NIS and our expectations
The ACC - Will NIS's fate follow suit?
NATIONAL Integrity Strategy (NIS) is a brand new venture to eradicate corruption from our country. We welcome them the way we did the present Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) and the way we did President Ershad when he called for Jihad against corruption. And also the way we did to all political parties' promises before elections. The consequence of all those optimistic welcome is today's pathetic reality. Instead of going by the history of all those promises/expectations, let us analyze the ongoing initiatives. Look at the mission and vision of ACC with objectivity: all the bigwigs are inside the jail, and in twenty months time corruption increased by 2%. Can any institution assemble more power and energy than the present ACC to eradicate corruption from this country? However, Bangladeshis being optimistic by nature, we don't give up the hope that one day honesty will be reinstated. Honesty and development are directly proportional; they are like two parallel lines of a railway. And an honest person is a patriot and a dishonest one is a traitor. A state always expects its citizens to be honest and patriots, not dishonest or traitors. If a dishonest person, before going to power, makes promises to the people and does the reverse after winning an election that is hard luck. But, if a soldier is given a mission to destroy a target and a weapon capable of doing so, he cannot rationalize his failure saying that the target is indestructible. Failing to destroy a target is one thing and allowing the target to gain more strength is another. When the bigwigs are quarantined and have no role in maintaining corruption in the society then how could there be increase in corruption? Have we selected a wrong mission? Or do we have problem in execution? If we fail to unearth these basics, NIS will only add another failure to all our anti-corruption initiatives taken so far in the last 37 years. Fundamentally we have lost our invaluable asset that is our national character. We need either an honest leader or a professional institution to get back our lost national honesty. Unfortunately though, instead of honest leaders we have mostly looters and no institution for the job. Can NIS fill the gap? Can it really come up as the savior to create the environment that people of developed countries enjoy? We don't want to see failure as a pillar of success anymore. We have piled up unaccountable pillars, now we need only success. When Europe is testing "Big Bang", spending 7 billion dollars to find how the universe came into being, we as a nation cannot bridle corruption, which is at the point of threatening our sovereignty. What a splendid but pathetic display of qualitative difference between the two! Increase of corruption in absence of the power brokers implies that the environment has something to do with this. And we have not given enough significance to this sector (environmental change). To get the country on an honest footing we either need honest leaders who love the people and the nation but not the power and the money, or an institution professionally capable in psychological warfare. Getting hold of corrupt people is a task easier than turning someone honest or creating an honest environment. If NIS can take this challenge only then can we hope for some changes. Task of Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) is only appraisal, task of ACC apparently is only to catch the corrupt persons, Truth and Accountability Commission (TAC) is only to show mercy upon confessions; then who is responsible for creating an honest environment? It is this environment that continuously produces corrupt people in the society. Increase of corruption by 2% is the testimony that we have not taken care of the environment. Under the present scenario office bearers are often getting involved in corruption and losing their hard earned jobs; should we only blame those individuals? What have we done to provide the right kind of environment where in they can remain comfortably honest? Strict accountability can keep a dishonest man away from corruption but cannot turn him morally honest. Can NIS take this responsibility? Do they have enough human and technological skill to turn dishonest human beings to honest ones? Have they developed any methodology or time frame to execute their planned actions in fulfilling their vision and mission? If the organization is media fringy and does not have a crystallized mission, it will surely drift away from the very objective. They need to conduct professional psycho-cleansing operations to instill perceptions that will change the behavior of our people. This is not an easy task; if they can take this responsibly and ACC is only to catch culprits then only we may see our long cherished desire getting fulfilled. Changing human behavior through tampering human perception is purely technical; it is the job of professionals provided by different planned action, reaction or inaction using different instruments, arrangement and management technologies. West has institutionalized this skill; we are yet to know its appearance. To conduct a physical heart surgery of an individual we need so much of expertise, how can we plan an operation, which deals with an intangible surgery of corrupt heart and mind of the mass? We do not want anymore high profile institutions that fail in their mission. We want a functionally capable institution that can identify its mission in clear terms and can act professionally and accomplish their mission in given time. We need to amass all the physical and mental strength to withstand the challenge, to face the initial hardship of honesty. Even if we have to sacrifice the collective comfort of a generation, still it is a small price to pay to create a revolution, to come out of the darkness of corruption. May the creator provide NIS enough foresight, insight and wisdom to rid the country of corruption through changing the mindset of our leaders and citizens! The author is a freelancer.
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