Hello elders! Do you hear me? Come a little closer to hear the little voice. I am the youth of Pakistan about which you love to write and speak too much as it is easy to count the attributes of the youth and easier to exploit their attributes of passion, energy and honesty. I see your strange world approaching me very fast; it is vibrant, lively, thrilling and oh yes scary as well. I am scared of the corrupt practices in the age ahead and I don’t want to be a victim of it or part of it.
And hark! Corruption is a universal issue and unfortunately, one of the greatest contributors responsible for the poverty, societal morals and social fissures and many associated weaknesses of the Third World countries. Corruption and corrupt practices are the buzz words in Pakistani society and we are conscious about it as directly and indirectly these are affecting our lives, thoughts and personalities and above all our future.
We, the children also have artistic ability, and there is wisdom in there having it! The more helpless we are, the more instructive are the examples we can furnish; and we must be preserved free of corruption from this early age when we are to enter in an upper sphere of age and experience.
It is our duty to challenge the corruption because we believe; that we can cause the genesis of a least corrupt society because at this age, least deceit is engraved on our souls because we are solely in a process of learning, a divine blessing upon us. We, the children of Pakistan, wish and want that our teacher and mentors embed the values of ethics, morality and absolute honesty in our minds and hearts so that we can carry pure and confident personalities to the future which are most resistant towards the corruption whether it is moral, financial, cultural or institutional. Otherwise, sadly we may have insensitivity towards corrupt practices inside us and around and we will definitely become the decaying agents to our Pakistan.
Corruption is already defined thing, it is hateful, odious and intolerable but it is very illusory when we come to tackle it. Charles Caleb Colton has rightly used the snow ball as a metaphor for corruption. It is a monster having the size of pebble in its early life but grows to the size of Himalaya at its youth. It takes start at individual level, convincing personal and inner thoughts, provokes to have a little gain through unethical practice and convince the person with illusory arguments to justify it. The little ball of snow is now set and ready to roll on. It plagues the individual, an institution, a culture and even a society if doesn’t stop or resisted in its start.
Power and weakness both nurture the corruption. Corruption influences and sets procedures and ways as precedence and motivation for others. Sick souls, weak personalities and fragile personal attributes are responsible for weakness, strengthening this monster of corruption. Rudeness, intolerance, malice, hatred and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The feeling of ill-will of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from their sense of inadequacy and helplessness. The extravagant exposure of wealth and resources by the powerful corrupts in society, makes the powerless but ill-souls to think and act like them and to compete with them to any aspect they can. The race between the powerful corrupts and weak corrupts begins and ruins the social and economic lives of the honest segment of the society. The corruption monster in the shape of snow ball rolls on and it becomes greater and greater and there are very less chances that it could be stopped at any stage. The resistant societies may cope it to some extent but an economy like ours is not in a position to absorb its thrust. In case of our country this snow ball is likely to become an avalanche and we all are aware what an avalanche does.
In my views there are three priority areas which can address the corruption issue and make our society prosperous and dignified. These include Education, Accountability and Justice. The education which I seek may work well for a new generation of good moral health. To prevent new monster of corruption, it is the personality and societal culture which can nip the evil in the bud and Education is the factor which can build the personal character, educate enough to distinguish between right and wrong and produce an informed youth which is honest, bold and courageous. It is the young person who accepts the impressions and can develop his/her personal ideology depends on how he/she is educated. Hence, a vigorous educational campaign should be launched in schools for students like us for its long term results and tangible outcomes in the future.
For the prevailing corruption, the accountability and justice are the only solutions which can reduce and discourage corrupt practices if maintained in time. I am pretty sure that Pakistan, like many other countries, has a sophisticated system for personal and institutional accountability and a parallel justice system which can make the individual realize the cost of choosing a corrupt way of doing things in society and similarly a justice system is there to console and redeem the wretched. BUT, unfortunately we don’t have compliance and implementation of both the systems because of a collateral compromise from many of us and letting the systems ineffective, passive and slow responsive. Our society have tendency to keep quiet, absorb the panic jerks of injustice and avoidance to go for the implementation of just rules in appropriate times. Would you please give it a thought yourself, why we behave like this when we come to accountability and justice? Aren’t we equally responsible for all this happening?
Through above mentioned steps corruption will be discouraged at all levels and a new generation will be emerged with overwhelming ideas and strategies to reduce and even eliminate the corruption to occur and flourish. Every institution, whether it belongs to government, semi-government or private should determine its values, define the corruption and its consequences. No person or institution should be declared above the law and exempted from accountability. Otherwise, ad-hoc, unstructured and illusory steps for the eradication of corruption will be merely more destruction of resources and adding more corruption.
Let me know if I am wrong and; if I am right but ignored or overlooked, there will be no change ever and I will be no more than another brick in the wall.