BBC Radio 4 2016-05-12

BBC Radio 4 2016-05-12

Good morning.

Who would dare to condemn corruption? Anyone who does is in danger of finding a finger pointed back at them telling them to put their own house in order first. This week the Prime Minister let slip some unguarded remarks about Nigeria and Afghanistan being "fantastically corrupt". The response of the Nigerian President, President Buhari, who came to power last year on a promise to fight corruption, was that he did not want an apology from Mr Cameron. Rather he wanted Britain to act so that money stolen by corrupt Nigerian politicians – and then deposited in British banks – should be repatriated to the country from which it was taken.

John the Baptist – living austerely out in the desert, dressed in animal skins, and eating a curious diet of locusts and honey - was probably safe from any such comeback when he issued his own condemnation of corruption. Touched by his fiery preaching, representatives of two, in those days, notoriously unscrupulous professions (tax collectors and soldiers) came to him to ask: ‘what shall we do?’ And he gave them what may seem to us rather straightfoward and unexciting advice. ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed’ he tells the tax collectors; and to the soldiers: ‘do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusations’.

If the advice seems to us unexciting, it is probably just because we live in a society, as John the Baptist plainly did not, which rather takes it for granted that corruption is wrong (even if we don’t always live up to our own proclaimed standards). Never having lived in the sort of deeply corrupt society, however, where tax collectors and soldiers can make random demands, we don’t quite realise what a terrible scourge corruption was and is. But as Transparency International’s manifesto ahead of today’s Anti-Corruption Summit in London makes clear, corruption often lies behind the sort of woeful events in other parts of the world with which we are only too familiar – a fire in a garment factory which kills dozens; recipients of programmes of medical treatment suffering dire side effects; continuing environmental degradation notwithstanding seemingly tough regulations. And as it also makes clear, even if corruption may not be so manifest in the affluent West, it still occurs and harms both individuals and societies. And, ironically, of course, the very countries where corruption is least obvious, provide the most desirable destinations for the ill-gotten gains of the corruption which occurs elsewhere.

Corruption is an issue for every country in the world and an anti Corruption Summit starts from that premise, as the Prime Minister has said. There are no saints occupying high and holy ground. Still the fight against corruption could do with a patron saint, and John the Baptist would be a good choice not just for trying to reform tax collecting and soldiering, but also for bravely challenging the behaviour of those with great power. Now, as then, opposing corruption requires something of the clear sightedness, straight talking, and also the simple courage which were the marks of his ministry.