I remember a time until very recently, when most women in Saudi Arabia preferred facing certain death rather than having to mention the C-word. When the malignant C-cells invaded their bodies and ate at their organs, these women would shy-away in pain and suffer in silence because tradition had it that complaining about female private body parts was socially unacceptable and considered taboo.
Luckily such deeply entrenched mindsets are now beginning to change thanks to the hard work and constant campaigns initiated by the individual efforts of one woman. This woman broke the barrier by making it her mission share her brush with breast cancer and her consequent victory over the disease.
By so doing, she not only grabbed the attention of ordinary men and women but she also gave them the courage to realize that when it comes down to personal health and survival, staying silent or succumbing to traditional taboos was no longer an option.
This change in fixated mindsets did not happen overnight, nor did it succeed through the efforts of this one woman alone. You see, it takes a village to bring about change, and in this situation the village was the family, the community and more importantly: sustained institutional backup. Without such a support system, any effort at change and reform would be in vain.
I will now shift to another malignant C-word that I believe is a bigger threat to our humanity than Cancer is to us as individuals: Corruption. Corruption is the mother of all evils: It comes in many sizes, shapes and forms, and it does not only eat away at our collective consciousness, but it also undermines who we are as a Muslim nation.
Our biggest tragedy as a nation today is that even though we read about acts of corruption and ongoing investigations taking place, we never get the satisfaction of knowing that someone has finally paid the price.
For some reason or another, perpetrators are set free and society is left hanging in limbo with no closure to pacify their pain and agony. And as no one is held accountable for the devastation that results in any criminal acts of corruption (such as the public property damage and deaths that took place during the Jeddah floods of 2009 and 2011), corruption will continue to flourish without any hope of reform and salvation.
While this tragic scenario unfolds time and time again, our national integrity as well as our moral consciousness and our religious beliefs are continuously being undermined. For without public accountability and severe punishments people will continue to do what they do. Denouncing acts of corruption and holding its culprits accountable is everyone’s responsibility, not the government’s alone. And seeing that justice is done is no less mandatory than if any other criminal act was committed.
What we need as a nation is for all of us to come together to fight this C-disease once and for all. But we cannot do it without backup and institutional support. Exposing corrupt acts and its perpetrators requires institutional support and protection to the whistleblower, and tragically enough most whistleblowers, even those in the international community have put their lives and their livelihood at risk in the name of ethics and integrity — but tragically enough, very few have been justly rewarded.
So until such a time when true grit and honorable justice work side by side, I fear that the culture of corrupt behavior will be part of who we become.
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