Our society and morality of corruption
19 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized
There have been so many thoughts in my head recently. About myself, the world, the society. I just came back from the cinema; I saw a Cuban movie Ciduad en Rojo. It tells the story about revolutionary struggle of Cubans against the military Batiste regime. In a way it was an inspiring story about people not willing to live their lives bounded and only be able to speak in a low voice and they wanted to change course of things, even restored to violence, because the reality they lived in was unbearable. It could have been a success story, story of Cuban revolution overthrowing oppressive regime. If only one oppression was not succeeded by another one.
I had a long discussion with a friend, amongst other things also about Czech society and politics. The Czech Republic belongs to one of the most corrupt states in Europe. On the global scale we received the same rating as Saudi Arabia. The news is full of it. There is no single political party without any members involved in corruption affair. People are fed up. But it seems like there are no alternatives. Last elections people were thrilled to see new parties entering the scene with promises of a new transparent politics. It turned out one of them was purely business project aimed to get to power in order to get access to public finances and abuse them. People lost faith in the big old parties, but now even in any new „projects“ . I heard older people saying this might be the first time since Velvet revolution they will not go to vote, because there isn’t anyone to vote for. Affairs of public finances being misused at local, regional or even state level are part of the daily news coverage. Leaders of one party are being called mafia barons, the leaders of the other populist pigs. Time has come to cut budgets and prepare for potential downturn of economy in the light of crisis in Eurozone. There are many criticizing cuts in public budget, most of the politicians criticize because it would limit their access to opportunities to steal, not because of concerns about wellbeing of citizens.
I asked my friend if this will ever change. He said it won’t.
I am a believer, you know that…. What about the young generation? What about the large majority of people being dissatisfied with the current state of things? He said the new generations are sons of their fathers, those who weren’t already trained how to steal efficiently will be corrupted by the power anyway. I couldn’t believe it. There must be a way how to change things? Is it the nature of people? The lack of morality inherent in our characters? Would I, myself, be corrupt if in power?
This brings me back to the Cuban struggle. What is the breaking point in the society, which starts the uprising? BUT!! If people do have guts and fight against the wrongs, what if they end up with something even worse after their fight has been completed?
Is it all a question of morals and ethics? Could moral mind be corrupt or can only be corrupted?
The state of our society and the discontent with it brings my thoughts back to the era of communism. People were not satisfied with the regime. There was corruption and even worse things to hate and fear about it. And some spoke up, as some do today. But for a very long time their voices were lost in the sheep-like silent approval of the masses. How different is to live in the society depriving you from your basic rights and silent you with repressions to the society we live in today? Of course we have access to many more luxuries. But do we have access to democracy? What does that word even mean anymore?
The moral dilemma of going with the flow or turning myself against it always brings me to two important pieces of literature. It is the Kundera’s book The Joke and Havel’s piece The Power of Powerless. Both of them question the human capacity to distinguish good and bad and live your life in the truth. Going back to important parts of our history, I cannot but ask myself, what stand would I take? Would I be the one quietly confirming with the regime and going about my own business or the one printing underground newspapers? And who am I today. I am not printing underground newspapers. I wish there was such a thing.
At the same time the stories of Kundera and Havel are more about the power of personal standards of morality and life in accordance with them rather than struggle in the outer world. But at the same time the real change in a society never happened because there were many people with high morals sitting in their apartments disagreeing with the world. There was always someone, why had the courage to go public, to provide them with the realization that they are not alone. That their silent disagreement is shared across their city and their country.
Will things change? I cannot accept that they won’t. I just wish I knew the way.
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