against such big business influence over their top leaders, accepted the government’s reason, with a public poll showing 70% support for Lee’s pardon. Back in Malaysia, Najib seems to enjoy a similar popularity so one wonders what will happen now that he has been sentenced.
I agree with Biswas and Totajada that corruption can never be eliminated as it has always been a part of human nature and will continue to infect society. They add that, as the age of Homo corruptus continues, the best any country can do is to keep it to a minimum.
The enormous challenge is just how do we do that? This was the question I raised in my Nov 2, 2016, column, “Voting out democracy”.
Democratic elections all over the world show how we the people are forced to vote for unsavoury and questionable candidates. As I stated in 2016 in relation to how Americans were forced to choose between Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump, the most unpopular and controversial presidential candidates in US history: "If democracy is about giving people the right to choose who they want, it isn’t happening in America right now. The only alternative, ironically, is to not vote.”
Politics and International Studies researcher Manjeet Ramgotra in her article “Can democracy vote itself out of existence?” at theconversation.com, has this to say:
“Democracy is about more than just voting. It is about freedom of speech, the separation of executive from legislative power, judicial independence, and political equality.
“Democratic institutions exist to keep power from becoming centralised in a single, despotic location. Once these institutions begin to weaken, and the only remaining element of democracy is the pretence of elections, then democracy in its meaningful form is already gone.”
In the coming general election, do we citizens of Malaysia continue to vote for Homo corruptus candidates or be brave enough to be race-blind and give new, untried but hopefully upright and honest Homo sapiens a chance to remake and cleanse our beloved nation?
Aunty thinks retired chief admiral Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Jaafar, who fought to expose the wrongdoings in the LCS saga and refused to be bribed with a lucrative post-retirement job, should stand for election. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.
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