State Corruption and the Underdevelopment of the Ordinary Citizen

This is the original text that has been translated into Arabic within virtually the same context. Text elaborateness was ensured within the Arabic version due to its potential larger circulation. Reading this version is appreciated due to semi-selfish reasons, most of all, for its authentic self-portrayal

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Many are mislead over the root cause of people’s backwardness and underdevelopment in society by attributing it to the nature of people whom they perceive as reliant, consumeristic, deadened, and so forth. However, such reasoning defies reason itself since a people’s underdevelopment can always be attributed to the following:

Pervasive Unawareness

It is only within the ordinary that the masses of any people subjected by a corrupt government be drastically unaware of the overwhelming corruption that is transpiring. The ordinary citizen is unaware that corruption is a circumstance far from being ordinary and more importantly, one that is worth eradicating. The ordinary citizen is incapable of perceiving himself as the source for reform whose transformation of current situations is within his power and jurisdiction as well. This perception is further propelled when states oversee that the masses are disenfranchised, unaware, and coerced into perceiving themselves inept and into perceiving corruption within an ordinary lens.

Public unawareness is drastic and needs eradication by enlightening the masses as to what they can collectively accomplish. The act of enlightening the masses is key to any reformative change, which may only take place upon public connectivity, dedicated patriotism, and an unshaken belief in tolerance in regards to the different other. Once the individual is aware of his actual and immense capabilities through public awareness, a state that governments abhor, he instinctively starts perceiving his surroundings within a critical mindset, and that is the first step towards any reformative change both introspectively and externally in regards to government.

The Nature of the Relationship between People and Corrupt Governments

Recall the saying “With power comes responsibility”?

Well it’s a farce, since power rises along with the potential for corruption; this is a universal fact that applies to all powerful agents. This is how it has always been throughout history, which is why people who hold power over others should be perceived critically and be held accountable at all times. A corrupt state is always fiscal-oriented and thus, the only way it can pertain its unjustified gorging of resources is through dehumanizing its citizens to allow itself to be the sole beneficiary of interests.

Corrupt states perceive all within a materialistic portrayal that inevitably leads to the dehumanization of the incomparably fortuneless ordinary citizen. Hence, a relationship arises between the ordinary citizen and the fiscal-oriented government in which the prior is perceived as undeserving, irrelevant, and devalued. Due to this materialistic disposition, the corrupt government dehumanizes its citizens by perceiving them as objects rather than as human beings deserving of equity, integrity, and rights. The state permits itself, within this portrayal, to strip its citizens bare from humanistic traits, which are the instigators of all rights.

The Execution of the Ordinary Citizen

Due to the materialistic nature of corrupt governments, the state perceives public awareness and public progressivity as menacing. That in turn immediately instigates a government-propelled doctrine in which the masses are molded into a suitable, unaware, and compliant public. Thus, the corrupt state manufactures the following citizens:

Unaware citizens who may easily be herded into whichever endeavors, ideologies, or any other matter that current policies dictate, which highly jeopardizes critical thinking, self-realization, and self-actualization. The state creates such citizens through forsaking educational progress, withholding support from various intellectually restorative institutions, and through hindering, if not completely withholding permits to found national, scientific, or socially reformative institutions that would exceptionally enlighten and empower the public.

In addition, the corrupt state manufactures atomized citizens whose sole purpose in life is marginalized through unsubstantiated consumerism, which explains the reluctancy of states to establish foundations of extracurricular activities – such as sports, music, theater – that may propel the public in general and youth in particular to achieve their intrinsically limitless and prosperous life-potential. Corrupt states plan and operate on the basis of ensuring communal misanthropy and the execution of patriotism by transfusing discrimination in the rather well-know “Divide and Conquer” strategy that aims at dismantling public spirit and public solidarity. Moreover, corrupt states execute citizenry through failing to employ accountability, which is an alarming disposition to hold since it prioritizes irresponsibility over public safety. In addition, the corrupt state diminishes national identity through its willful abandonment of history, heritage, and culture.

This latter factor further propels inferiority-ridden individuals to alienate themselves from their own cultures in pursuit of foreign ones that are often conflicting with local social norms and traditions. Due to the extrinsic and inappropriate nature of such foreign cultures within the masses, their victims subliminally resort to disengaging themselves from the public, and in time, their deluded misconceptions about constitutors of progressiveness will disenfranchise the masses from humanizing themselves in relation to corruption and will justifiably disaffect the public’s heart and soul, as it did mine. For what good is progressiveness – and false progressiveness in regards to our unintelligent intellectuals – if it hinders them from pertaining compassion in regards to fellow citizens who unknowingly share the burden of having to steer their own destiny? That is not progressiveness but a tool of self-torture, self-hatred, and self-humiliation.

Predictions

Predictions are fairly easy to conjure in light of the current situation, which is drastic and in need of rectifying. In a country like Kuwait – the term country placed loosely here due to the absence of governing – only a grimmer future awaits an idle public. Such dim prospects mainly arise from the official lack of accountability that will hinder ordinary actions and life in general from attaining a minimal level of normalcy, in terms of personal safety and inviolability. Civil rights and liberties will be hugely restricted, leading to further public unawareness and an even grimmer prospect for future reform, let alone the drastically shifting societal – and suicidal – demographics that is fueled by current biased attitudes which will ultimately result in the alienation of those whose refusal to acknowledge the different other will lead to their potential emigration.

Reform and Options

It is substantial that any type of reform arises from communication and public connectivity. There is always a “lack of connection” between citizens, especially in places like Kuwait where progressive institutions are disbarred. Public connectivity is not as difficult as it may seem at first glance since the ordinary citizen possesses the common sense and the common interest needed to pay attention and be concerned. Another substantial matter concerns the procedures that any reformative operation must adhere to, to which I affirm that small groups, small plans, and small steps are the basis of durability and success. Random selection of the founding group members, along with impractical goals and prospects will inevitably lead to dismantlement.

Furthermore, targeted individuals must be ordinary citizens whose common interest supersedes trivial differences and selfish private interests; thus, true ordinary citizens are dedicated and sincere. Last but not least, current reformative groups such as the organizers of the “Irhal” campaign - or upcoming others - must be nourished and supported so that they may be propelled into further future actions in regards to eradicating corruption; the root of underdevelopment. Public awareness is key to a better future and once instigated, it would result in empowering greater and greater numbers of concerned ordinary citizens of various public interests and in time, these groups must coalesce to achieve the greater goal of the collective.

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Further readings:

- Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire.

- Noam Chomsky on direct democracy and the will of the collective.

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