Africa-Press – Lesotho. To state the obvious, corruption is not a one-time event; it is a culture with sub-cultures that have taken root inside the subterranean regions of our beloved country.
We see, smell, taste, hear, touch, and feel the branches and leaves of the corruption tree daily. These high-altitude winds rustle these branches and leaves and their caress is harsh as our souls get torn into little, sorry pieces scattered over this land. But, are we all willing to admit, for once, how, we, in fact, are the wiring that constitutes and connects this system and powers it daily?
Are we, as a collective of people under this flag, capable of self-reflection that is brutally frank and really admit the areas we need to develop? I ask because it seems that politicians are the only thing that is wrong with Lesotho and if by some magic trick, they were to all disappear we would live in a permanent Utopia.
And yet, I humbly submit, we are deluding ourselves Basotho ba batle. Politicians are just ordinary Basotho entrusted by us, the electorate, with the very extraordinary tasks of managing the fiscus, ordering and reordering our economic priorities and looking after all aspects of our welfare contained in our unspoken social compact.
Politicians come from among us, they are us. They are our friends, relatives, neighbours, enemies, colleagues, you name it. Politicians reflect exactly who we are as a society and they mirror what we are back to us. If they are corrupt, that is because we are corrupt. If they are untrustworthy, that is because we are untrustworthy.
The same justifications and rationalisations you make daily to live with yourself as you commit your “little” acts of corruption, to wit, inflating invoices, conning people out of their lifesavings, not paying your taxes, bribing the traffic cop, buying a driver’s license, bribing someone to get your child preferential treatment, skipping the line and pretending as if your business is much more important than that of others, demanding bribes etc.
Well guess what, when the politician steps into public office, he or she uses the exact same rationalizations to justify stealing millions, if not billions, from the fiscus.
You cannot change what you do not acknowledge, that is a fundamental self-development 101 principle. Until we all acknowledge just how untrustworthy and corrupt, we all are Basotho, we will continue to howl at the corruption moon.
Our young people and future generations will needlessly suffer. Basotho, our public utterances on social and other media platforms would have you thinking that ordinary Basotho are clean, and that this phenomenon of dirty politicians is an aberration we simply do not deserve.
We appear truly mystified and horrified by this unwarranted misfortune that has befallen our innocent nation. But, today, I want to challenge all of us to start admitting the truth…unvarnished and unrationalized.
And, that truth is, we are a corrupt people. I use the word ALL deliberately. Those of us who would boldly and genuinely assert that we are not corrupt, and are in fact trustworthy, have stood by and watched the stripping of this Nation’s assets and selling off to the lowest bidder.
What have we done except to point fingers and play the blame game? To make matters worse, some of us have knowingly voted for people with corrupt records.
We shrug and rationalise this with statements such as, “well, that’s just the way the world works”. No, it is not! Let us stop accepting such bald-faced lies and mediocre, downright evil, ways of existing on this planet.
Those who have the loudspeaker would have you believe that this is how the world works and if you cannot beat them you must join them. I call hogwash on that. In law, silence means consent. It means acquiescence.
If you have done nothing and yet claim to be incorruptible, I am sorry to inform you that you have acquiesced to this, this that is daily unfolding before our eyes.
So, in order to prove your incorruptibility, you would logically have to do the opposite of what you have been doing. Something. Anything positive and productive.
Even changing how you speak about corruption, politics and power in your household is something. It is nothing to be sneezed at. We all have different roles to play. What is yours? Something that stretches you just a wee bit and makes you slightly uncomfortable? No positive contribution is too small. Trust me.
Nation building is not a competition, it just requires genuine contribution using the gifts that God has given us, not to be boastful and egotistical about it, but to bless the world and bring about social transformations for His glory.
That is what our gifts are intended for. It is therefore best to establish what our gifts are and utilize them while we are still alive because we may not live to see tomorrow.
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