Dear Suresh,
Sorry for my belated message, and for not writing for a while, but I write to wish you a very happy new year and to say that when I look back on 2007 I will always look back on it as the year that I took my first trip to India, hopefully one of many, which you and all the others made so memorable.
I have finally had the time on my holiday (am in Australia at the moment) to seriously look at your website and your ideas about corruption. I have to say that you lost me in the maths part but i understood the argument - and partly i do agree. It is very interesting to think about this in the light of some of the conversations i had with Nathan in particular for whom corruption seems like such an everyday accepted part of life.
You asked for my opinion about soem of this stuff and i have to say i have not thought about it a whole lot but from what i have seen here's a few reflections from my personal experiences and from watching and reading about other places.
It seems to me that corruption most often flourishes in places which are poor - this goes back to your cause and effect argument- but in many countries it is seen as a legitamte way to supplement your income most often in order to be able to survive - at least that applies to low level corruption, high-level coorrption is soemthign else.
what i notice from Serbia is that the mentality is also "why should i not take bribes when everyone else is?", almost as if if you didn't take bribes your peers would think you were stupid. it is a whole survival system which stems from years of war which made it very difficult to get things, particularly from abroad. in some ways people felt like they didn't have choice i think.
then there is the whole question of kinship systems - it is almost unthinkable in a place like Australia for example that you would give a job to someone from your family in the public sector, but also sometimes in larger businesses. but someone told me a good story once about a small businessman in Afghanistan who got some micro-credit through a World Bank scheme to open a store and then employed his brother to work in it only to be accused by the World Bank of corruption. he of course thought this was very weird as in their culture it almost goes without saying that you hire family members first. i find this cultural divide very interesting.
and lastly, from the point of view of the EU, we spend a lot of time arguing with the European Commission over good governance because they have become obsessed by it and are directing more and more aid money towards it, at the expense of funding for health and education. this is a particular dynamic between Europe and Africa - after years of allowing European companies to profit from corrupt African governments (who in large parts created a lot of the corruption issues) we now demand swift progress on all these issues in return for aid money. this is of course all driven by the world bank which of course we don't think is a friend of development (and after the hypocrisy of Wolfowitz has been left with very little credibility). i tend to agree with you - it is only the people of those countries who can decide to fight corruption - i don't think that this value system can be imposed by the EU through making aid conditional. The questions is when have people had enough and how does this revelation that corruption is denying countries the benefits of development come about? I am not sure. Possibly through people like you.
So here’s just some random thoughts. I tend to look at things from a much more political point of view so you may find this completely useless, but its an interesting conversation which I hope we will continue one day, preferably in India where I can't wait to return to.
Unfortunately time flies and work seems to always come as a priority as I had hoped to actually write something about our experiences on the CSC but have not had the chance to yet. I hope that I will still do that but in the meantime here finally are some pictures I intended to send a long time ago. I hope that all is going well for you and that you and your family will have a safe and happy 2008.
With best wishes,
Andrea
