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JEAN-MARC GORELICK: Corruption's quiet erosion of
democracy

Christian Science Monitor
(Published: December 19, 2005)

NEW YORK (CSM) - "And for me? Do you have a gift for
me?" The Togolese
soldier held my passport and was looking through it
slowly and
carefully.

"Gift, what do you mean?" I asked, feigning ignorance.

"You know, a little something for me before you leave"
the soldier
replied.

This was a familiar scene, one enacted many times over
my two years of
service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, West
Africa. Only this time
it was different. This time, I was at the airport
about to leave Togo
for good. This was my last "shakedown," my last bribe
request, and I
didn't like it.

I paused and, choosing my words with great care, said:
"I have served
your country for two years and this is how you are
sending me off?" The
soldier paused. He looked again at the passport and
then again at me. I
could see his facial _expression change. His coy grin
disappeared. He
handed over the passport, looked down at the ground,
and without saying
a word waved me on to the hangar where I waited for
the plane. I heaved
a sigh of relief. I had evaded the last shakedown.

Soldiers in Togo, and in much of West Africa, are
erratic and
unpredictable. My little performance could have
invited more harassment,
more delay, and possibly worse. But I was tired. I was
frustrated. All
the corruption I had witnessed in the past two years
had finally gotten
to me.

It's not as if I was shocked. As I approached the
airport, preparing to
leave the country whose people and culture had become
so much a part of
who I am, I knew that anything was possible. In fact,
my cautionary tale
about corruption in Africa is like telling a story
about how Americans
save too little. So what?

Even now, back in the United States, as I get
reacquainted with the
strange and wonderful gifts of freedom, the soldier's
request starts to
seem harmless. He is probably underpaid, used to
asking for bribes, and
merely needs a little pocket money. A little bribe
never hurt anyone; it
is merely the cost of doing business. Just hand over a
few coins and
bills, and you can be on your way. Business as usual.

And yet, as the foundation for democracy is being laid
in Africa's
former longest running dictatorship, and in so many
other developing
countries, the "business as usual" excuse just won't
cut it anymore. All
of us who care about Africa, who believe in the
promise of freedom, can
no longer ignore the corruption that World Bank
president Paul Wolfowitz
calls a "disease." It is a pernicious weed that
threatens to undermine
the otherwise valiant struggles for democracy sweeping
the continent.

But what do you do about a problem so pervasive that
it infects every
sector of a society? I saw it in schools, in churches,
in government. I
saw local officials take their little cuts of health
and education
projects. I even saw corruption dilute the U.S.
government's best
efforts to to deal with the agony of HIV/AIDS.

Corruption corrodes democratic reforms. It is a
"regressive tax" that
hurts the poor more than the rich and creates a system
that is
inherently undemocratic and unfair. It poisons the
climate for foreign
and domestic investment. And while poverty is
certainly a root cause, we
can no longer afford to accept it as an excuse.
Corruption thrives in
the absence of the rule of law. Lawlessness will
always give way to a
system in which one law prevails - the bribe.

So I laud the international community's efforts at
bringing democratic
reform to Africa. My country has never been more
positively engaged in
Africa. The Peace Corps and embassies around the world
perform daily
miracles, small and large. I plan to dedicate my life
to this effort.
But at the same time that we start thinking about free
and fair
elections, free markets, free speech, and other
democratic ideals, all
of us - international organizations, NGOs, the
developed world, and the
emerging democracies themselves - must resolve to end
the "corruption
tax" once and for all. Greed that enriches the corrupt
leaves that much
less to fight disease, hunger, and poverty.

Maybe some day I won't have to talk my way out of a
final shakedown.
Maybe the soldier will simply look over my passport
and hand it back to
me. Wouldn't that be something?

Jean-Marc Gorelick was Peace Corps volunteer in Togo,
West Africa, from
2003 to 2005.

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