CORRUPTION
There was someone I knew who works as a Chargeman in one of the Electrical Substation in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
During last Hari Raya “open house” celebration, he boasts that he will insist the contractor which worked at his substation to give him free lunch whenever installation work occurs, otherwise he will stop work.
“Your workers had your lunch, so what, am I an idiot who have to wait for you guys?” he boasts, and I had a sickening feeling hearing that, but I kept quiet.
His work includes monitoring installation work and he got paid for it, nonetheless he still insist on the free lunch as if it is his God-given right to earn it.
The worst part was his father, who seems so proud of his son showing his “power”, was the one who conduct the reading of Islamic prayers during the “open house” celebration.
During the idle talk, the father with the rest of the family laments about Prime Minister Najib corruption accusation, and its impact of causing inflation and price increase, which affected most Malaysian nowadays.
Now you know why Malaysia are so screwed up nowadays.
Will it be in my lifetime to see it all so corrupted like what Sydney Rittenberg saw?
China was indeed a beautiful country and a new adventure. But the stench of hunger, poverty and corruption dampened the young southerner’s enthusiasm. Soon after he and his fellow troops arrived, they met a band of Kuomintang troops who offered to get them some female companionship.
“They told us that for a dollar, they would go to a nearby village and bring back Chinese girls that they could guarantee would be virgins,” Rittenberg says. “For one U.S. dollar, they would just grab some girl — everyone knew about it but nobody did anything to stop it.”
Officials hoarded food, money and supplies while peasants starved and toiled. It was common to see corpses rotting along the roadside. Officials casually joked to him and the other Americans about robbing and torturing people.
“There was no incentive not to be corrupt — you almost had to be,” he reflects. Government employees demanded bribes and kickbacks from common people for the most basic services. “It was routine, people expected it.”
One of the worst experiences was his investigation into the death of a 12-year-old Chinese girl named Li Muxian. A drunk American sergeant ran her down after a night of partying.
The G.I. had picked up a dancing girl at a club the night before, and woke up to find himself AWOL with a splitting headache. He took a few shots of whiskey and drove back to base. He saw Li by the road and thought it would be funny to scare her.
“I said to myself I’m going to see how close I can get to that little slopey girl and goddamn if I didn’t run her over,” the sergeant said in his deposition.
Investigators sent Rittenberg to interview witnesses, including the girl’s father. “Our life is nothing,” the father said. “It is nothing but eating bitterness. She was all we had. We were hoping she would have something better.”
In his report, Rittenberg recommended the Army provide the highest possible compensation, but the assistant claims officer reduced it to $26. Rittenberg was mortified. He told the officer that the Army had reimbursed a villager $150 for a horse not long before.
The officer told him that the estimate was based on burial costs and what a person added to family income. A small child earned no income and needed a just a small coffin, the officer reasoned. A horse has a price tag — a human life doesn’t.
Rittenberg delivered the $26 to the girl’s father, feeling disgusted. Later that day, the man arrived in his office. The peasant had brought $6 back. The American was confused.
The American linguist realized the man saw him as part of the corrupt Chinese bureaucracy. The peasant felt obligated to give a kickback to every official who helped him receive the meager compensation. Rittenberg refused to take the money, and sent the man on his way.
The experience haunted him for years.
It was in Southwest China that Rittenberg began reading local newspapers — including underground newspapers glorifying the exploits of communist guerrillas in the north.
Many newsstands carried these papers secretly, and the locals treated the guerrillas like folk heroes. “They seemed to be practicing honest government, and government that was somewhat democratic,” he says.
Around the same time, Rittenberg befriended several communists. They shared meals, drank together and listened to music. They told him stories about underground revolutionary activities in Shanghai. He requested a transfer to Shanghai for the remainder of his enlistment. His superior officers pulled some strings … and he was on his way.
Shanghai was a bustling international hub. “It was a chamber of horrors to me,” Rittenberg says. It was a decadent town — everything frightening about the corruption in Southwest China was amplified in this port city.
“Nanking Road, which was the main stretch, was always crowded with people,” he says. “Most of them were hookers and their pimps.”
The opulence of the nightclubs clashed with the abject poverty and starvation on the streets. “You could hardly go anywhere without running into at least one body on the street.”
One morning, he opened the front door of his military lodging and found a corpse. “He was just sitting there, he’d frozen to death the night before,” he recalls.
He asked a Chinese policeman why nobody did anything about the bodies. The cop explained to him that anyone who touched them would become responsible for the burial costs — so everyone would ignore it.
He took on a freelance assignment for an American press outlet investigating Shanghai’s prostitution rackets. He learned that most of the prostitutes were sold to brothels from struggling rural families.
“A lot of them were just children,” he reflected with a hint of sadness.
Intro : (This is a man who dedicated his life to making money
by lying with every breath that he could muster...)
Standing so close to the edge
Pumping more until they burst
The only thing not being done
Is getting these bridges burned
Still sowing seeds of hate
Growing nicely in the weak
While preparing for the terror
That is yet to be unleashed
With your gums oiled and greased
And your biggest smile in place
Your role is that one of a priest
To convert them all with haste
Still sowing seeds of hate
Growing nicely in the weak
While preparing for the terror
That is yet to be unleashed
Another lie to calm things down
Storming the winds of hate
Hating all that you create