THE PERFECT STORM

This article is originally published in Insurance Journal: http://insurancejournal.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Insurance-Journal-3rd-Quarter-2021.pdf 

by Hira A. Siddiqi

There is a saying by John Steinbeck goes like this “Power doesn’t corrupt. Fear corrupts… perhaps the fear of a loss of power.” Steinbeck was known as a giant of American letters for his realistic writings. What he’s trying to reflect in his above saying is that corruption can exist anywhere it doesn’t look for financially healthy, educated one neither it only revolves around Government Officials, Politicians, Journalists, Artists, Industrialists, Landlords, Business Tycoons but this can be found in a Teacher in a School, a social worker, an employer following cronyism practices.

There are a lot of definitions of this menace of corruption but to be précised this is simply a misuse of power or authority provided to one person whether at local, community, provincial, national, or global level. The game of becoming a monster when seeking about it it’s very normal, if the society one lives in is a corrupt society there are many chances that one gets corrupt in some way. 

So what is the perfect storm? Answer this that the perfect storm here is the slow process of damaging one soul for the greed of the power to either test it or earn it more and more by adverse means, it can escalate when the surroundings perform as a catalyst. The environment does not harm the soul directly, but it damages the person living in the environment, a collateral damage. For instance, an employee working in the public relations department of a company has nothing to do with the financial corruption going on in the procurement department. How is that PR person affected? just to say that PR people are very very conscious about their own reputation more than the company’s because they are pursuing their career because of their credibility throughout their lives. So, they become a watchdog and get the check on compliance of the work going on in the company, because eventually the results of corruption emerge and erode the company anytime. 

There is a school of thought that mostly PR people are hired for to cover up the work going on in the company. What Public Relations Experts are for then if they can’t cover up the whole mess, situation or conflict that just broke down the functions and its viral all over the media? Where are those “PR strategies” when they can’t save the company’s reputation in front of the world? Answer is they can and that’s the point described earlier when the soul of that employee starts damaging because of that collateral damage happening anywhere in the corner. And that’s the skill of a PR person, but to be honest Public Relations is more than prevention than combating corruption through building a bubble, something that never existed. 

What is prevention from corruption and why is it necessary until it doesn’t harm you? One should take salary of their work and go home, they should not be concerned that why a female employee is being harassed, why the relatives or friends of CEO are being hired in a company crossing the recruitments process, they should not even care that the amount mentioned in the fake and forged receipts is much higher than the cash one paid to the vendor, an employee should just let it go until one day some kid suddenly throw the eaten apple at your home and you feel that why should you care it’s just the dirt around? But wait, you would care about that eaten apple because you know the color of apple changes in just minutes and starts decaying the unbearable smell, flies would feel attraction to this rotten apple piece, and they would bring diseases and infection with them that might harm your family and you? 

A guy was traveling on a train without a ticket and he wasn’t ashamed of not buying it because he knows it happens that people can travel without buying a ticket. Another guy asked him, “Now this is another country would you still travel without a ticket? The first one replied “Yes”. Second guy laughed and said that I can assess how corrupt your leaders would be in case if you are doing damage of a small penny they must be playing with countless amounts. So what comes out of this is not that all leaders do same or that the country is corrupt on the basis of the traveller without a ticket but the moral of the story is that enabling an environment that people feel free to roam with crime, work with corruption is an outstanding and courageous skill but a shameful one. It’s a responsibility of leaders to make their surroundings transparent and fair, and here leaders are not president or prime-ministers only, leaders can be a shopkeeper, a principal of the school, a CEO of the company or a chairperson of the public department. 

Transparency does not come all of a sudden, and it’s not even the solution but it’s the result of the process one struggles for years to make his company, shop, school, office fair, inclusive and transparent to breathe. The PR people we left earlier would come themselves to drop in to your organization and would feel proud to work with you.. 

When the two plus get added it’s the win win game but when minus added with plus its already a subtraction of something. It’s Mathematics and we don’t know what will be subtracted. 

Hira A. Siddiqi is a Peace and Public Relations Expert

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