A Message to the Corrupt, Wherever They May Be

In Lebanon, people have long been accustomed to labeling officials in government administrations and public institutions as “corrupt,” and to affixing the label of “negligence” to the signs of all state-affiliated and even independent institutions.

The public is not to blame, as their long-standing experiences with these authorities have never inspired them to view them in a positive light. Bribery, delays, looting, and extortion have reduced the administrative state to a shambles, eroded respect for it, and justified accusations against it.

This is the ugly face that has constituted a tragedy for official administrations and state-affiliated institutions, a tragedy that persists to this day. No government has ever sought to polish this image through the desired reforms or through serious confrontation with the barbarism of the corrupt, relying instead on speeches and worn-out slogans. Consequently, corruption has grown more grotesque, further eroding the relationship between the Lebanese state and its people. This situation remains unchanged to this day.

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In this dark tunnel, it is impossible for us to glimpse any energy from which a surprising light might emerge. We have come to disbelieve that there are roses in the thorns, the sun in the darkness, or rectitude within the principles of corruption. Indeed, there is a group that does not reject disguising itself in injustice; for them, the citizen’s rights are nothing more than a disguise. Instead of its members being exposed and sent to prison, their corruption has festered, sinking into the foul refuse that constantly floats to the surface, polluting society and degrading its quality of life with its toxins.

O you who are infested, trust in you is non-existent, because you have pursued a path so vile that its conduct has not only afflicted you, but also those who preceded you, many of your contemporaries, and perhaps even your successors, were it not for the dominance of the rule of law and the triumph of the state project.

You practiced subservience and humility in the face of corruption and negligence, so your face became blackened. Thus, the people of your country have never found peace with the rising of each sun. You believed that theft and looting offered a means to find happiness, reassuring yourself as you amassed wealth through fraud. You served these vices with zeal and betrayed core values.

O champion of humiliation, the truth is preserved only through behaviors akin to the intention to reject falsehood and the stain of corruption in these degenerate times. Since value lies in defending rights, not in opposing their holders, and since a position is a serious responsibility, not a throne to be mounted for personal gain, you were never the hope for reform, nor the spearhead in dismantling the rhetoric of negligence and its horrific impact on a society that you helped plunge its forehead into the mud of degradation. You were motionless when you witnessed the repercussions of negligence, bribery, and procrastination—these patched-up pockets in public institutions, of which you were among the defenders. When you realized that your citizen was the wronged party and that abandoning him was the gravest of flaws, you became the star of his abandonment, theft, and extortion. These basenesses are irreducible.

O deceiver, and you who are biased toward cunning and deception, you never undertook creative and confrontational initiatives that required courage, a trait you never possessed. Thus, fraud accumulated in your “achievements.” The people can only insult these achievements, belittle their author, and condemn his flaws. You were nothing but a whale swallowing fish food, a lung breathing hatred and malice, and a wandering corpse harboring enmity toward the people’s rights and tampering with their dignity.

Trust me, you face of harm, that what we direct at you is not mere satire; it is excerpts from the convictions you have instilled in our very beings through your corruption, your rush toward depravity, and your humiliating deeds wherever you may be. Your demeanor is nothing but a phantom appearance, devoid of any identity except collusion, safeguarding plunder, and unlawfully seizing others’ rights. This is clear evidence of a glaring flaw, a contract with the desecration of morality, and a stab at national and human responsibility, presenting a model utterly incompatible with prevailing values, principles, and customs.

O you who specialize in deceit, you have acquired two deficiencies: the flaw that diminishes your worth as a human being, and the baseness that tarnishes your dignity. This is merely the result of prioritizing your private interest, the degradation of your trustworthiness and honor, the concealment of your deceit to smuggle your corruption secretly, and your deviation from the upright path in conduct. All this has crippled in you both dignity and the capacity to do good.

And since innovation (bid’ah), in our view, is moral ruin—corruption and spreading corruption—you have coined a new lexicon for it, making it the mandatory passage that corrupt and destructive elements must traverse to reach the level of your hypocrisy, which turns a blind eye to honor.

O you traitor, in whom the dignity of self has disintegrated, you have fully accumulated the contracts of corruption; thus, your achievements have entered the dictionary of flaw, unique in their own category. From this, we condemn and insult you, and may your offspring never be entrusted with responsibility, so that responsibility remains honorable, and you remain despised, surrounded by curse.

$ Writer, Lebanese university professor