A shame campaign (Part 2)

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

A shame campaign (Part 2)
Sunday, 10 05, 2008

Shame them.

This is the antidote to corruption. It works on human nature. When the law is unfeeling and proves itself prone to manipulation to conceal the crime or the criminal, a shame campaign serves as a pillar at which the culprit is scourged in public view before he takes on his cross of embarrassment and humiliation. A public shaming is a punishment worse than death; this is why in countries where honor and personal integrity are held as the noblest virtues of an individual, a miscreant would rather commit an act of self-destruction than live a life of ostracism from his fellow man. A shame campaign tugs at the conscience and pricks it; it riles the feelings and makes one feel totally despicable, worthless and beyond redemption. In a shame culture, a person who breaks the law would wish to sink into the ground and disappear forever from view, to hide himself from eyes that have borne witness to his embarrassment and disgrace.

Surely, no one would want to get caught giving a bribe, or accepting the bribe. No one would want to face the dishonor, the disgrace, and the condemnation that are heaped on lawbreakers. It is human nature to put up a brave face of uprightness, to flaunt a façade of righteousness, to defy public opprobrium and proclaim one’s innocence.

Conversely, one who is caught giving a bribe, or accepting a bribe, or breaking the law, loses face. He would no longer be able to put up that brave face of uprightness; would no longer be able flaunt that façade of righteousness; and, worse, he would be the subject of scorn and derision.

Imagine, if you will, photos splashed on the front page of newspapers, taken at the exact moment when the bribe changed hands from driver to traffic officer. Would the driver and the traffic officer still have the righteous indignation to explain away the mordida? Imagine still the same players acting out their respective choonga roles on your television set. Would they still have the face to insist on their innocence? If you commit the crime, be prepared to appear on prime time.

Ascending the corruption ladder a bit further, imagine being broadcast over the radio the sordid, incontrovertible details of a whistleblower’s account of how a public official managed to wheedle his way unto a government contract because a hefty commission had been prepaid even before the deal was signed. Would that official still have the equanimity to tell the nation that the kickback is “a normal, acceptable part of expediting business in this part of the world”?

And since we have touched on the medium being the message, what about a billboard in the public square, with the full faces and names of bribers and bribees, extortionists, embezzlers and thieves prominently displayed, announcing to all and sundry their specialized corrupt practices?

Or, in this age where information is but a click away between the computer monitor and the mouse, would the practitioners of the dark art of corruption have any self-respect left once their visages and crimes have been brought to the unforgiving glare of the digital world?

Get one instance of documented corruption. Put to shame the main players and their beneficiaries. This will not only deter them from engaging in the same act, ever again. For sure, the threat of humiliation and shame will deter not many, (yes, not all) but the effect is that it will work to a great degree as ostensible retribution, notwithstanding the fact that legal precedents have enshrouded shame as a pillar of punishment.

In a sense, a publicity of a court trial for corruption is in the mold of a shame campaign. Play out in media the details of the crime and, best of all, expose the crook in his shameless and shameful glory. Who else would have the stout heart and the straight face to undergo the same public trial?

Indeed, no one would ever want to be in the shoes of that bureaucrat who was caught giving bribes just to make sure his favorite presidential candidate would win. The media was merciless to him. He just had to flee the country, never to show his face again, not so much as out of fear of being convicted in a court of law as out of the dread of living among his countrymen, damned in the court of public opinion. And no one would ever want to be that other government employee who was exposed giving bribes to members of the legislature, for them to vote against the impeachment of a constitutional officer. She has since flown the coop, together with her family, unable to summon enough strength to explain away her wrongdoing. And the bribees? Many of them who were proven to have received the bribe were daily fodder for media to crucify, and their families suffered from this daily bashing. One wonders how many nights they spent wrestling with the continuing humiliation.

The passage of time has not dulled the ignominy faced by a presidential crony who demanded a multi-million dollar lagniappe to allow the construction of a nuclear power plant that has since become a white elephant. The shrewd accountant that he was, his particular exercise of corruption was hard to demonstrate and prove but it was immediately apparent in the public perception. So where is he now? Not so much out of fear of prosecution but more out of infamy and condemnation for bleeding the taxpayer dry, this presidential pal has fled the country to a place where no one knows his face, unable to bring with him his ill-gotten wealth or even his family, who must now suffer the brunt of the vicarious shame that he has brought upon them.

Shame them, in whatever form and manner.


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