Insecurity Instead of Hope: Corruption Case in Iraqi Society

After the downfall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraqi people embraced big hope for future.  They must have dreamed their life without the dictator’s oppression, but with democratic freedom.  However, this hope failed realized.  Instead, people are suffering with unstable and insecure situation all over the nation.  In these abnormal years without proper government function, the only way which saves them in the society is corruption.

              Nowadays, corruption is everywhere at every level of society.  Just after the fall of Baghdad, political leaders shortly started to collect as much money as they could in order to compete in the harsh struggles for power among tons of various parties.  This socially infected to the life of Iraqi citizens, causing difficulty to obtain basic necessities and medical cares without bribery.  People can only find foods, waters and oil at black markets.  Getting administrative jobs is required to pay.  Moreover, currency inflation has struck people’s life, especially the poor who are overwhelmed to pay enough even for protecting their life.  According to UN’s survey (2013), “the prevalence of bribery among Iraqi citizens who had at least one contact with a public office was 11.6 per cent in a twelve-month period.”  Also, in terms of the frequency of bribery, the average reaches almost “one bribe every three months” per briber.

Coonjohn (2012) examines three factors which cause corruption in Iraq: Socio-religious, Psycho-social, and economic factors.  He explains Socio-religious factor as the mixture of contradictory thought of Islam and traditional Bedouin behavior.  The former sees corruption with castigation while the latter partly admires as brave behavior taking the risk.  In this way, the sense of admiration to corruption allows politicians to excuse.  Also, as psycho-social factor is concerned, people losing their hope gradually have increased anxiety of their life with strong desire of basic necessities.  However, since there was nothing they could obtain with normal procedure, paying extra money was the only choice to survive.  At last, economic factor is caused by lack of Iraqi national banking system which is affected by “disreputable elements”.

The invasion of Iraq by the coalition of U.S. and U.K. has still been seen with doubt if it was right.  However, it must be true that the coalition states had misunderstood how much the Republic of Iraq is complicated, which blocks Iraq’s peaceful post-conflict process.  More than anything, it is the poor class who suffers the most and is oppressed by unseen power of corruption and political struggles.  The control of corruption is an urgent issue for the achievement of stability and security in Iraq.

References

Coonjohn, J. (2012). Corruption in Post-Conflict Environments: An Iraqi Case Study. Retrieved from http://www.kcdme.com/Corruption%20in%20Post-Conflict%20Environments%2002.02.2012.pdf

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (2013). Corruption and Integrity Challenges in the Public Sector of Iraq: An evidence-based study. Retrieved from https://www.unodc.org/documents/publications/2013_Report_on_Corruption_and_Integrity_Iraq.pdf

Ghanim, W. (2013). Currency class war: damaged dinar notes result in bribery, injustice. Retrieved from http://www.niqash.org/articles/?id=3244